HNDRK · @noisia1896
12th Sep 2019 from TwitLonger
LDL playoff guide with short infos about all teams
Dear fellow readers, this is my playoffs preview guide for the LDL 2019 Summer Season. The winner will qualify for the LPL 2020 Spring Season. Who am I? I'm the main editor for the LDL on Leaguepedia and watched about 80% of the 735 games, so you dont have to wake up at 5 or 7am in the morning. The amount I have to say on teams varies, depending on how much i can say about specific players, e.g. I've watched every single game of YM, thats why i can give a lot more in depth infos about them.
If you've read my spring playoffs preview, i usually try to give an overview about the important players, specific playstyle, weak points and random facts. For summer, i'll also give you an update about roster changes from spring to summer and their impact on the teams performances. Starting Roster covers only the players i think will see playtime in playoffs. The full rosters aren't listed here. Teams are ordered by their seed, so if you want to read only certain teams, here is the order of the teams: VGP-IGY-SDX-YM-RYL-LGE-BLGJ-JDM-EDGY-LEG-FPB-SNS
So without further ado. Lets's dive into the teams:
1. Vici Gaming Potential
Spring Finish: 24.
Starting Roster: Zdz – Noble – Steel (from UP) – Snow (from Vici) – Hang (from UP)
Players to watch: Steel, Snow, Hang
Vici, o Vici, what a uprising this team has seen from Spring to Summer. They brought in Steel and Hang from their non-academy-academy team Unlimited Potential, two additions that really payed out since mid and bot were their primary weak links in spring. After losing their first two series, VGP also added Snow from their main team and went on a 15 series long winning streak which catapulted them to the top place. Steel is probably the player with the most improvement between Spring and Summer and leads the KDA ladder for midlaners by around 2.00 with a 6.59 KDA in total. Another very important point is the potential to flex picks around top, mid and even jungle, since Steel and Noble both play Taliyah. One word on Noble, this guy likes to play AP junglers, especially Elise and Nidalee, but he also has played Taliyah in some games and therefore opens the possibility for his midlaner to pick AD midlaners like Renekton and Yasuo. Up to the bot lane, both Snow and Hang are top 3 players in their role stats wise. A super stable botlane that doesnt offer much weak points and has the ability to take over games in the late game. They usually go for safe lanes with Ezreal being their most played AD and Yuumi or Tahm Kench being their most played supports. You may ask: Does Vici has any weak points? They have! Top and Jungle are a little bit weaker than the rest of the team. Zdz is not that special if he's not on Aatrox (13-1), but the top side can be exploited with jungle attention (YM did it really well, go watch that series). Noble focusses a lot on ganking and not on farming, if teams avoid to int early, he may fall behind and cannot pressure the game as usual. But besides that, there is no real weakness, but as teams have shown, Vici is not unbeatable. As a comparison, LEG finished Spring 19-5 and lost their first playoff game 2-3 against the 9th seed and competition in summer looked a lot more stacked.
TLDR; Top exploitable if not on Aatrox; Jungler likes AP picks; Mid and Bot super reliable and very good
2. Invictus Gaming Young
Spring Finish: 4. in Season, 5-8 in Playoffs
Starting Roster: 705/Yi – Wisdomz (formerly Sks) – Forge – huanfeng – fate
Players to watch: Forge, huanfeng
IGY was one of the teams that suffered from a player switch mid season in Leyan moving up to the main team prior to week 7. But despite that for sure impacted the team, i was less concerned then for other teams because Leyan, although he is a beast, was not the single player to carry the team (for more rants on this topic, jump to BLGJ and JDM). As his replacement, they brought in good ol' Sks, now Wisdomz. You may know him from his stint on IMay, so this guy is not a rookie by any means and was able to perform on the spot. IGY therefore didnt suffer really much, they had some shaky performances in the first few series with Wisdomz, but were back on track really fast and came in second. Let's dive into the team: 705 is their starting toplaner, Yi will only come in when 705 has a really bad day. 705 will heavily tend towards Mordekaiser, Renekton or Aatrox. Renekton and Aatrox are very important picks for IGY, not only because they are played by both sololaners, IGY is one the teams that still swap around their top and mid depending on matchups. Forge is well known, had a good showing in LPL and continued to play well in LDL. His champ pool still consists of picks that both can be played in mid an top, funnily enough he didn't play a single game on a traditional control mage this split with vladimir and sylas being the closest ones.
