All-Stars voting is nearing its end and I have ended up with a dilemma. My dilemma is that out of all the players in Europe, two separate makeups really stand out to me. Both have their pros and cons and both are about as friendly as one would expect coming out of European solo queue. That is to say, not at all.

In the end I have narrowed my choices down to one team built to provide for one player and one team built to apply pressure across the map. These two differ in philosophies but are still very European in their execution.

I hope you guys are having fun with your choices but here’s the two teams I’m struggling between sending to the 2015 All-Star Event.

Team AFK

Top: Andrei "Odoamne" Pascu

Jungle: Dennis "Svenskeren" Johnsen

Mid: Tristan "PowerOfEvil" Schrage

ADC: Jesper "Niels" Svenningsen

Support: Bora "YellOwStaR" Kim

If you can believe it, this Summer Split’s rookie, Jesper "Niels" Svenningsen, is the hard carry for a team that has four former multiple-time world finalists and one World Champion (yes I’m counting that season). This all-star lineup must seem somewhat less intimidating to him with Tristan "PowerOfEvil" Schrage even yet to breathe the sweet air of the Worlds stage even though they both hold the same winning record over TSM. Regardless, this isn’t a team that will just be glad with playing around Niels — they’re perfectly set up to.

Andrei "Odoamne" Pascu is possibly the most self sufficient top laner in the EU LCS. Though Heo "Huni" Seung-hoon and Lucas "Cabochard " Simon-Meslet oftentimes demand priority and Paul "sOAZ" Boyer acts like he has it, Odoamne is more than happy to play the low resource low priority role and still maintain a high impact. He had the ninth lowest Gold Share at 20.2% with the second highest percentage of damage dealt at 24.1% — a low econ teamfighter if there ever was one. Prioritizing champions with a lot of peel, Odoamne played intelligently and was arguably the only top laner to master the teleport flank.

A large amount of this was because his gold and his priority was headed all the way to Petter "Hjärnan" Freyschuss — even in that fateful game against Fnatic where he began 2-0. The gold trickling down to the ADC would be perfect here and Odoamne would find himself peeling for a player that puts the Carry in AD Carry as opposed to a positional teamfighter. PowerOfEvil’s champion pool also doesn’t require as much priority and his proficiency on supportive mage-style champions like Orianna would do good for ‘Niels-centricity’.

Let’s not forget about Dennis "Svenskeren" Johnsen. That SK Gaming were able to throw leads of 12,000 and 8,000 gold was only possible because Svenskeren was able to backpack the team to the door of the nexus before they ultimately crumbled. When Svenskeren sees a lane priority, he dominates the corresponding half of the map, forcing his opposing jungler out through sheer aggression and setting up calculated dives in his place. With fabled shotcaller and mid-game playmaker Bora "YellOwStaR" Kim to complete the team, Niels has every tool he needs to carry at his maximum potential.

Team Flame

Top: Lucas "Cabochard " Simon-Meslet

Jungle: Maurice "Amazing" Stückenschneider

Mid: Fabian "Febiven" Diepstraten

ADC: Konstantinos "FORG1VEN" Tzortziou

Support: Alfonso "mithy" Aguirre Rodriguez

Konstantinos "FORG1VEN" Tzortziou is often misunderstood and mischaracterized in his use. When called to harken back to a better time he will often bring up his tenure on the Copenhagen Wolves where he was called on to replace Martin "Rekkles" Larsson in their hour of need. With him came Maurice "Amazing" Stückenschneider as the replacement for the outgoing Ilyas "Shook" Hartsema. Thus the stage was set for the Copenhagen Wolves to start their unbeaten track record in the EU CS with Joey "YoungBuck" Steltenpool and Viktor "cowTard" Stymne recognised as extremely proficient and deadly solo laners.

What characterized the Copenhagen Wolves was not FORG1VEN-centricity as many western analysts would like you to consider, but a dual pressure combination on both halves of the map. What defined FORG1VEN’s time here was lane pressure. FORG1VEN and his support, Petar "Unlimited" Georgiev, would seek to draw as much pressure to their lane as possible as evident by the support priorities of Annie and Karma. On the other half of the map, Amazing would aggressively counter-jungle with help from his winning lanes of Youngbuck and cowTard, utilizing advantages to grant vision. Origen still arguably play their early game as ‘Amazing-centric’ to this day.

What we have done here is place two of the best players in their best roles with pre-existing synergy. With the duo partner of Alfonso "mithy" Aguirre Rodriguez (barring any personal issues) FORG1VEN is ideally placed to maximize his lane dominance. With the individually advantaged solo laners of Cabochard and Fabian "Febiven" Diepstraten, Amazing has all the dominance he could want to play his style. It’s a style that can be taught quickly with a synergy that can be re-learned. Amazing and Mithy also form the strategic core of Origen, and would provide effective and experienced shotcalling for the rest of the team.

Of course, immediate issues would be to get the bot lane working. Then Cabochard would need to get used to not having repeated ganks in favour of actually leaving his lane to help others. Meanwhile FORG1VEN would start strangling Mithy over that NiP coffee cup he really wanted as part of his entrance deal. Then Febiven would die after roaming bot because Mithy was too busy fighting for his life to lantern him to safety after the dive. Then Amazing would afk and demand a restart because it would never happen in a real game. Source: Reddit.

The one statistic used here was courtesy of oracleselixir.com.

Michael “Veteran” Archer has decided that he should just vote for the entire as-is Fnatic lineup instead. Or Origen. Or Fnatic. Dammit. You can follow his struggles on Twitter.