As incoming sponsors seek stability, League of Legends esports contracts have increased in length. Cloud9, for example, recently unveiled the contract terms of their rosters fluctuating between two and three years. This signals that team owners have an incentive to consider, not just their esports teams, but the players themselves, an investment.

A great deal of discussion has dwelled on how long contracts can keep valuable players on a fixed salary in an extremely volatile market while their competitors make more money. This will add to a long ongoing discussion regarding player protection, but less discussion has fixated on how longer contracts may impact the competitive landscape in League of Legends.

Longer contract terms can logically lead to fewer roster changes, as organizations have an incentive to make their investments work out. In the recent history of competitive League of Legends, very few teams have held the same starting five for more than a season. It’s been fashionable to make a grab for the most recently successful Korean players or try to construct a domestic super team. If more organizations are making longer commitments to their players, it’s time to revisit the concept of a team’s vs a player’s talent ceiling: ie, whether a roster of five can improve significantly without changing a player.

Traditionally, two sides have dominated the talent ceiling debate in team construction. Players are perceived to have a peak individual skill level, and fans and commentators can speculate or believe that players won’t develop significantly past a certain level after they debut.

This concept can be extrapolated to full teams of players. A team dynamic typically trends toward an equilibrium where certain player strengths compensate for the weaknesses of other players on the team. This allows players to develop specialized skill sets suited to that dynamic, and as the team continues to progress with a fixed roster, it acquires a skill ceiling as a unit.

A roster change is often considered the easiest and fastest way to improve a team’s skill level. If a free agent player has a higher degree of individual skill than the player currently playing for the roster in that position, then upgrading that player has immediately visible in-game impact. It isn’t always positive, as the team dynamic might alter drastically, but individual improvements usually result in winning more early games at minimum.

When ROX Tigers added Han “Peanut” Wangho, he played a much more aggressive early game style that allowed them to pack a more significant punch in raw skill relative to their previous jungler, Lee “Hojin” Hojin. Though Tigers always had a strong top-jungle-centric early game, Peanut’s play on Nidalee had a surprising impact that resulted in Tigers acquiring leads more reliably.

Beyond just a position upgrade, there’s often a psychological impact that accompanies a roster change. One of the most famous recent cases of player rotation on a single roster is SK Telecom T1’s Bae “Bengi” Seongwoong and Kang “Blank” Sungu. SKT rotated the two junglers at the World Championship frequently, despite critics judging them for allowing Blank to play at all, as it appeared he didn’t suit the team as well as Bengi.

“This, to be honest, has nothing to do with the player’s skill or positives and negatives,” SK Telecom T1 AD carry Bang said in an interview with theScore esports following the team’s semifinal win over ROX Tigers at the 2016 World Championship. “It is the psychological factors that are the biggest … For example, you lost the first game, and when the members switch, it feels a lot more like something’s changed. Obviously you didn’t lose because of that player, but it just feels like a change … Like, it’s not even about the teammates’ psychological state, but also the player that got swapped in as well.”

Using frequent player rotations potentially had a positive psychological impact upon SKT. If they dropped two games and rotated in a new jungler, not only would the rest of the team feel like a single change could tip the scales for them, but the new player may feel more motivated to prove himself with a chance to play.

Story continues

Additionally, many of Blank’s most ardent critics don’t acknowledge that Bengi lost the first game of the set in the World Championship quarterfinals with SKT against Royal Never Give Up. After Blank joined the starting lineup, SKT proceeded to 3-0 RNG. Many easily dismiss this, claiming SKT tends to “ramp up” and adapt in series, but an additional psychological factor could have come into play; in 2015, Blank played for the Royal Club organization’s LSPL team. When RNG jungler Liu “Mlxg” Shiyu transferred to the organization in 2015 Summer, it’s possible Blank became very familiar with Mlxg’s habits and ways of thinking, making him more confident against his former compatriot.

