ahq e-Sports Club is the 1st seed of coming out of the Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau region, earned by winning the 2015 LMS Summer Playoffs. The team is formed by Top laner Chen “Ziv” Yi, Jungler Xue “Mountain” Zhao-Hong, Mid laner Liu “westdoor” Shu-Wei, ADC Chou “AN” Chun-An and Support Kang “Albis” Chia-Wei.

That was a difficult analysis to make. They pretty much stomped everyone in the regular season, holding a record of 25-3 and with the first place on the round robin, they only had to play in the finals because LMS uses the gauntlet format in their playoffs. So since they swept HKE, the team haven’t played any official match since 26th july. So there is not much material to evaluate their strenghts and what level they are in this moment. However, an analysis can be made based on their regular season play and the amazing series versus HKE in the finals of the LMS.

Draft

In the draft, they tend to prioritize Thresh in first rotation(if in red side) or second rotation(if in blue side), by far the best and most played champion for Albis. For AN, the weak link in this roster, the Urgot pick was the staple at the start of the split, but at the end, the champion that he played the most was the Sivir. Also, he looks competent in the Kalista, which is nice considering how she is a contested pick even with the nerfs. Mountain, the silent carry for this team, looks good in pretty much every jungler he played. His Sejuani was godlike, but after her nerfs, Rek’sai, Gragas and Ekko was his holy trinity. Ziv is s competent top laner and great teamfighter, playing mostly tanks like Maokai, Gnar, Shen. And westdoor, the main carry of the team. Considered one of the best midlaners coming this worlds, the meta is shifting towards his favor, with the returns of the assassins like Zed, LeBlanc and Fizz. Also, he is an amazing Twisted Fate player. The only thing that cripples this team a bit is his inability to play Azir and Viktor. If he doesn’t pick them up until worlds, that is definitly going to be a problem against the strongest teams, because in every game they will lost two bans.

Game play

They like to play the regular lanes (top vs top, adc/sup/ vs adc/sup) but usually don’t try any invades in the beggining of the games to spot the lane swaps, which is kind of a mistake in their playbook. In case the lane swap happens, they go for the four man push in bot lane and quickly transition to the dragon. If they get the lanes they want, Mountain prioritizes the bot lane to protect the weakness of AN in lane phase. When Ziv is in top lane matchups where the tier 2 boots are strong, he will rush homeguards and try to tp bot/dragon for a play. This team has a really sloppy vision control, even using two sightstones. They don’t ward important objectives enough and are the team the has dropped less wards in the regular season. Their strongest point is definitly the skirmishes and team fighting, where Ziv’s tp flanks are always on point and Mountain manages to find the right targets and Albis great peeling makes AN looks like a good AD carry.

Prediction

There is a lot of “ifs” regarding this team. If westdoor learns how to play Azir and Viktor, if Ziv picks up Yasuo and Rumble (The first being a great counter to Gnar and the second a champion that every top laner in this tournament plays), if they get a group with only one korean or chinese team and if the vision control for important objectives improve, they definitly can make to playoffs in worlds. Else, I can’t see this team being good enough to get 3 or 4 wins in the group stage.