What To Expect From The Second Lock In Tournament
The 2022 League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) Lock In tournament is fast approaching and while teams are looking to solidify some of their new roster integrations, they will still be vying to kick off the season on the right foot. Although the tournament still offers rewards in both money and bragging rights, teams this time around will look to take advantage of this preseason tournament even more.
This is the second year in a row that the league has decided to run the tournament, following much praise for the implementation of the LCS format change of 2021, making it safe to say that it’s here to stay. The tournament will still adhere to its initial rendition that has teams placed in two groups, play it out in a round-robin to then have the top four of each group duke it out in a playoff bracket with the winner claiming $150,000.
It’s no secret that the league’s preseason tournament is the perfect place for teams to get some feel of what’s to come from their rosters. Be it a team that’s completely revamped its roster ala Counter Logic Gaming, teams that have made sizeable changes akin to Team SoloMid and Evil Geniuses or a champion that’s added onto its successful roster like 100 Thieves. All of these teams have something in common, they’ll use this time to hash out initial problems and more.
Usually, a tournament like this builds hype around what’s to come moving forward into the season, fans, pundits and others get to see how new faces perform on stage, how some teams look and the like. But similar to last year’s tournament, there will be some teams missing their full rosters, but that’s okay, that’s what it’s made for.
Teams like Cloud9, Team SoloMid, and Golden Guardians will all either be fielding their full Academy roster or having a mix of Academy and LCS players take to the Summoner’s Rift. Normally, this could be perceived as a negative, and while it undoubtedly is one in the eyes of many League of Legends fans, positives could still be derived from it.
Like last year, even though some of the narratives such as how would one team with its full roster make its initial showing were slated until the spring split others arose. Academy players got the chance to show off some of their worth and this led to impressing the game’s fans and even their own teams. A chance like this doesn’t come often.
Some of these players went on to eventually make some starts at the LCS, either covering for a player issue or as a part of a full-on replacement in hopes to do better during the season. But there was one case above all others that the Lock In tournament lent itself as its initial playtest that showcased what a good substitute could do for any team.
This, of course, was last year’s Team Liquid squad requiring the services of their Academy jungler, Jonathan “Armao” Armao when their starter, Lucas “Santorin” Larsen had to step away for varying issues throughout the season.
The tournament was the perfect place for the organisation to see that their trust and confidence in their backup jungler was all worth it. After having Santorin step down in last year’s Lock In, Mid-Season Showdown (MSS) and the LCS’ summer split, having Armao be a steady rock for Team Liquid to stay afloat was what any other organisation would dream of.
That was one of the many positives derived from this newly installed tournament. It gives players who have been either solo practising in the offseason, taking a holiday break or even gone to other regions to boot camp a way to kick it into gear.
There’s much to expect from this year’s Lock In tournament and going by last year’s inaugural tournament it’ll most likely be a great way to start the season once again.
