Ranking all 24 teams at the League of Legends World Championship
By Josh Tyler
15. AHQ e-Sports Club
Qualified via
LMS 2019 Championship Points
Roster
Top – Chen “Ziv” Yi
Jungle – Chen “Alex” Yu-Ming / Huang “HuSha” Zi-Wei
Mid – Hsieh “Apex” Chia-Wei / Kim “Rainbow” Soo-gi
ADC – Chou “An” Chun-An / Tsou “Wako” Wei-Yang
Support – Wang “Ysera” Tsung-Chih
How they got here
Just because you don’t have to go through the play-in stage doesn’t mean you’re automatically in the top 12 teams at the World Championship. This AHQ squad is quite different than the one we saw at last years Worlds, as they lost a ton of veteran, solid players like Westdoor, Albis, and Baby. While those players weren’t stellar, the squad that’s replaced them has struggled.
Only returning top laner Ziv and back-up ADC An to the squad, AHQ fumbled their way through the Spring Split, finishing in the fourth and final playoff spot with an 8-6 record to end the regular season. They did manage to stun favored J-Team in the first round before being dismissed by Flash Wolves in the second round of the spring playoffs.
In summer, they fared better with a 7-5 regular-season record that put them in the second round of the LMS playoffs. They managed to beat upstart Hong Kong Attitude in a close 3-2 series before losing to LMS champions J-Team in the finals, handing J-Team their only game loss on the split. Thanks to underperformances by the two best teams in the spring – Flash Wolves and MAD Team – AHQ have snuck in on points with a lot to prove.
Player to watch
Ziv, the only player with any real experience on the international stage, is going to have to lead his team from the top lane. AHQ has shown they have the talent, but inexperience can derail talent in these high-pressure games.
Best case scenario
AHQ is already in the main event, so best case is they play spoiler to some strong teams in their group and maybe finish third with a respectable 3-3 or 2-4 record.
Worst case scenario
The youth gets overwhelmed and they’re feasted on for free wins by all the other teams, going 0-6 in groups.
Prediction
Probably closer to the worst-case scenario. I think they’ll be the LMS team that some western team like Liquid or C9 gets in their group and everyone (rightly) calls it the “Group of Life.”