Before the start of the summer split it seemed reasonable Team Envy was going to have a difficult start with a number of factors working against them. The unexpected forced sale of Renegades and purchase by Team EnvyUs created a good deal of pressure on the new owner to scramble through a nearly empty well of available talent. Once the full roster was formed the new squad had a considerably lower amount of time to simply gain a sense of synergy. Yes, the team has the advantage that Seraph, Hakuho, and Ninja played together on Renegades but two new members, Proxin and LOD, can create complications. This is in contrast to several other teams who were boot camping in Korea. Despite these challenges they currently stand at the top of the standings alongside TSM in which neither team has dropped a series. But can Team Envy actually stay there?

Team Envy has done a fantastic job entering into the new series system of the NALCS, but has yet to face a legitimate threat. NRG is still hashing out how they want their team to function, Liquid is sputtering along due to preseason team issues, and Pheonix1 is already trying to resurrect a dying bird. For Team Envy’s schedule thus far, Apex Gaming was the biggest wall to hurdle. However, where Team Envy was able to find their ground in a 2-1 series win, TSM went 2-0 in their smashing defeat of Apex Gaming. The way these series played out could already be a clear indicator where Team Envy will lay in the future rankings but let’s look a little closer.

From what I have observed Team Envy appears to be pretty sloppy pre-twenty minutes into the game. This should not come at any real surprise though as they are collectively a newer team. They most likely lack the communication to set up aggressive plays in the earlier stages of the game in smaller units of the team. Their lack of focus on early game advantages speaks to their average game time of about thirty-nine minutes. This is in contrast to their 4-0 sister, TSM, who has the current lowest average game time just under thirty-five minutes.

The way Team Envy makes up for a drop-off in early game pressure is by focusing on dragon control. Stacking dragon buffs is a pretty beneficial decision for any team, but Team Envy appears to treat it as a rather big win condition leading the league with highest average dragons in a game. The reason they most likely do this is because of its simplicity for the team. As mentioned earlier I believe Team Envy’s early game suffers from the newness of the complete roster. You can overcome this by honing in on certain points of the game such as dragon control. It has been pretty well established Seraph has a very good sense of teleport use. Gaining control of the dragon pit through vision set up a positive scenario Team Envy cannot overlook. If a team reacts to Team Envy’s dragon control they can collapse and win a fight through positioning. If Team Envy’s opponent does nothing, then they get a free dragon.

This is by no means to say this is Team Envy’s only dimension of play, but it is something they do better than many other teams. This strategy however will most likely not work on your TSMs who generally have a very aggressive pre-twenty minute game. While Team Envy is setting up a scenario for victory against their opponent around dragon, a higher level team will ignore the ploy and seek other advantages to close out the game.

What Team Envy has done so far this season has been very impressive. They have simplified aspects of the game to better favor their current team’s state. Team Envy already appears far ahead of teams trying to figure out ways to better cope with meta shifts and communication errors. Heading into week 3 of the NALCS will be Team Envy’s biggest test as they face an Immortals eager to take a win off anyone after a series loss to TSM. Based off of what was discussed earlier I would imagine Immortals to make this a convincing win against a slower moving Team Envy.