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League of Legends LCS: how each team can improve in the offseason

By Josh Tyler

Los Angeles, USA - August 17: --- C9 vs CLG during the 2019 League of Legends Championship Series Summer Split Semifinals at the LCS Arena on August 17, 2019 in Los Angeles, California, USA. (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)
Los Angeles, USA - August 17: --- C9 vs CLG during the 2019 League of Legends Championship Series Summer Split Semifinals at the LCS Arena on August 17, 2019 in Los Angeles, California, USA. (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games) /
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Jensen, Impact, League of Legends.
League of Legends. Photo courtesy of Riot Games. /

The League of Legends World Championship is over, but the drama is just beginning as the LCS offseason begins.

With Worlds firmly behind us, the attention of the fans for the League of Legends professional scene now shifts to the offseason. In the LCS, this means a week of leaks, speculation, rumors, and cryptic tweets before Mr. Offseason’s Wild Ride leaves the platform.

Already, we have seen a bombshell transfer as C9 sent reigning MVP Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen, along with support Tristan “Zeyzal” Stidam and Academy players Ziqing “Kumo” Zhao and Matthew “Deftly” Chen to the new organization Evil Geniuses. There have also been plenty of rumors regarding players who could be coming to NA from other regions including Fnatic jungler Mads “Broxah” Brock-Pedersen, Fnatic ADC Martin “Rekkles” Larsson, Splyce ADC Kasper “Kobbe” Kobberup, Griffin jungler Lee “Tarzan” Seung-yong, and many others. With all these rumors out there, though, what should these LCS teams be doing to improve for 2020?

I’ll be going through each LCS team to give a single move they should be looking to make and giving suggestions in their biggest position of need. This means every move on this list will be a 1-for-1 swap (drop a player to pick another up) and that teams can only add imports if they have the room or their move will open up an import slot. I will assume (for all of these) that teams will keep the rest of their line-up together (even though that is far from likely) but will also discuss further moves that the teams are likely to make.

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Team Liquid

The move: drop Jensen for an import

Now, this is in the category of moves that absolutely will not happen. I’m fairly confident that Liquid is going to keep this 2019 roster together for another year absent Jake “Xmithie” Puchero, whose contract is ending.

It seems very likely that they will use their import slot opening up from Jensen getting his NA residency to upgrade from Xmithie to an import jungler (they’re already linked to rumors about adding Broxah or Tarzan). But I think that is a mistake.

To be clear, that’s not to say that neither Broxah nor Tarzan are upgrades on Xmithie. Tarzan clearly is and if TL can somehow get him Steve should do that without hesitating. Broxah is probably a decent upgrade as well, but the mistake is looking to upgrade a position weak in strength in professional League of Legends and available talent rather than upgrading a much stronger role.

Jungle tends to be a very volatile role in League of Legends, with great junglers fading as the meta shifts (remember that 2018 Worlds MVP Ning didn’t even start in the 2019 Worlds due to underperformance). The crop of realistic imports that Steve could get like Broxah or Splyce’s Xerxe are quite underwhelming. Xmithie has been a solid, if unspectacular, jungler for years in the LCS and I don’t know if there’s a big enough upgrade that’s a sure thing to make me want to let him go, especially considering he is an NA resident in a role where NA desperately lacks talent.

However, there are a bunch of incredible mid laners in NA alone who are becoming available and would be a significant upgrade over Jensen. With OpTic being bought by Immortals, there could be a chance that they will want to remake the roster and their star mid Lee “Crown” Min-ho will be available. In addition, CLG’s mid Tristan “PowerOfEvil” Schrage is rumored to be on his way out. Both of these players are, in my opinion, upgrades to Jensen.

Steve and Liquid could also look overseas to find a great mid lane upgrade like Febiven, Humanoid, and Jiizuke in Europe or maybe take a swing at a young Korean or Chinese mid. These would be a bit riskier, but the point is that there is a ton of mid lane talent available and not as much jungle talent that I would say is a clear upgrade to Xmithie. I fear TL is poised to make a huge mistake by letting go of the most stable NA jungler ever.

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