League of Legends: How every LEC team should improve in the offseason

Splyce – Top Lane

Judging by this list so far, if Europe thrives in developing mid lane talent, it definitely struggles when it comes to the top lane.

While it’s definitely difficult to make a name for yourself in a role that is more often than not described as “an island”, players like TheShy, Khan, and Nuguri make it clear that it is still possible to carry from the top lane in Season 9 and onwards. Obviously this is much easier when your team plays around the top lane – a game plan which EU teams tend to avoid – but even so, it’s hard to deny that the level of top laners in the LEC is quite low when compared to other regions.

As a result, if Splyce wants to improve on their 2019 World Championship quarter-finals exit, then top lane should be the place to consider a change. Every member of the Splyce roster has been impeccable this season and is fully deserving of a place on the starting line-up in 2020, but if we were being nit-picky, for Splyce to go one further next year, Tamás “Vizicsacsi” Kiss could be swapped for a more impactful solo laner.

Splyce’s playstyle revolves around a patient, slow-paced early game, tracking the enemy jungler and playing mainly for counter-ganks to avoid huge skirmishes. As a result, Andrei “Xerxe” Dragomir spends a lot of his time around the bottom side of the map as opposing junglers look to impact the mid and bot lanes, leaving Vizicsacsi on an all too familiar island.

As the team progresses into the later stages of the game, they focus on major objectives, picking up two or three Barons before finally destroying the enemy Nexus. Therefore, a lot of Splyce’s focus is on late-game team fights around the Baron pit which involves setting up vision and potentially organizing a TP flank. This is important to note as we’ve not become accustomed to seeing Csacsi making plays around key objectives and carrying his team through a team fight, as Splyce instead looks towards Kobbe’s scaling carries to output the highest damage share for the line-up.

Thus, Splyce may target the top lane in the offseason as a role that they could look to improve/upgrade. This is almost definitely going to be the case as Vizicsacsi recently announced that he would be retiring from professional play after his Splyce contract comes to an end this month.