Huanfeng in the botlane is an outstanding carry and one of these Draven Caitlyn Ads, expect his Draven to be banned every game (8-1). And thank god, hes not an Ezreal player! Topping the stats in terms of CSPM and GPM. Together with his partner in crime, fate, they are the definition of lane kingdom with alot of Xayah/Rakan and Caitlyn/Morgana. Also notable, out of all playoff supports, fate has the lowest kill participations in 64.2%. The general strategy of IGY is to ignore top and bring ahead their carrys. But thats also their weakness because its very telegraphed, they will almost never play through top and draft some 1v2 champs for 705 to soak up pressure. Wisdomz has to play around the more agressive mid and bot to cover them up for their plays. Counterganks will do wonders there...
TLDR; Top and mid swap around frequently; Wisdomz is dog jungler for Forge and huanfeng; Both carry players are top tier but overagressive at some points
3. SDX Gaming
Spring Finish: 17.
Starting Roster: M1kuya – ice (formerly Burgess) – Duye – Avenger0 – L1n
Players to watch: M1kuya, Avenger0
SDX Gaming only did some small upgrades from Spring to Summer. They lost one of their two standout players in ShaDow (who made Semis in LST this split) and replaced both of their spring junglers with ice, who has some experience in different teams over multiple splits in LDL/LSPL. In addition to that, they promoted M1kuya and Duye to the starting positions in their roles.
M1kuya has a relatively high percentage of kill participation for a top laner, is mostly playing standard top laners with Neeko as the only exception. Most games on Aatrox by a huge margin (18 games, next one is Akali with 9 games). Ice is another jungler with a favor for AP champs but in another way than Noble from Vici. Ice (or more likely his coach) favors AP tanks in the jungle with Sej and Skarner as his most played junglers. This is mostly a comp thing since Duye plays a lot of Yasuo, and if i say alot, i mean its his most played champion. If he's not playing Yasuo, he on AP picks like Zoe, Corki and Lissandra (surprise surprise!) which allows ice to play more agressive junglers like Lee. Duye also picked up the new Pantheon for Mid as in this short time and won 3 out of 4 games so far. Mid and Jungle are a well oiled tandem, one pick depends on the other one and is one thing SDX likes to structure their draft around. Another one of these special picks is Avenger0's Draven, even more scary than huanfeng's. Banned out almost every game and when let through, nasty af. Their botlane is a playmaking botlane with focus on skirmishing and brawling a lot, L1n comes in hand with that. He loves Thresh and Nautilus, very few Yuumi games. An overall well rounded team focussed on traditional team fighting with tanks and two main carrys.
