League of Legends LCS: breaking down all the offseason roster rumors
By Josh Tyler
Zven to Cloud9
With all the roster shuffling C9 is doing, Travis states that perhaps TSM’s ADC Jesper “Zven” Svenningsen might be looking for a new home in North America.
Winners: Cloud9, who would be getting, in my opinion, one of the three best ADCs in the LCS in 2019. Zven put up great numbers despite being paired with a far below-average support and could thrive with Cloud9.
Losers: Zven, who would be going to C9 and being paired with an unproven support in Diamond. However, he will be a highly-sought-after free agent this offseason among LCS and LEC teams.
Vulcan to Cloud9
According to both Loco and Travis, Cloud9 initially traded for Dignitas support Philippe “Vulcan” Laflamme to replace Zeyzal. However, now that the C9/EG swap is up in the air perhaps this is being blocked as well.
Winners: Honestly, no one. I think this is a bad deal for both sides.
Losers: Cloud9 loses because they got a straight downgrade from Zeyzal to Vulcan. Perhaps they think they can develop Vulcan like they did with Smoothie and Zeyzal previously, but it’s still a gamble. Similarly, Vulcan loses here because he goes from playing with a top-three ADC in the LCS to either playing with Sneaky or an unknown ADC, which is not an ideal situation for a shaky support.
Broxah/Tarzan/Inspired to Liquid
Locodoco touched on these rumors in his Youtube video, basically alluding to the fact that Team Liquid might be looking to use their open import slot to upgrade the jungle position. On Hotline League, though, Travis did walk this proclamation back a bit, saying he expects TL’s roster to be basically the same next year. This does, however, still leave the possibility that the roster could be the same except for the jungler.
Winners: I think TL is a winner if they add Tarzan (which Loco said was basically a Hail Mary). Broxah and Inspired would both be slight upgrades or even sidegrades to Xmithie. For all of these junglers, though, other than Tarzan, they probably would be thrilled with a fresh start in NA.
Losers: Tarzan if for some reason he decides that money is worth tanking a realistic chance at a World Championship (though that would be his call) and the other loser would be the team that loses a strong jungler.