Free Agent Season Pt. 2

EU Will Win Worlds

The conspiracies continue! Vainglory has been doing some show matches across different regions for the new game mode, 5v5. In SEA, they have been playing a lot of these matches. The SEA region seems far ahead of other regions with a lot of teams kind of finding their place in the new scene. Renegades have been absolutely dominating and went undefeated in all four weeks of show matches. Below is the end game scoreboard of the latest match between Renegades and Impunity. These matches were being streamed by TesseractEsports.

Impunity is one of my favorite teams coming out of worlds last year. They proved so many people wrong and pulled out some amazing compositions. Quatervois has been creating a lot of great content on his YouTube channel that you should check out! But he knows his team can do better.

I expect big things out of the SEA region in 2018, but I’m here to talk about the 2018 Vainglory World Champions, SK Gaming. World Champs? Talking about World Champs this early? What the hell is wrong with you Endless. Well, let me tell you, absolutely nothing! Let me paint you a picture, sort of a historic timeline. January 21st, 2018. The free agent tweets start with a star studded laner, Hundor.

His contract ended with G2, so it was time for him to look at what other orgs could offer him. EU has three big organizations that seem to be those tier 1 orgs. G2, SK Gaming, and FNATIC (Maybe Mousesports?). With the player scene expanding greatly with 5v5, we know a lot of the top players could team up to form some pretty amazing rosters. SK Gaming fell short of worlds at the end of 2017 and FNATIC seemed to struggle off and on throughout 2017. G2 made it to worlds and was the only hope for EU. Seeing their star laner step away made for an interesting roster change. I would of speculated that G2 would go after some of those top players in EU to continue being a top team in the scene. We still do not know if G2 will retain their roster and compete in 2018. Fast forward a month later, February 23, 2018.

This was another disappointing time for Vainglory esport fans as another major organization steps away, for now. Nonetheless, we now have TetnoJJ, Nettetoilette, Palmatoro, and Hundor running around as free agents!? This is a perfect storm for an all-star roster to form. Who will jump on them? SK Gaming has three really strong players on their original roster from 3v3. KValafar is a really strong laner but had a lot of pressure to carry his team to worlds. Being a laner in 3v3 was a high pressure situation. 5v5 will be completely different with a lot of opportunities for people to make plays. If one mistake is made, it may not be as devastating to the team as it was in 3v3. Last important stop in our timeline is also February 23, 2018.

EU got a taste of the show matches with QLASH hosting a match with SK Gaming. Look at this SK roster. No, this is not all-star weekend in EU after a major tournament, this is a show match heading into 2018. While I have not seen real announcements from the players to confirm that they have officially joined SK, I am going to act like this is official. Like my last article on TSM, this is all speculation. Dowsey and Excoundrel were casting the match up and they seemed to talk like this was going to be the real roster heading into the VPL.

Boy do I hope this is the real deal. We take all three star laners from three of the top orgs, add them to arguably the best jungler in EU, with a top tier captain!? This is like the Power Rangers getting in their Megazord to destroy everything in their very important, top secret mission.

Did I just compare KValafar, Tyruzz, Hegman, TetnoJJ, and Hundor to the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers? Yes. This 5 man roster is going to dominate the EU scene. KVal can take a step back from being a hard carry and work with Hundor and Tetno on dominating EU. I do understand that the EU region has been seen as a joke in the Vainglory community, but this could be a turning point. This could be a big change heading into the VPL and teams across other regions should keep a close eye on this team. While I joke, I do really enjoy this line up. I know 5v5 has just been released and a lot needs to be figured out between players. But hey, when they do win worlds, at least I can say I called it first.

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