Lock In, Week 1 - Return of the Rift
The return of LCS is dotted with new names, new expectations and new questions.
Welcome back, Scuttlers,
As the League Championship Series ushers in its 10th year of competition, ScuttleStack enters in its wake. In our first week back from a long offseason, we’re covering Lock In, what players and storylines I’m following this season, and a very preemptive set of power rankings.
Group A
Group A ‘s leaderboard looked like it would be easy to predict, but packed a few surprises at the end of the first week of play.
Going into games, I expected 100Thieves to dominate, frankly — and the fact that they lost a game to any team, and Flyquest no less, is disappointing. This team didn’t have to pour resources into catching new members up to speed or restructuring their playstyle. Instead, they should have spent their offseason on the fundamentals, scouting and development. The team scored solid wins off of Golden Guardians and TSM, but the games weren’t anything to write home about. As a contender for the LCS’s top spot this season, I need to see them shape up.
Cloud9 and TSM were both teams to watch with some speculation this week. Neither rocked their full roster, but Cloud9 brought familiar, reliable talent in Darshan, Zven and Isles. I’m not surprised they did well, but 100Thieves should challenge them more. TSM is playing with an Academy roster, and they stood their ground.
Really, the story to talk about in Group A is FlyQuest, the unexpected 2-2 team that took games off of Golden Guardians and 100Thieves. While admittedly 100Thieves didn’t play their best, FlyQuest looked like their roster finally clicked. Aphromoo in his leadership role is paying dividends both on his individual play and with familiar partner Johnsun. Adding toucouille in mid was a stellar call, as he held his own against one of the best opponents in the league. With him and Kumo creating more lane dominance, Josedeodo now has more options to play around, tapping his strengths as well. I’m very excited to see this roster look to take games off the league’s top dogs this year.
Golden Guardians is… Golden Guardians. I don’t see a lot of upsides here, nor did I when I heard they lost to a collegiate team before Lock In. Here’s to hoping something clicks.
Group B
The score lines across Group B say it all.
Evil Geniuses: 3-0. We expected a lot out of this team, but jojopyun and even Inspired still left us with question marks. Well, now we have answers, and Evil Geniuses are the guys to beat. If they’re this fired up and can take games off of crowd-favorites Team Liquid, the sky's the limit.
Team Liquid: 2-1. With high expectations, we saw Team Liquid play a little sloppy. In their game against Evil Geniuses, Bwipo and Santorin felt lackluster and overall, the team got out-macroed. Right now, Liquid is playing a reliable game. This team is going to need to get creative and step up.
Dignitas: 1-1. We haven’t seen much from Dignitas, but their playstyle is way more explosive than it was last year. The team didn’t have huge expectations, but so far, they seem to be scrappy — and I like that, especially from bottom-half teams.
Counter Logic Gaming: 1-2. This is another team that shows promise. While their win didn’t come from a top-level team, CLG has just looked flat-out alright on the rift, which is a huge step up from last season.
Immortals: 0-3. Oh, Immortals. I want to love this team, but it’s in rough shape. Xerxe doesn’t have a lot of tools, PowerOfEvil isn’t developing despite a decent meta for him, and the rest of the team just feels one step behind all of the time.
In lieu of extensively covering the glut of off-the-rift drama (from Cloud9 building two teams to Team Liquid’s green card woes), I want to set the stage for the year, as many content creators in the space are.
Here are a few narratives I’m following this year:
Does North America Have a Superteam?
It’s hard not to watch Team Liquid enter the season with interest. Up and down their roster, you have an extensive list of success and experience — from Bwipo’s long-standing reign in the top lane to CoreJJ consistently leading the forefront of the North American support pool. Naturally, a roster of this caliber brings with it incredibly high expectations. Fans are expecting such a veteran roster to place top 3 or bust, but there are still question mark pings in the air. Many think Bjergsen isn’t looking as sharp as he was when he was last in the league. Green card issue may not allow the Hans Sama and CoreJJ bot lane to be a reality (at least for now). And Bwipo’s move back to top lane, despite his history in the role, is still technically a role swap from last year. I’ll be interested to see where Team Liquid places their chips during games and how they continue to mesh as the season progresses.
The CLG Redemption Arc?
Last season was disappointing for CLG fans. In fact, it was disappointing for CLG as an organization, and that’s why we’re seeing some massive overhauls to their roster and staff. Now, it’s all about development. You’ve got a very promising bot lane in Luger and Poome (who both played together on 100), Jenkins and Contractz who had impressive LCS showcases, and Palafox who many would call underutilized on Flyquest. To be clear, this is not a Top 5 team on paper right now, but it’s reassuring to see a version of CLG that both shows immediate competitive promise and has the young roster to provide some longevity during seasons to come.
Will Reimagined Titans Lead the League?
Both Cloud9 and TSM made significant changes to their roster this year, but both for different reasons. Cloud9 saw Perkz and (likely) Vulcan eye new frontiers, despite strong performances on average. TSM lost faith in Lost and PowerOfEvil, and SwordArt likely didn’t see a future with the team. Now, both teams are importing young, hungry talent to flesh out their teams. There are doubts that these teams lack the raw talent to secure immediate results, but both organizations obviously believe this is the ticket to making the world stage.