TLDR; Jungle-Mid plays tandem mode in AD/AP share; AD plays a nasty Draven; well rounded, focussed on team fights
4. Young Miracles
Spring Finish: 2. in Season, 1. in Playoffs
Starting Roster: CJJ – xiaolongbao – Zhuang – rat – ALU
Players to watch: CJJ, xiaolongbao, rat
The spring split champions are back to defend their title and will try to make it to LPL this time. Rosterwise, no change was made after all the speculations of CJJ going to RNG in the offseason and I'm glad he stayed for this split. Let me explain why: CJJ is an incredible gifted toplaner and a super good splitpusher but if you want to know why i think he needed another split in LDL, you should watch YM games from week 6-8, in which YM played bad overall, but him and xiaolongbao were exploited super hard. He sometimes overextends really hard in sidelanes and the better teams they faced in that weeks (even worse teams like RWS) caught him offguard way too often. Also his spare use of teleport is sometimes very frustrating to watch. But, despite all that criticism, hes still a top 5 toplaner in the LDL, his mechanical skill is outstanding and usually his splitpush behaviour is very good (watch the end of Game 1 vs OMD). CJJ has the best CSPM out of all starting toplaners with 9.09. Thats usually a number you would expect from AD's, but is to be explained with how CJJ plays and what his role in the team is. with All what I've said on CJJ is also relevant for xiaolongbao in the jungle. That guy is a beast in terms of mechanics and creative jungle routes, tends to play early game junglers like Jarvan, Xin, Lee, Olaf and Rek'sai. And then there are his pocket picks Evelynn (6.25 KDA) and weirdly Karthus, which doesn't fit his other champions at all, but has a 80% winrate (4-1). His downside is that he plays so agressive, that he gets caught in very bad positions sometimes, just look up the games i mentioned for CJJ, those two got caught so many times in those series. Nevertheless, he's very important in how YM plays. As the big weak point in YM i see Zhuang. I gave him credit in my spring playoff preview for his deep and versatile champ pool that is perfect for YM to play around other lanes, his summer performance was really off. And yes, if you look at his 100% winrate Karma (7-0) and his 6-1 Neeko, its actually the only picks i want to see him on. He still can pull off a Malzahar and his other weird Mid picks, but instead he played Sylas most of the season and i have no clue why. All his stats are underwhelming, even his winrate (61.1%, 11-7) is not that impressive taking into consideration that YM continuously picked the sylas besides they saw its not working out. At the end of the split, YM and with that also Zhuang stabilized again but thats a weak point thats very obvious to see. The only reliable lane is the bot lane, rat improved again this split and is the rock of YM. In their shaky phase, he was responsible for atleast taking one game in these series. Him, D7Gtyphoon, SCGch1rry are also the ADs with the most unique champion picks (13) with notable amounts of games on Varus, Ashe, and Jinx. Finally, ALU is their support and tbh, i cannot say that much about him. To give atleast some insight, he prefers melee supports and is on 4th place of supports GPM. As i elaborated on CJJ, xialongbao, and Zhuang, YM always tries to play aggressive early games. However, after they heavy losing streak, they seem to have switched their playstyle from a skirmish heavy with atrocious objective control to a more controlled, yet still fairly aggressive style. Their chances are heavily depending on xiaolongbao, if he ints like he sometimes do, they could go 0-3 in their match in quarters. On the other hand, if YM gets to their maximum, they have a very good shot in getting first.
TLDR; Top, Jungle and Mid are heavily performance depending with really high heights; Bot is their backbone with solid performances
5. Royal Club
Spring Finish: 16.
Starting Roster: Moon/XiaoBai – S1xu (from RNG) – Cryin (from RNG) – Able – Sora
Players to watch: S1xu, Cryin
If i would go back to the start of the split, Royal Club was probably one of my favorite teams to win the split due to the addition of S1xu and Cryin from their main team to the academy team. And while most of my assumptions became true, I'm not 100% sold of this team, but let's dive in. Toplane is the most interesting lane of RYL as their starting toplaner Moon is not a toplaner, he's a midlaner playing top. As you probably might have guessed, RYL likes to swap around with Moon and Cryin with Corki playing a very important rule in drafts as both players really like to play him and Moon is not hesitent to play him in the toplane, same goes for Aatrox, Renekton, and Rumble. Those picks are pivotal for RYL's playstyle. In there comes S1xu, facilitating these picks with the second highest kill participation out of all playoffs junglers, playing heck of a lot of Gragas with an astounishing 76.5% winrate (13-4). S1xu also is the the regular season MVP with 16 MVP's. When it comes to the botlane, alot of you will remember Able from his LPL stints in spring splits, when Uzi took his breaks. So my expectation for Able is always influenced by this and thats also the reason why i was never really impressed by him. Because AD talent is stacked in LDL, he's not as outstanding as I wished he would be. His Ezreal is still very good and his pocket pick Jinx is still present in some games, but overall the botlane of RYL is probably their weak link, not because Able and Sora are bad, but competitors are better. The situation is kinda comparable to Vici Potential, but the Vici botlane is better in understanding their role in the team. So if you want to exploit RYL, the best chance is to play through bot.
