Korea was certainly the strongest region last year; however – even without conveniently-placed sepia-tinged lenses of nostalgia – it's difficult to argue that it was at its best. The entire competitive system was restructured on multiple levels, and like all things, time was needed for teams to adjust.

This year, the tremors that shook up Korea in the 2014-15 offseason have quelled to the occasional light rumbling. Many organizations – e-mFire aside – enter 2016 with exciting and interesting roster setups, poised to continue the region's tradition of strength while furthering the level competitive of play.

In no particular order, here are the eagerly-anticipated teams of Champions Spring 2016.

Longzhu

It turns out that all it took to cleanse the stink of failure from the Incredible Miracle name in the eyes of fans was to drop said name completely and shell out more money for top-tier talent.

Headlining Longzhu’s revamped roster is top laner Lee "Flame" Hojong, who only increased his prowess during his stint on LGD Gaming. Mid laner Shin "Coco" Jinyeong, jungler Lee "Chaser" Sanghyun, and AD carry Lee "Fury" Jinyong are all excellent acquisitions. The first two players are considered among the best in the world at their positions, and Fury is a rising AD carry who never had the talent around him to succeed. AD carry Kang "Cpt Jack" Hyungwoo and Koo "Expession" Bontaek are both experienced players and more than acceptable substitutes – Cpt Jack will be the team's starting AD carry initially, due to Fury's recent suspension.

With carry potential at nearly every position, Longzhu is one of Korea's most exciting rosters heading into the spring. Chaser's penchant for involvement – he had the second highest kill participation (77.9%) of any player who played more than 10 games in Champions Summer – should guide Longzhu's early game. He is likely salivating over his early game prospects. Strong laners in every position, allow Chaser and Longzhu to be flexible in how they distribute their resources depending on meta and team synergy.

If Longzhu follows in the same footsteps as their IM predecessors and fail, it will likely be due to too much shuffling. For example, while it's sad to see the likes of Kim "Frozen" Taeil on the bench, it's in Longzhu's best interest to consistently start Coco. Additionally, resource distribution could be an issue with this team as many players are used to receiving the bulk of gold – or a larger amount of gold percentage than the average for their position – from their respective former teams.

Thanks to Ham "Lustboy" Jangsik joining as their strategic coach, this Longzhu team is also a mini CJ Entus Blaze reunion, so if the team doesn't work out, they can all be passive aggressive to one another for old times' sake.

ROX Tigers

Last year, the Tigers carved out a niche for themselves as Korea's friendship team – a group of five, experienced players who all got along with one another and overcame fresher talent with strategy and synchronization. AD carry Kim "PraY" Jongin had been left for dead prior to season's start, both mid laner Lee "KurO" Seohaeng and jungler Lee "Hojin" Hojin had been written off as wholly average, and top laner Song "Smeb" Kyungho had nearly been a recipient of the "Longpanda Award" for horrific achievement. Of all the Tigers' players, support Kang "GorillA" Beomhyeon was the only one considered a strong talent.

In the wreckage of a new format, the dissolution of sister teams, and a massive exodus of Korean pros, the Tigers rose to prominence with cute outfits, coordinated play, and a coming out party for Smeb as one of the world's best top laners. They had their ups and downs throughout Champions Summer, but still made the 2015 World Championship Finals on the back of their synergy and preparation.

One of the Tigers’ glaring weaknesses was their early game and, try as they might, they never managed to fix it in 2015. Hojin was a crucial part of this, lacking creative pathing and early game pressure. The 2016 Tigers team sports Yoon "Peanut" Wangho in the jungle, and the young upstart thrived early in his, admittedly limited, play time with NaJin e-mFire last year.

Peanut has everything that the Tigers need to address their early game issues. If he creates opportunities and meshes well with both Smeb and GorillA to dictate a more proactive pace, the Tigers will continue to be one of the best teams in Korea. While Peanut sometimes forced the issue in the mid to late game to his team's detriment, Smeb and GorillA's knowledge would go a long way in fixing his decision making. This one roster pickup could be exactly what the Tigers need, and shows a strong understanding of what the team needs to improve.