And a few quick ones:
Will Fudge be able to pull off the swap to mid? So far, he seems to be on par. However, there’s lots of room for improvement. Fudge still has a largely overhauled team to learn to work with — is there too much on his plate?
100Thieves didn’t make any changes this offseason, but they did show the most promise on the world stage of any North American team. As they look to top the league again, what is going to change? Where is the room for improvement?
Over the offseason, Evil Geniuses opted to run jojopyun as their mid laner over Jizuke, who saw powerful development over the year as he outgrew his unpredictable title and shifted toward an in-your-face, playmaker role. Now, jojopyun is the guy. The North American mid pool isn’t one to scoff at, and now, jojopyun is going to need to prove he was worth the risk.
Nick Mo’s Lock In Power Rankings
As teams return to the rift, let’s power rank the top three players in each position so we can look back at the end of the season and mock these silly little predictions.
Note: Lock In doesn’t give us a great look at some of the league’s new faces, so this list may be skewed accordingly. In general, I’ll be hedging away from talent we haven’t seen much of in NA, with the exception of who we’ve seen in Lock In. I’ll likely revisit this list when each team has its full roster.
Top
1. Ssumday
2. Bwipo
3. Impact
Honorable Mention: Summit
Ssumday and Impact would have been on anyone’s top 3 list last season, and their return to the space shouldn’t be surprising. However, I expect Bwipo to shake up the scene, especially as he has proven he doesn’t mind working in laners and builds that focus less on winning a lane and more on supporting the team broadly. If this was a fluid list, I’d expect Summit to rise quickly. He shows a lot of promise, and should any of these top 3 top laners fall of, he’s positioned to quickly take their spot.
Jungle
1. Blaber
2. Closer
3. Spica
Honorable Mentions: Xerxe and Santorin
Frankly, I think you could slice this list up any way you want and I wouldn’t be angry about it. It’s a really close matchup between Closer and Blaber for the top spot, but I’m picking Blaber in an effort to play the long con. I anticipate Blaber to capitalize on Summit and Fudge in typical Cloud9 fashion, moving Fudge from the top lane should give him more agency to convert that attention into momentum. Spica’s game sense earns him a top spot alone, but if TSM shapes up to give him support, his stock will rise too. Xerxe is a great player surrounded by subpar talent and Santorin is reliable, but contextually a weaker link in a very competitive jungle pool.
Mid
1. Abbedagge
2. jojopyun
3. Fudge
Honorable Mentions: Palafox and Bjergsen
“What? Bjergsen isn’t in your top 3?” Yup, and herein enters my bold, potentially-flame-worthy take of this list: Bjergsen is good, but doesn’t hasn’t blown me away yet. I don’t watch tons of pros during the offseason, but Bjergsen was the exception, and I wasn’t thrilled. So far, his performance has been fine, but not exceptional. Abbedagge and jojopyun will win lane and impact the game. These are players I expect to field the pressure their teams put on opponents. As for Fudge, he was a very reluctant placement, but as he showed development last year as a freshman top laner, I expect the same in mid. Oh, and Palafox is my dark horse pick as the guy who will take games off of some of the big guys. With a solid team around him, I think he will shine a bit brighter this year.
ADC
1. Hans Sama
2. Danny
3. FBI
Honorable Mentions: Luger and Tactical
The name of the game for these ADC picks is “proximity.” While there’s a lot of bot lane talent in the league this year, I think what sets these picks apart are their lane partners and how they’ll capitalize on those strengths. Hans Sama is surrounded by a team who plays a supportive, protect the carry playstyle, and with his carry potential, I expect him to run with that. Danny showed tremendous growth in 2021, and next to one of the best supports in the league (spoiler), his stock goes up. FBI is a stellar ADC, especially paired with huhi. However, he places third only because I see more upside in his competition. If he ends up being hands-down the best ADC in the league, I won’t be surprised at all. Luger makes the list for his snowbally playstyle and familiarity with his lane partner, and Tactical is solid and still creates opportunities to run away with games.
Support
1. CoreJJ
2. Vulcan
3. huhi
Honorable Mentions: Aphromoo, Winsome/Isles
CoreJJ is the man to beat. He optimized the roamheavy playstyle when it came up last year, he anchors team shotcalling and he sets up plays. However, Vulcan is on Evil Geniuses, and that roster will allow him to roam a bit more, be more aggressive in lane and embrace his fearlessness on the flank. In the same vein as FBI, I just see more upsides on the other two picks, but huhi still continues to impress me. Aphromoo is back with ADC Johnsun, and I loved their synergy when they played on Dignitas. Isles is incredibly impressive, and I look forward to seeing him scrap with Winsome for Cloud9’s starting spot.
Closing Thoughts from the River
The state of the LCS right now is in one of my favorite states. On one hand, we have a lot of expectations. We know who we want to win and who needs to prove themselves based on last season. But those expectations are dotted with unknowns, and likely won’t be resolved until we can see full teams.
For now, embrace the chaos and uncertainty. Enjoy good League of Legends. Bust out your popcorn and pray for pocket picks, Baron steals and backdoors. ‘Tis the part of the season for a little LCS madness.
“Accidentally” pressing flash to unlock hexflash because… it’s optimal?
Nick Mo.