TLDR: Top-Mid flexpicks; Individually strong topside; Botlane is middle of the pack in the playoff botlanes
6. LinGan e-Sports
Spring Finish: 13.
Starting Roster: Spunk (from WEA)/Alun – fortunate (from WEA) – ZBB – Jz (from JDM) – Martin
Players to watch: fortunate, ZBB
LinGan was one of the dark horse teams coming into Summer with keeping the solid core of Alun, ZBB, and Martin and complete their team with the addition of former WE Academy players Spunk and fortunate while also sign former JDM sub AD Jz. What you now have is a team with four experienced players and one young talent with only a few games so far. Their toplaners have almost shared 50/50 playtime. Spunk has the better winrate, but his championpool doesnt allow that much flexibility as his most picked champions are still Yorick and Sion with Corki coming in as 3rd most played. Alun offers a bit more versatility in draft, but his overall stats are way worse than Spunk's, thats why i think LGE will most likely start Spunk over Alun. Regarding fortunate, he often was on tak duty but also has his famous Kindred backed up and ready to go. ZBB is the main fixpoint in LGE's game. He has the second highest KDA of all midlaners with alot of supportive or roam heavy midlaners like Morgana (second most played champion), Karma, Lissandra, and Taliyah, besides Corki still being his most played champion. But don't forget Corki is a great flexpick when Spunk is in. What i really want to highlight is his Morgana, i never see someone make Morgana that viable in Midlane currently, but it fits their playstyle in pushing mid and roaming to the sidelanes. Another name you know if you watch chinese league for a long time is their support, Martin. Martin is the scene since 2014 and his really appreciated his roleswap to support. His like the older brother of Jz, guiding him in lane and managing LGE's vision. Really underrated support in LDL. And while i was pretty confident in Martin performing well, Jz was the big questionmark coming into the split and i was proven right in some points. His stats in terms CSPM, KDA and especially Gold share of are very low. The low gold share just indicates more, how LGE is not playing around botlane. That makes them pretty vulnerable for teams with better botlanes and a Jungle-Mid duo that can rival fortunate and ZBB.
TLDR: Very good Jungle-Mid duo trying to influnce the map; Top can be subbed out to give more flexibility in drafts; Questionmark about AD's performance
7. Bilibili Gaming Junior
Spring Finish: 5. in Season, 2. in Playoffs
Starting Roster: Kahom/demon (Rookie) – Chieftain – HanXuan – Virus – Moonlight
Players to watch: Chieftain
Bilibili's academy team is the second team on this list that suffered from the main team taking away a player mid season. But unlike IGY, the takeaway of xiaoliulian (AD) had a lot more impact than the takeaway from Leyan. Another notable change is the promotion of Alielie to BLG, he was the other part of the map that balanced out the botlane in spring with champs like Jax and Mundo. His replacements are Kahom, who was on BLGJ in spring as a sub, and demon, a new rookie. But both couldn't replace Alielie. Both aren't having great stats, but tbh, BLGJ doesnt play around them. Out of all playoff toplaners, Kahom has by far the lowest gold share with only 19.8%, demon's is a bit higher, but in comparison to the other toplaners still average (21.3%). Chieftain massively stepped up this split. After him only being a sub jungler for M1anhua in spring, he now is the main jungler of the team. He played alot of Sejuani, Gragas, and Olaf. However, he's the only jungler that has Rek'Sai as his most played champion. And by reading this, you already know that Chieftain is the driving force behind BLGJ's playstyle. Because his lanes are weaker in comparson to other playoff teams and against most teams won't be able to get their own lead, his task is to get them ahead early and to snowball the lanes. Help for that is coming out of the midlane in the form of HanXuan. HanXuan's task is to stabilize the midlane and allow Chieftain to go for agressive plays around the jungle and the sidelanes. Therefore, HanXuan typically plays around wave control and get put strong push champions like Azir and Tristana. Meanwhile, their AD Virus has the hardest task. He had to replace the main carry of BLGJ in xiaoliulian, which is impossible to do if your team is so reliant on one player. Virus is not a real rookie as he played one game in spring (got a pentakill in that, nice start into a career). Funnily enough, both xialoliulian and Virus are sitting on top of the average kills per game stat with 5.62 and 5.09. So although the player changed, the overall botlane playstyle didnt change that much, they get very high jungle attention and try to snowball games from bot. Virus is just a little bit weaker stats-wise than xiaoliulian. A player often overlooked is Moonlight, but not only is he the support with the most unique champion picks (17), he was one of the first players to invent Volibear support as a Yuumi counter. And one reason why BLGJ's botlane is very strong is due to him, thats why i wanted to highlight him specificly.