Psychological factors can also come with more permanent roster changes. Though former KT Rolster Ha “Hachani” Seungchan is largely famous for his frequent face checks and roaming on the wrong side of the map, habits that didn’t change despite KT’s improved performance when he returned to the team after a period coaching for Afreeca (then known as Anarchy) in 2015, the team chose to start him over the more talented Lee “IgNar” Donggeun part way through the 2016 Spring split. IgNar expressed a difficulty communicating, and KT spoke favorably of the knowledge and atmosphere Hachani brought to the table.

Despite instances where roster changes have given individual skill or psychological boosts to a team, there have also been cases where extensively hyped roster changes have lead to disaster. One of the most famous failures was the addition of Jian “Uzi” Zihao to Oh My God in 2015. Though OMG only rotated out Guo “san” Junliang for Uzi and eventually ran with a roster of Gao “Gogoing” Diping, Yin “LoveLing” Le, Yu “Cool” Jiajun, Uzi, and Hu “Cloud” Zhenwei, a roster nearly identical to the one that defeated NaJin White Shield at the 2014 World Championship with the exception of san, OMG failed catastrophically, and four members at least threatened to retire permanently by the end of the year. Even so, they won a significant amount of their initial matches on individual skill alone.

In North America, changing out Cloud9’s Hai “Hai” Du Lam, a mid laner widely criticized for holding back his team in terms of individual skill, for Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen in 2015 initially lead to disastrous results. C9’s failings prompted the return of Hai to the team in a completely different role, and they were able to qualify for the World Championship in an arduous gauntlet run.

The contrast between failure and success in roster changes implies that a lot goes into the supposed skill ceiling of a team beyond individual performances. This has lead to teams applying the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach more often.

LMS team Flash Wolves are probably the most famous offenders. In 2015 and 2016, Flash Wolves played a unique style that compensated for their weak side laners. Jungler Hung “Karsa” Hauhsuan played to control the scuttle crab in both side rivers. This gave them protection in the form of vision control on top and bottom side, preventing surprise ganks on their vulnerable lanes. AD carry Hsiung “NL” Wenan farmed slowly while Hu “SwordArt” Shuojie roamed and controlled vision, looking for picks with Karsa. Flash Wolves donated free farm lanes to NL, giving him a significant percentage of their team gold.

NL, however, had constant criticisms levied against him for his individual skill. His small champion pool and tendency to get frequently caught out presented an obstacle that defined and limited Flash Wolves. They used NL as a threat and a bait. Since he amassed a large portion of the team’s gold, opponents would split themselves diving after him, opening up opportunities for mid laner Huang “Maple” Yitang to assassinate them.

Flash Wolves tried to replace NL for Korean AD carry Ha “Kkramer” Jonghun at one point in 2015. Like NL, Kkramer played with a large amount of gold resources, but he presented himself as a threat and didn’t operate as well within Flash Wolves’ strategy, especially because he was unable to speak Mandarin Chinese, which presented an obstacle in their communication. Eventually, Flash Wolves removed Kkramer from the team’s rotation and brought NL back to the lineup.

Because of this limited style, however, Flash Wolves were easy to read. Creating compositions that allowed for extended fights or removing SwordArt and Maple’s ability to get picks by banning key champions made their late game easy to unravel without a competent AD carry. NL has temporarily retired going into the new 2017 season, but there’s no guarantee the team won’t bring him back to the starting lineup if they cannot develop a new system without him.

This narrative suggests that individual skill limitations held back the Flash Wolves’ roster and confined them to a certain threshold, but blaming NL exclusively overlooks other significant factors in the Flash Wolves’ development. The LMS is lacking in top teams with different systems that might challenge scuttle control or play well against a team with a weaker AD carry.

View photos Flash Wolves at the 2016 Mid Season Invitational (lolesports) More

Teams like 2013 and 2014 Cloud9 and Flash Wolves didn’t change their rosters and continued to place toward the top of their leagues for multiple splits in a row. The narrative persists that, because NA LCS lacked a large crop of teams with dominating mid laners and LMS lacks a deep pool of AD carry talent, C9 and FW were never pressured to upgrade their weak positions until they reached the international stage.