That being said, the Tigers have been forthright in the past about their difficulties integrating Kim "Wisdom" Taewan into the fold in their previous attempt at shoring up their jungle position. Peanut has garnered a bit of a reputation for being a somewhat difficult personality – although one hardly knows how much of this is fact or fiction – and the Tigers' prior struggles to incorporate a new player into their system could be the team's downfall if Peanut fails to fit in.

KT Rolster

The departure of support Lee "Piccaboo" Jongbeom creates a large vacuum on this new KT Rolster team that is unlikely to be adequately filled, at least in the beginning of the 2016 Spring Season. Lee "IgNar" Donggeun is a rising talent but lacks Piccaboo's decisive nature and overall map awareness. This isn't to say that IgNar won't work out, but that Piccaboo's role on KT Rolster was so integral to how the team functioned that IgNar has his work cut out for him in attempting to fill Piccaboo's shoes. Technically, support Ha "Hachani" Seungchan will be available as well, but it would be in KT's best interest to use IgNar.

When Go "Score" Dongbin transitioned from the AD carry position to the jungle role last year, his glaring weakness was a lack of in-game understanding from within the jungle itself. Score has a great deal of overall game knowledge, but found himself stymied when faced with losing lanes and his own inability to apply pressure as a novice jungler. This was exacerbated by the fact that the aforementioned Hachani was continuously caught out while warding or roaming. Score coordinated much better with Jung "Fixer" Jaewoo, and even better with Piccaboo, organizing strong vision nets and aggressive roams that came to define KT as a team. Coupled with a career year from top laner Kim "Ssumday" Chanho, KT was a formidable team when all of the pieces worked.

This year, KT will rely on Score and IgNar's synergy as well as Song "Fly" Yongjun who replaces Kim "Nagne" Sangmoon in the mid lane. Nagne struggled, especially towards the end of the year, with champion pool issues and the ability to hold the mid lane against Korea's best. If Fly can control his lane well, it will also help Score and IgNar in their ability to apply early to mid game pressure and aggressively take advantage of their opponents.

Since the 2013 edition of the KT Rolster Bullets, the organization has not had a successful team that one could call consistent. The 2014 KT Rolster Arrows were a loveable coin flip, while the 2015 KT Rolster squad vacillated wildly between crushing their opposition and dropping games to presumably inferior opponents. If IgNar is unable to coordinate with Score, KT's creative penchant for proactivity could fail miserably as the map would collapse back in onto KT, allowing opposing teams to take advantage of them.

Jin Air Green Wings

Another team with difficult vacancies to fill, the Jin Air Green Wings have turned towards jungler Park "Winged" Taejin after losing Lee "Chaser" Sanghyun. Chaser was a crucial part of Jin Air's success – and subsequently a large reason for their aimless losses towards the end of the 2015 Spring Split when Cinderhulk hit – maintaining an aforementioned 77.9% kill participation. Jin Air was known for their early game prowess, a lackluster mid game, and a near-flawless late game, much of which can be attributed to Chaser's direction.

Winged has yet to show anything near what Chaser was able to do in early pathing, coordination, or team fighting. However, in both the KeSPA Cup and IEM San Jose, he did lead the team aggressively, especially with new top laner Kim "SoHwan" Junyeong and mid laner Lee "Kuzan" Seonghyeok. The additional loss of former mid laner Lee "GBM" Changseok hurts as well. His versatility and steadfast presence allowed the 2015 Jin Air squad to try out different compositions as well as play with their bot lane pairings.

Jin Air's recent offseason performances showed a few strong moving parts with a complete lack of synergy. All too often, Jin Air found themselves throwing away early leads, unable to choose team fights correctly and be patient when necessary. However, all is not lost for the Jin Air fan. While Winged has yet to have the same effect as Chaser, he can orchestrate an aggressive early game. If he diversifies his pathing, as well as finds a stronger unity with his lanes, his in-game presence will increase exponentially. SoHwan has veteran Yeo "TrAce" Changdong to learn from, and hopefully the latter can teach the former how to be more self-sufficient and play the long lane correctly. Jin Air has a lot of talent, it's all about how said talent will come together.