As I said before, especially after xiaoliulian left for the main team, BLGJ's lane strength is probably their biggest weakness. Toplane is exploitable by teams with very good toplaners and if the enemy jungle-mid combo can rival Chieftain and HanXuan, its not looking very good for them. Sadly, the first team they'll play is Legend Esport Gaming with Catjug and Assassin, who are not only both very experienced, I would rate them as the best jungle-mid duo in the league. So BLGJ's run can end early if they cannot get their botlane rolling.
TLDR; High pressure on Chieftain and HanXuan to get their botlane rolling; Weak toplane
8. Joy Dream
Spring Finish: 8. in Season, 9-12. in Playoffs
Starting Roster: sqb (Rookie) – Dou – clx – A02 – Tangwa (formerly Mianju)
Players to watch: clx
If you are watching LPL on a regular basis, you probably know that JD Gaming promoted Morgan and Xiaohan from JDM to their main team and they came in swinging. As a lot of people, myself included, thought it was a deserved promotion for both of them, a lot were also curious about their academy team, which was first at that point with Morgan and Xiaohan terrorizing the league. Well, i can tell you: With Morgan and Xiaohan, the team went 13-2, after that 1-8 and yes, in this games a lot of their opponents were playoff teams, but it still does show the impact this had on their overall performace. Its has even that much of an impact that just this stat is enough to show you what i expect from them in playoffs, which is nothing. Sqb, the newly added toplaner is bad, lets be honest. His CSPM is good tho, its even better than Morgan's. But if the highest average number in KDA is the D, something is going wrong. Thats explainable by a lot of solo deaths he suffered in order of inexperience and very low jungle attention. Speaking of which, Dou had even bigger shoes to fill, as Xiaohan's role in team was way more important. I mentioned in spring playoffs preview that Xiaohan was the engine of JDM's game, a very smart jungler who knows how to play around his lanes very well. And yeah, its a nearly impossible task for Dou to live up to that. JDM jungle power was worse than before but it was expected. What was suprising to me is that it also affected clx in the midlane. Not surprising in that it happened, but more in how much it affected him. Before the removal, he was one of the best midlaners in the league and i lowkey expected him to get his chance in LPL aswell. But after sqb and Dou came in, his performance was a lot weaker. He is having a hard time with the map around him falling apart. A02 and Tangwa down in bot were overshadowed by Morgan and Xiaohan in the first half of the split and had the honorable task to step up and carry. And while that happened in some games, I am worried that they dont have a chance against the EDGY botlane, their opponent in Round 1, as Hope and lwandy destroyed them in Week 9.
TLDR; Suffered heavily from losing Morgan and Xiaohan; Top and Jungle are no playoff-quality players; clx needs to step up and carry
9. Edward Gaming Youth Team
Spring Finish: 20.
