The LCS Lock In Was The Change The League Needed
Team Liquid were crowned the first League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) Lock In champions this past week after thwarting a near reverse sweep from Cloud9 — this would have been the second reverse sweep of the Lock In playoffs for the storied organisation.
After three weeks of play — spanning from the tournament’s start on Friday, January 15 to the finals on Sunday, January 31 — the Lock In tournament finally concluded, giving us a preview of how teams are looking and a taste of what’s to come in the Spring Split.
The so-called “warm-up” tournament prior to the Spring Split’s regular-season start on February 5 was a huge success in many people’s eyes. This leaves one to beg the question: why was it so successful?
A good preface to the Spring Split
To start off, this was a great way to see teams with their new rosters, and in the case of Counter Logic Gaming and Immortals, a great way to see how substitutes and Academy players would perform versus LCS players. To put it into perspective, if this were the old format from years past, this would’ve been Week 3 of the Spring Split. Most of the teams got to practice and play on stage with their new rosters for three weeks — two depending on if you made it into playoffs or not — prior to the Spring Split’s regular-season even beginning, giving a good head start to the eventual playoffs in March.
Looking at interviews LCS players, staff, and coaches have done throughout the three weeks, one could say that many, if not all of them overwhelmingly like this new format. It gives teams time to figure out the meta and get more playtime with their roster in a more serious environment, unlike scrims. Teams were also very proactive, something that hasn’t been as much in the region. If game five of the finals was a scrim, chances are it most likely would’ve been stopped and moved to another scrim. Cloud9 were getting dominated in the top lane and this would’ve prompted a scrim restart. And one of the more important aspects of the LCS — it was fun and exciting to watch.
Storylines
The tournament brought to light storylines, expectations, and overall hype with various teams performances.
First of all, you had Evil Geniuses, the only team to start 3-0 in the first week. The only loss they suffered all round-robin long was to a surging FlyQuest in Week 2, whose starting jungler, Brandon Joel “Josedeodo” Villegas finally arrived in North America after COVID-19 related Visa issues. As a team who flew under the radar in the offseason after picking up top lane Jeong "Impact" Eon-yeong, and support Lee "IgNar" Dong-geun - they shocked the league.
While the teams made multimillion-dollar moves to pick up players like Luka "Perkz" Perkovic, Barney "Alphari" Morris, and Hu "SwordArt" Shuo-Chieh, Evil Geniuses slowly built what many thought was a solid middle of the pack roster. Impact proved to still be one of the best top laners in the league, and IgNar stayed true to his engaging and in-your-face style. While Daniele "Jiizuke" di Mauro started to turn a new leaf, Dennis "Svenskeren" Johnsen levelled up alongside his teammates and Matthew "Deftly" Chen — someone who was viewed as the weak point of the team — showed his merit. Unfortunately, it all ended after they faced eventual tournament favourites, Team Liquid, in the semifinals where they got swept.
Then you have a team like Golden Guardians who were in last place in everybody’s pre-season power rankings. Their young collegiate and Academy players showed up big and made waves. They had good starts to their games, but once the mid to late game rolled around their inexperience showed. Their drafts were well focused, and they went through with gameplans that were set up by them — a nod to their coaching staff.
Click to enlargeBut the teams everyone had their eyes on were Cloud9 and Team Liquid. Coming into the season, many had these as their top two teams in the league — and it stayed true. Cloud9 had a rocky start to their Lock In after they got dominated by Evil Geniuses in their first game of the tournament — having their prized mid laner from the LEC, Perkz, post an underwhelming 4/7/2 performance. But this tournament slowly saw them grow, from getting smashed by Evil Geniuses to nearly getting their second reverse sweep in the playoffs versus Team Liquid in the finals. Cloud9 played 17 total games in one tournament; this was three weeks worth of play they wouldn’t have had otherwise.
Click to enlargeAs for Team Liquid, they had a great start themselves in Week 1 even with substitute jungler Jonathan “Armao” Armao playing until Lucas “Santorin” Larsen was finally able to play in Week 2. Come Week 2; Team Liquid was fully activated, they looked like the best team in the league, they had cohesion, top of the line solo laners in Alphari and Nicolaj "Jensen" Jensen, a top-three bottom lane in Edward "Tactical" Ra and reigning MVP Jo "CoreJJ" Yong-in and the glue in Santorin. This was a glimpse into a new-look Team Liquid — an aggressive Team Liquid.
This just sets up perfectly for the Spring Split. Cloud9 and Team Liquid are nowhere near their peak but already look strong — something that’s never been seen this early into the season before in the North American Region. Teams like Counter Logic Gaming and Immortals didn’t get punished as hard for not having their full roster. A team like Team SoloMid who consists of five players who have never played with each other got extra time that they wouldn’t normally have. 100 Thieves who took four players from one team and slotted their long-time top lane, Kim “Ssumday” Chan-ho showed immense promise right off the bat but quickly plateaued after getting reversed Cloud9. And overall the league got extra experienced and playtime that wouldn’t have happened otherwise to start the Spring Split.
There are just so many new and compelling storylines that the LCS would never have had in the previous years — a welcome sight to many LCS fans and watchers. The tournament might also end up helping the region’s chances in international play, something that the region has failed to do well at for many years.
Images via Riot Games