2019 LPL Spring Split Primer and Power Rankings

#12 – Snake Esports

Roster:

🇨🇳 Li “Flandre” Xuan-Jun (Top)
🇻🇳 Lê “SofM” Quang Duy (Jungle)
🇨🇳 Zhang “Andy” Jie (Middle)
🇰🇷 Yang “Mala” Hyeon-jong (Middle)
🇨🇳 Lu “Asura” Qi (ADC)
🇨🇳 Hu “Maestro” Jian-Xin (Support)

Week 1 Games:
vs Edward Gaming (18th of January) (Chongqing)
vs FunPlus Phoenix (20th of January) (Chongqing)

Snake has been unfortunate in recent times. They have some very good players in Flandre and SofM but they can’t seem to make the rest of the roster work. Unfortunately for Snake, this trend will most likely continue this split as this iteration of the roster is full of unproven rookies.

Flandre has been a highly touted top laner in China ever since he burst on the scene for Snake in 2013. Despite his individual strengths as a player, Snake is more often than not closer to the bottom of the table than the top. Flandre has shown incredible loyalty to the organization by sticking with them despite constant disappointing results.

Likewise for SofM who Snake recruited from Vietnam. He’s shown his individual strength time and time again but has found middling success as a member of Snake. If Flandre and SofM can play at their best and their rookies step up then perhaps they can push higher up the table.

Andy played for LDL West side Wudu last season. Snake have plucked him straight from the LDL to play for them in this upcoming split. It is a similar situation for their other mid laner, Mala, who played for LDL side Reverse Gaming. It’s unclear which one of them will be the primary mid laner as they are both untested.

Asura is a bit more of an experienced player as he’s been in the Chinese developmental scene since the beginning of 2017. However, he too has never played an LPL game so still lacks experience on the biggest stage in China. His bot lane counterpart, Maestro has played in the LPL previously for OMG. His gameplay did not inspire confidence during the few times he was played but perhaps he has improved since then and can challenge Asura for the starting spot.

I don’t see this roster winning either of their week one games, I would be very surprised if EDG doesn’t just stomp them and chances are FPX will be able to do the same. They aren’t the worst team in the LPL but they’re miles away from being able to make playoffs unless their rookies all turn out to be of a high caliber.