Starting Roster: Cult – Jackairay – Sakura (Rookie) – Hope (from EDG) – Lwandy (from LGE)
Players to watch: Cult, Hope, Lwandy
EDGY started the split fairly weak but they made it to playoffs. Why and how? Well, they were bad until they decided to swap out their midlaner for Sakura, toplaner by origin. This was the first boost in performance, the toplane/bruiser flexpicks by both were paying off greatly. If you look up Sakura's champions, the only 'true' midlaner he has played was Lissandra, so only 1 out of his 42 games were on a distinctive midlaner, all his other picks are flexible between top an mid. But, and thats the important point, out of the two players, Cult is the real deal. His carry toplaners like Camille and Fiora are insane, one of the highest CSPM and GPM amongst the toplaners. It was more the removal of the weak midlaner in combination with high flexibility in draft that got them an edge at that point. The second rise in performance happened after EDG decided to put Hope, iBoy's sub AD, into their academy team and that was the final push. Hope came in destroying botlanes (looking at you JDM), him and Lwandy worked well from the beginning. Third highest CSPM after huanfeng and xiaoliulian, third highest GPM after again huanfeng and xiaoliulian, second highest KDA out of all starting AD's after Snow. His Ezreal is undefeated in 6 games so far, coming in with a 12.86 KDA. Also notable, Hope has the highest kill participation out of all starting AD's. Partnered with Lwandy, who evolved quite well over the past splits, this botlane one of the best in the league and should be heavily respected. One last word on Jackairay because i haven't mentioned him so far. His Elise is very good and sits on a 9-1 winrate but besides that pick, he's an average jungler with no clear strengths nor weaknesses. In the concept how this team works, this is totally fine because he doesn't need to step up to be the big carry.
TLDR; Strong flex potential between Top and Mid since both players are toplaners ; Very very strong botlane
10. Legend Esport Gaming
Spring Finish: 1. in Season, 5.-8. in Playoffs
Starting Roster: shanji – catjug – Assassin – YanXuan – Viod
Players to watch: catjug, Assassin
LEG crashed pretty hard in spring playoffs after a dominant split. Besides YM and FPB, they are also the only team that had no members from the starting roster leaving the team. And while I was pretty sure that their 1. place in spring regular season was not showing their real strength i also think they are better than the 10. place they now placed. Here's why: catjug and Assassin. Sounds easy, but catjug and Assassin in my eyes are the best Jungle-Mid duo in the LDL. Catjug is a very skilled jungler with agressive early game picks. His Nidalee and Lee are really scary. Combined with the crazy picks from Assassin, they are are terrifying duo. Assassin has the most champions played out of all midlaners with 24 (!) unique picks in only 59 games. His most played champions are Leblanc (his signature pick), Akali, and Corki. Corki overall is a great pick for LEG since it can also be flexed into the toplane for shanji. Shanji is another one of these toplaners that like to flex picks alot, since a lot of his played champions are also capable to be played by Assassin. LEG in general is really skirmish heavy, their topside players all have more average deaths than the usual players in their positions, but they also have more average kills. If you like the 'LPL playstyle' with a lot fighting and a lot of kills, LEG (besides YM) is your team to watch. YanXuan and Viod are no standout botlane, but they get their job done and allow the rest of the map to play their own game. A quick stat to prove my point: YanXuan has the lowest kill participation of all starting AD's in the league. His two most played champions are Xayah and Sivir, two wave clear AD's that scale well and have self peel, just for the sake he doesn't feed and allow catjug and Assassin do their thing. Viod is one of the few supports that still pull out Lux support in specific matchups. But in this team, everything revolves around the jungler and the midlaner. Which is also their weak point. Their way of playing can be countered by good vision control and junglers that are willing to play carry countermatchups. LEG struggled when Catjug and Assassin were put behind and still tried to fight over every inch of the map.
