Hello, everyone! With MSI concluding, patch 7.10 rolling out on the live servers and a bunch of roster moves happening in the off-season yet again, there is much to talk about in this week’s news update.
The conclusion of MSI
SK Telecom T1 reigns supreme yet again to no one’s surprise. The defending MSI champions easily defeated the Flash Wolves in the semifinals and proved that there is no counter to them. Game 1 was decently competitive with Flash Wolves gaining an early lead. However in the mid game that lead was quickly lost when SKT played a very impressive mid stage, winning team fights and punishing Flash Wolves’ mistakes.
Games 2 and 3 were much more one-sided with Faker applying so much pressure and dominance in the mid lane, making it seem like Maple who is an extremely good mid laner was not near his level at all. The other semifinal match was Team WE facing off against G2 Esports. Although expectations were that WE would destroy G2 based off of group stage performance, Trick was able to perform way better than he did in groups, outperforming Condi in the process. Everyone on G2 showed up in a big way and it lead to their 3-1 win.
The finals weren’t as one-sided as one would expect. Game 1 was in G2‘s favor in the early stage however one small mistake would cost them big time and it lead to SKT clawing back in the battle and winning off of Bang’s amazing teamfighting on Ashe. Game 2 started off in the worst possible way for Faker. Trick would camp his lane on Ivern and together with PerkZ they would get repeated kills onto Faker, making him 0/4/0 heading into the mid stage. It was very impressive not only from PerkZ who managed to perform well against Faker in all games but also from Trick who applied more pressure in some of the games than Peanut who is the best jungler in the world.
After this great early game lead, G2 was able to close out game 2 and tie up the series. Games 3 and 4, however, were won by SKT with Wolf having some insane engages that would win SKT massive fights. He would end up picking up the MVP of the tournament award and rightfully so. SKT is full of world class players and while most of them always get praise, Wolf is quietly under the radar but continues to deliver and remains consistently good. With this win, SKT remains the most dominant team in the world and it’s now a question of who can stop them?
MSI aside there have been reports circulating that Riot is going to be starting a new international event in July called Rift Rivals. This event will be spread out across the world and will feature certain regions facing off against each other. The top 4 teams from LMS, LCK and LPL will battle it out for dominance. Meanwhile, the other clashes are North America vs Europe, Brazil vs Latin America North vs Latin America South, CIS vs Turkey and finally Japan vs Oceania vs Southeast Asia. This is certainly great news as these mini tournaments will be quite fun to watch. International events are always exciting and are sure to bring us a lot of fun.
More roster moves!
The past few weeks have been full of roster changes and this week it’s no different. Starting off in Europe, Mysterious Monkeys have acquired the EU LCS spot and roster of Misfits Academy due to the crew being forced to sell one of its LCS teams. The Mysterious Monkeys organization is not very well known and it will be interesting to see how they enter the EU LCS. They have transferred their previous roster and EU CS spot to Euronics Gaming.
Team Kinguin has picked up some new players with Dan, Visdom and Flaxxish joining. The Red Bull organization has formed a League of Legends team known as Red Bulls with the roster consisting of Korean imports Thal and Moojin, Magifelix in the mid lane, Sedrion in the AD Carry role and former LCS player kaSing at support. The squad will certainly be trying to make it into the LCS but for now, they will have to go through the EU CS Summer Qualifiers to qualify for the EU CS. Shaunz has left Vitality and this doesn’t come as much of a surprise after the team picked up YamatoCannon as their new head coach.
Switching over to North America, Stunt and AnDa have both joined Immortals as in-house subs. Unlikely they will see much play but a decent move by Immortals. They have also picked up SSONG as their new head coach after the departure of Hermes. The NA CS squad Tempo Storm has picked up SELFIE as their new starting mid laner and LS as a coach.
Saintvicious has left Team Liquid and has re-joined Dignitas as a coach. And last but not least Fly has left Longzhu Gaming and has joined Gold Coin United. He is expected to start over FeniX as the team’s coach Locodoco has stated that FeniX doesn’t mesh well with the coaching staff and players.
Now it’s time for a lot of LPL news, starting off with Vasilii joining Newbee Gaming. A very interesting move after Vasilii’s raging incidents in the past year or so. Despite being a big part of the Royal organization, inSec has left the team and although he has re-joined them in the past, it seems like that may not happen this time. Invictus Gaming has picked up some new additions with West formerly from Game Talents and The Shy joining the crew.
Ning from Young Miracles has also been transferred to IG after Young Miracles failed to get into the LPL multiple times. After their relegation from LPL, Vici Gaming has added Crash (formerly from Longzhu) and Martin (formerly from Snake) to the roster but have lost HeTong, bengi and Coach PoohManDu. Some big but expected losses for Vici considering their situation. TANK has left Snake and has joined Young Glory.
Royal Club have replaced Wuxx with Xuan in the AD Carry position. Meanwhile, their LPL counterpart Royal Never Give Up has made some big additions with Y1HAN, y4 and Wuxx joining. And not only that but long time EDG member Koro1 has left EDG and has signed with RNG. Certainly, big news for EDG because despite not playing much in the past year, Koro1 has been a big member for them since their formation. Cool has left Newbee in order to join LGD Gaming. He will be starting over Godv who is expected to rest throughout the Summer Split due to a wrist injury.
Patch Update
The 7.10 patch is out and it proves big changes for some champions. Heimerdinger has seen a lot of changes with the base damage of his turrets being lowered in exchange for being able to spawn 3 at all ranks. His turrets’ beam attack is on a much bigger cooldown now but successfully hitting his other spells on enemy champions refreshes the cooldown. Also, his new passive Hextech Affinity gives him bonus movement speed when he is near allied turrets (both his turrets and normal turrets). Certainly interesting changes for Heimerdinger which might make him a little more viable for competitive play.
Rammus has also received a lot of changes with his Power Ball being a channeled ability now but being faster and having a shorter cooldown. His new passive now gives him bonus magic damage on his basic attacks. His W amplifies this effect but slows him down while his taunt grants Rammus attack speed. And finally his ultimate applies a slow now but deals less damage. Although Rammus will definitely deal more damage with these changes, they make him a little bit easier to counter due to his Q being a channeled ability. So it’s very possible he might not see any competitive play but will be a strong pick in Solo Queue.
Ivern, Lee Sin and Lulu have all received nerfs that will most likely knock them down the tier list a little bit. All three of them have been S tier champions for a while now and these nerfs aren’t a big surprise. Meanwhile, Jax, Udyr and Yorick have all received small buffs which are unlikely to increase their viability but are certainly welcomed changes.
Thanks for reading my weekly news article. I hope you enjoyed and I will see you next time! Good luck!
