LEC: Previewing the Youth Movement on Misfits 2020 Spring Split
By Josh Tyler
A look at whether a young Misfits roster can surprise fans in the 2020 LEC Spring Split.
Misfits came into the 2019 LEC season with a lot of hype. They had brought in a ton of veteran players including sOAZ, Febiven, Hans Sama, and GorillA to what many were dubbing Europe’s “super team.”
Expected to perhaps challenge G2 at the top of the LEC last year, that promise not only didn’t materialize, it fell apart completely. Misfits failed to make the playoffs in both the Spring and Summer Splits, going 6-12 in the summer and finishing with a 14-22 record on the year.
As a result, Misfits jettisoned most of their roster during the offseason and have gone firmly in the opposite direction. Three of the five starters on the Misfits roster will be getting their first taste of professional League of Legends experience this weekend. How will this youth movement serve the Misfits?
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Top Lane: Danny “Dan Dan” Le Comte
The man so nice they named him twice, Dan Dan is actually the player with the second-most stage experience on this Misfits roster. He played in 10 games for the team in the Summer Split after replacing sOAZ.
His debut split wasn’t noteworthy, but that’s to be expected for a player who joined a sinking ship that was already half-submerged. It’s hard to evaluate how he’ll do this year given his small sample size of pro play. Hopefully, he’ll be a nice bridge between those young players and their experienced mid.
Jungle: Iván “Razork” Martín Díaz
The first of the Misfits rookies, Razork spent 2019 in the Spanish Superliga with Giants Gaming. It’s notable that, in that lower-level league, his KDA was the best of the junglers but not the best (3.95) but he did have the highest GPM in that role (344). However, he also had the smallest champion pool of all the junglers in the league, only playing three champions all year.
Mid Lane: Fabian “Febiven” Diepstraten
The unquestioned veteran and leader of this Misfits team going into 2020, Febiven is going to have to step up his game after a down 2019. He actually had a fairly strong Spring Split, but when the team imploded in the summer Febiven was actually benched in favor of LIDER for the end of the year.
Bot Lane: Ju “Bvoy” Yeong-hoon
Another player with some professional experience playing in China as a member of JD Gaming, Bvoy got five games worth of LPL experience in 2019 before leaving for the LLA in the Summer. Again, there’s not a lot we can glean from his limited experience but Misfits fans will be hoping that he’ll bring that experience from China to this young roster.
Support: Petr “denyk” Haramach
Of all the rookies that Misfits will be starting this year, denyk is the one that I feel has the most potential for Misfits going into 2020. In EU Masters Summer Split last year, deynk led all supports in assists per game and KDA while also showcasing a diverse champion pool. In an LEC with fairly weak supports outside of the top three, deynk could be poised to assert himself as one of the best in that role.
Prediction: 9th Place
A lot of people are predicting that this Misfits will perform similarly to the squad from 2017 that made Worlds with a roster full of rookies and shocked everyone. I am a bit less optimistic about this squad that that past squad because the key skill positions (mid and ADC) are both big questions when compared to their competition.
Febiven is coming off of a down year and will have to match up against some of the most stacked talent in the LEC. It’s even worse for Bvoy, who is getting his first starting experience with a new laning partner (with some likely language issues), and having to face some monsters in the bot lane.
Ultimately, I rank this team low because they are unproven. Of course, they could surprise and the young talent can prove better than expected. However, as of right now, they’re still to inexperienced at key positions to truly be called a contender.
Next. LEC Preseason Player Rankings. dark