This argument overlooks the fact that strong AD carries and mid laners aren’t the only things that separated teams like C9 and Flash Wolves from top international opponents. In fact, in many cases, individual talent arguments don’t always hold true. In 2015 LCK, Tigers (then known as GE) won most of the season’s early matches with more subtle strategy like putting blue buff on Song “Smeb” Kyungho in 1v2 lanes early. Tigers had initially poor results in early 1v1s or 2v2s, and when low-ranked LPL team Team WE simply took the forceful approach of aggressively ganking mid and top, Tigers buckled at the IEM World Championship.

As an analogue to one of ROX Tigers’ weaker laners, Counter-Logic Gaming’s Choi “HuHi” Jaehyun has been heavily criticized by the team’s fanbase. But when comparing him directly to Tigers’ Lee “KurO” Seohaeng, KurO’s individual lane trades are equally questionable, and his roams actually lack some of the finesse and timing of HuHi’s. Some of his roams bottom fumble, and the team instead has to rely on engage from AD carry Kim “PraY” Jongin to make ganks work. Luckily, picks like Ashe and Jhin have been incredibly common in the meta most recently, making some of KurO’s weaknesses less obvious at times.

Statistically speaking, it’s incredibly rare for top Korean teams to have the highest average gold leads at 15 minutes at international events. At IEM Gyeonggi, Team Liquid averaged the highest gold lead at 15 minutes over Samsung Galaxy, and at the World Championship, H2K Gaming, Team SoloMid, and Flash Wolves all had higher average gold leads at 15 minutes than championship team SK Telecom T1 despite lower overall game win rates. Four players also had higher average CS@10 differences than Samsung’s Park “Ruler” Jaehyuk at IEM Gyeonggi, and only one player from an LCK team was among the top 10 for CS@10 differences at the World Championship. In the 2016 World Championship final, the eventual winning team in each game had the gold lead at 15 minutes in only two of five games.

All of this suggests that massive early leads through laning and individual 1v1 or 2v2 prowess don’t necessarily win games for the top teams in the world. In fact, if that were the largest factor, super teams would be more successful, and ROX Tigers would be punished much more heavily for KurO’s poor individual play.

Of course, laning and early leads aren’t the only metric of a player’s individual skill, but it seems to be the one that the community and other pro players often deem most valuable in judging a player individually. Many will rate players highly for their ability to lane as a metric of individual skill because it’s something that’s easy to track: do you solo kill your opponent, do you get more farm than him, do you push him out of lane?

“I think laning is the most important when you rate a player” Splyce top laner Martin “Wunder” Hansen said, “because, if you rate a player, you don’t really know what’s going on with the team like with communication and such.” This type of response is usually common when pros are asked how they rate their opponents.

Often, when owners, management, and coaching staff build teams, they’ll consult players. So though additional nuances exist when assessing individual skill, factors the community and pro players consider a mark of talent, like laning, often play an important role.

But top LCK players aren’t necessarily the best laners, so building teams with the best laners in and of itself doesn’t seem to be the only factor contributing to a player’s individual talents or a team’s overall skill ceiling. The community as a whole just seems to have a narrow view on how to define it, which has farther reaching consequences than team builders may realize. In fact, one’s perception of individual talent ceiling in and of itself could be something that teams that have been together for an extended period of time seek to blame because they aren’t being challenged on levels related to strategy or team play.

SK Telecom T1, largely regarded as the best team in the world for multiple years, have been praised much more for their ability to react rather than their ability to acquire large leads. Following the final, I argued that Lee “Faker” Sanghyeok’s ability to roam more intelligently and react well to Lee “Crown” Minho leaving lane was a much larger factor separating the two than their ability to 1v1. A lot of that relies on Faker to have better coordination with his side lanes and jungler and the team buying into his agency controlling the game.