TLDR; best jungle-mid duo in the league (in my opinion) with an agressive, skrimish-heavy playstyle; Bot is hard to target due to safe picks; Top is nothing special
11. FunPlus Phoenix Blaze
Spring Finish: 9. in Season, 3. in Playoffs
Starting Roster: xiao7 – Mingjing/Mingren – Cepted – April/Rainbow – ppgod
Players to watch: Cepted
The academy team of World's participate FPX had a surprising run in spring to almost make it up to the finals and finally finishing at 3rd place. They only had a small roster change ind Rainbow coming in as a sub AD at the end of the split. And while i was pretty upset that Cepted wasnt picked up by a LPL team, i was stoked to see how the team evolves in the second split playing as a unit. Cepted still is their main carry and player, that all other players are facilitating into. He is not as crazy good as in spring, but still amongst the best midlaners in the league placing top 5 in multiple stats categories. One big hit he had to take are the continous Sylas nerfs, his by far best champion. He still picks him tho, but Cepted's oppressive laning ability got struck there. My main criticism from spring playoffs are still there. This team is super reliant on Cepted to be the big carry. The other players and especially the botlane has glimpses of very promising talent, April is a player I really want to see more of because i think he's quite good. Ppgod is a very promising support talent but is too inconsistent in his perfomances. Mingjing has the second highest GPM out of the playoff junglers and has good days in which he can match the best junglers in the league, but sometimes he plays like a donkey and get swapped out for Mingren, who is ok, but is weaker than the other junglers in the league. He (Mingjing) still picks up Kindred and carries games but its very day depending and sadly not reliant. As a sidenote, the winrate with Mingren is higher than with Migjing, despite Mingjing having better stats in every point except KDA. Their toplaner xiao7 is servicable in a league in which toplane is the worst role, you can decide on your own if thats a good sign or a bad one. Thats btw a huge factor: If you have a really good toplaner like YM has with CJJ or JDM had with Morgan, you have good shot at being a top tier team because most of the teams dont have very good toplaners. And i know, toplane is not that important, but with all the carry champs up there a toplane mismatch in terms of player skill can still make a huge difference. And i dont see that, not only in this case for FPB, its a problem for a lot of teams. Sorry for this small insertion.
TLDR; Cepted is still a monster midlaner; Botlane showed promising games; Jungle is inconsistent with high heights and low lows; Top is servicable but nothing special
12. Suning-S
Spring Finish: 23.
Starting Roster: bin – View – Lilac – Yanfeng (Rookie) – owo (Rookie)
Players to watch: bin, View
Suning-S is my biggest surprise of the season. They brought in a new botlane, both rookies, and kept their core in bin, View, and Lilac (with nanzhu playing the first series in mid). The increase in performance is impressive at least. Bin and View are amongst the players that have the biggest boost in performance in between spring and summer. View is very high placed in MVP ratings, mostly playing tank junglers with stellar performances on Sejuani (a sentence I hoped i would never have to say). He's a gank oriented jungler with a high amount of average assists and fairly low CSPM. The lane he often default ganks is top. Bin is a toplaner i was very unimpressed in spring but he stepped up massive in summer. His championpool is small, but very well trained. Besides the typical meta toplaners like Renekton, Aatrox, and Kennen, he also played a decent amount of Camille and Gangplank. Gangplank is probably his best champion and since GP is slowly coming back into play, is gonna be a big factor in drafts. To balance out this agression, Lilac is on Karma duty most of the time. His problem is that he's not the best laner and had big problems against all the strong midlaners in the league so SNS most of the time puts him on supportive midlaners and let him shove out waves and support his carrys. The only playoff midlaner that has less average kills per game is Zhuang. And there i am with my main point of this team: SNS feels like the little brother of YM in many points: carry toplaner, gank heavy jungler (although xiaolongbao prefers more aggressive picks), supportive midlaner, stable botlane. The botlane comparison is a bit iffy tho since Yanfeng and owo are not up to the level of rat and ALU as they as more passive and wait for View to do stuff. They like to play Xayah-Rakan (Yanfeng is 11-2 on Xayah). SNS have a tough task to solve in their Round 1 match against LinGan (Season result 1:2 for LGE), but they have the upset potential and i'm really looking forward to that series.
TLDR; YM's little brother (carry top, gank heavy jungler, supportive mid); improved massively from spring to summer; upset potential
Thats my 'small' wrapup for LDL playoffs to give you an overview about all teams, their players and what you can expect from them in Playoffs. The LDL playoffs start at 14th of September at 7am CEST/13th 11pm PST with the first round. Top 4 are seeded directly into quarterfinals, for more informations and additional stuff like the streamlink to the Chinese Stream (sadly there is no official english broadcast, maybe Raz will stream some of the games), go visit our page:
https://lol.gamepedia.com/LDL/2019_Season/Summer_Playoffs
Thank you all for reading, even if you only read the TLDR's if that makes you tune into it. Pick your favorite team, go watch and support 'em!
Noisia