Afreeca Freecs

Formerly known as Rebels Anarchy, the Freecs struggled in the offseason – not with talent, but with a lingering uncertainty of where their next paycheck was coming from. Most notably, KeSPA dropped their support of the team this past offseason, primarily due to their refusal to stream on Azubu because the majority of Anarchy's players were already quite popular on Afreeca's streaming platform. Due to the new structure of LoL Champions Korea – two seasons in the spring and summer with few tournament opportunities outside of them – Rebels Anarchy had no means of income outside of streaming. They had no coach, no gaming house, no sponsors, and nearly disbanded.

Fortunately, Afreeca did come through with a sponsorship, and while the newly-renamed Freecs are hardly Korea's richest team, they no longer have to worry as much about where their resources will come from. However, with these offseason distractions, the Freecs did very little to their roster, and their success will depend on how willing they now are to address some obvious weaknesses in their gameplay.

Previously, the team overly relied on mid laner Son "Mickey" Youngmin to carry the team to victory. Mickey received the seventh highest gold percentage from his team of any player in Champions Summer 2015 at 26.5%, the highest for his team. Their predictability was their downfall, as teams quickly learned to attack Mickey first and dismantle the team from there.

In the KeSPA Cup, the Freecs showed a newfound understanding of the map and additionally moved away from solely relying on Mickey. If the Freecs continue along this path, they could be a surprising and fun team to watch.

CJ Entus

Sadly, the most talked about component of the new CJ Entus roster will remain ineligible to play until March 1, when he turns 17. Kwak "BDD" Boseong has been wowing audiences with solo queue highlights for some time now, and rumors of his prowess only grew when western teams travelled to Korea to bootcamp ahead of the 2015 World Championship. Until his eagerly anticipated debut, Kim "Sky" Haneul will be relied upon to hold down the fort; however, there's little reason to believe that he'll see much playing time once BDD is of age, considering that the latter is the crown jewel of this new CJ Entus roster.

This offseason, CJ Entus should be lauded for finally trying something new. Their oddly firm resolve in standing by older players who should have long been replaced was a constant criticism, and 2016 finally marks a new year for CJ with a somewhat new team and a fresh support staff. They have stuck with legacy top laner Park "Shy" Sangmyeon and support Hong "Madlife" Mingi. Both had their fair share of respective ups and downs, especially Shy, who struggled to find a place through certain meta shifts and dealt with criticism that he didn't play solo queue.

Another interesting addition is jungler Park "Bubbling" Junhyeong, who was previously known as one of Korea's top jungle prospects. He's often overly-aggressive and reckless, the complete opposite of CJ's former jungler – who previously spent most of his career as a mid laner – Kang "Ambition" Chanyong.

If this team rises to the top, it will be on the back of BDD, with smarter proactivity from Bubbling. Until then, they may wallow in the middle of the pack or towards the bottom, especially with so many other talented Korean rosters. Even with BDD's inclusion, it may be difficult for CJ to break into the Top 4.

e-mFire

How the mighty have fallen.

The once venerable NaJin e-mFire, owner of several world-class teams, continues their 2015 downward spiral by entering the spring season obstinately circling the drain. They've since dropped "NaJin" from their name and, while the sponsor currently continues to operate the team, are looking for new investors. Perhaps this is why e-mFire failed to acquire any semblance of top-tier talent during the offseason.

The most well-known name on the new e-mFire roster is support Kim "GuGer" Doyeop, a prior NaJin substitute and more recently known as Lupin, the AD carry for the Taipei Assassins. Lee "Edge" Hoseong is a fairly talented mid, and showed flashes of strong play during his time as a KT Rolster sub. Other than those two, e-mFire's roster is filled out with relatively unknown NaJin substitutes and players from Challengers Korea.

In 2015, NaJin was known as a talented team with little direction and questionable roster moves. This coming year, look for them to be less frustrating to watch simply due to the fact that there's nothing to be excited about on this roster to begin with.