Ex-professional player and current League of Legends Coach Choi “Locodoco” Yoonsup attempted to characterize the Korean playstyle on Twitter during the World Championship.

@karonmoser @leagueofemily compared to other regions. Team>Self is unique and describtive of how kr plays imo. — loco (@Locodoco) October 24, 2016





Rather than agree with Locodoco that prioritizing the team over the individual is part of some kind of Korean playstyle that can only be replicated in the region, I’d say it’s a difference in how how team development has diverged that non-Korean teams tend to get wrong. By going for massive super teams based on how individually skilled we perceive players to be, we can sometimes de-emphasize what actually ends up winning games for the world’s top teams.

Though it’s usually a much slower process, rosters that retain the same five starting members can improve drastically over time. EU LCS team Splyce went from a relegation level team in Spring to playing in the final in Summer with only a minor roster change and were showing signs of improved form even at the end of Spring even before Mihael “Mikyx” Mehle joined.

LPL’s Team WE spent most of Spring abusing poor vision control from their opponents to rely on Xiang “Condi” Renjie’s Baron steals, but they developed more complex split push strategies in summer, and their top and mid lane improved significantly individually. Afreeca Freecs had an uptick halfway through 2016 LCK Summer that allowed them to push Jin Air and MVP out of contention for playoffs after losing most of their matches in the first five weeks.

Bang’s assertion regarding SKT’s decision to switch out Blank and Bengi is likely the crux of when a roster change is necessitated and when a team’s ceiling with their starting five has been met. As long as a team of five stays together, there is some evidence to suggest that they can develop as a unit and improve their ceiling through factors that are not based on an individual. But if faith in one’s teammates declines, there’s less cooperation and less motivation to work toward the same goal.

I spoke to G2 Esports support, Alfonso “mithy” Aguirre Rodríguez before the 2016 World Championship regarding whether he believed that most of the top bottom lanes in the world having been together for nearly two years had any correlation with dominance and whether duo lane synergy could hit a plateau.

“…maybe there’s a plateau,” he said, “I honestly don’t know, but I really haven’t reached that plateau yet or I don’t feel like I have. It just feels like this is the first time I’ve been with an AD for so long. It feels good that you kind of just understand everything so fast and so simple … And we know how each other thinks and how we want to play, so it makes things a lot easier. I think it actually means that it’s much much easier to be a good duo lane if you have been together a long time…”

mithy and has AD carry partner Jesper “Zven” Svenningsen have continued to develop as a strong duo lane for two years and will continue together on the G2 roster for 2017. Other teams like Counter-Logic Gaming and Team WE will most likely enter a third consecutive split with the same starting five. These teams will give a larger sample of the types of improvement on team play that can occur when a lineup is already comfortable together and dynamic has been established.

But it’s also very possible for a roster to stagnate if motivation is lost. Chinese fans often referred to Team WE’s bottom lane as the “sleep early bottom lane,” reflecting Jin “Mystic” Seongjun and Yoon “Zero” Kyungsup’s tendency to stop playing solo queue before their teammates. The addition of AD carry and support substitutes to the roster for 2017 may be intended to motivate Mystic and Zero to prevent animosity and resentment, things that can ruin a dedicated atmosphere.

Longer contracts and roster retention could ultimately be a good thing. It could force teams to start looking at ways to improve slowly and focus on team coordination rather than spending a season ironing out synergy only to start over again, but it will make keeping the environment positive even more paramount. Roster changes for small individual skill upgrades and team synergy will still be encouraged, but with organizations committing to more players long-term, they’ll have an incentive to make existing rosters work.

Discarding very legitimate concerns regarding salary volatility, the competitive LoL landscape could see a drastic change with less emphasis on roster shuffles in the coming years. Whether it is good or bad will depend upon a balancing act between team improvement and individual improvement. Dwelling on individual talent ceiling could do more harm than good.

You can follow Kelsey Moser on Twitter @karonmoser.