Samsung Galaxy

After losing all 10 players from both of their highly successful 2014 teams in the 2014-15 offseason, Samsung Galaxy rebuilt from scratch with little success in Champions Spring 2015.

AD carry Lee "Fury" Jinyong was their star player, and put up admirable performances in spite of a weak supporting cast. Mid laner Park "BlisS" Jongwon in particular was a solo queue star who wasn't quite able to translate his ladder prowess into successes for his team. Come summer he was replaced by Lee "Crown" Minho, who played surprisingly well and kept mid pushed up on control mages like Viktor and Azir.

Once known for their creativity – especially the 2014 Samsung Galaxy Blue squad – the 2015 Summer edition of Samsung continued this tradition, developing interesting compositions and strategies to take down superior opponents. While they never managed to grow into a strong team, they had some strong pieces, many of whom remain on their 2016 roster.

Unfortunately, one of the departures was Fury, and neither of his replacements – Jo "CoreJJ" Yongin and Lee "Stitch" Seungju – have shown a level of play that approaches Fury’s. Both of them will require a bit more guidance, and their jungle acquisition, Kang "Ambition" Chanyong brings an experienced player who may have the ability to mentor younger players into the fold. That being said, he's not a particularly good jungler, and his predictability often cost CJ Entus much-needed map control. The recent influx of young, aggressive junglers doesn't bode well for Ambition or Samsung going into the coming season.

SBENU Sonicboom

Much like the Tigers, SBENU made one significant roster change this offseason that changed the fabric of their team for the better.

Unlike the Tigers, SBENU saw next to no success in 2015. They firmly secured their place in Champions history as one of Korea's worst professional teams thanks to a 19% win rate and only one series win of their 18 best-of-threes. Solidly in tenth place, SBENU beat recent IEM Cologne winner Ever to earn their 2016 Spring spot, and debuted their new jungler Sung "Flawless" Yeonjun in the process.

Flawless' presence transforms SBENU into a proactive and confident team, in spite of a few overly-aggressive missteps. His overall presence in the jungle lifts a bit of the pressure burden from talented teammates like mid laner Oh "SaSin" Seungju, giving them more breathing room to showcase their abilities. Look for SaSin and AD carry Sin "Nuclear" Jeonghyeon to have the occasional monstrous performance this upcoming season as the team continues to gel.

Top lane remains a problem for SBENU, and if the team continues to struggle it will likely be due to Lee "SoaR" Gangpyo or Seo "Soul" Hyeonseok's respective inability to stand up to Korea's best.

SK Telecom T1

Singing Lee "Faker" Sanghyeok's praises comes so naturally to the Korean enthusiast that Faker has almost become boring to talk about. How much more can one say about the world's best player who only improved as the 2015 season meandered to a near-telegraphed SK Telecom T1 win? Shedding his 2014 skin of overly-obvious hard carrying, Faker learned to do far more with fewer resources this past year, as former top laner Jang "MaRin" Gyeonghwan received the majority of jungler Bae "bengi" Seongwoong's attention. Come their most recent World Championship appearance, Faker received the smallest relative gold share of any mid laner at the tournament.

Their strategy was buoyed by the fact that SK Telecom T1's duo lane of Bae "Bang" Junsik and Lee "Wolf" Jaewan was so reliably safe that bengi was rarely needed bot. With all but one lane wholly self-reliant, SK Telecom T1 played at a level that no other team in the world throughout 2015 was able to match.

MaRin's departure accompanied the arrival of former NaJin e-mFire top laner Lee "Duke" Hoseong. Unlike MaRin, Duke is known for doing a lot with very little, as NaJin pumped the majority of their resources into the mid lane out of necessity. The tradeoff is that Duke is a far more quiet presence in the booth. He's already mentioned in interviews how active SK Telecom T1's comms are, so it remains to be seen as to how much of a voice he'll have on his new team.

In spite of other strong rosters, it's still difficult to foresee a Champions playoff without SK Telecom T1, due to the organization's consistent focus and drive.

Emily Rand is a staff writer for theScore esports. Her love for the 2013 KT Rolster Bullets will never die. You can follow her on Twitter.