The Promotion Picture – A New Challenger Appears (Pt. 1)

While the League of Legends Championship Series playoffs rage on, the Challenger Series playoffs have recently concluded. With that, we know the up-and-coming teams that secured the top Challenger spot to replace the team that landed last in the LCS, as well as the hopefuls looking to vie for a slot via the Promotion Tournament in a few weeks.

While it would serve to give you match recaps and game analysis, we instead present you with the immediate storylines following each team involved in the upcoming changes to the LCS landscape.

Get to know the teams that have struggled in the 2015 LCS so far, and meet the new (and in some cases, returning) faces of the ascendant teams of the Challenger circuit.

The Fallen Competitors

Team Coast – A Shameful Display

Coast finished last in this split of the NA LCS, and is therefore auto-relegated from the circuit. The only thing worse than this reality is the history behind Coast’s power plays in and around the LCS.

Coast is an organization that’s been around since the beginning. Originally called Good Game University, it was the home of Darshan “ZionSpartan” Upadhyaha and later Danny “Shiphtur” Le, two players that have become LCS staples. It was also the only team to have a Cinderella story-like run, in the North American LCS, meeting Team Solo Mid in the finals of the first ever LCS split when they entered as the 6th seed. Sadly, the clock struck twelve and they fell 2-3. However, since rebranding as Coast, things quickly went downhill.

The Team Coast roster at the start of the 2015 regular season

This is the second time Coast has been relegated from the LCS. Their first departure was after the Spring Split of 2014, making room for compLexity.Black. Their involvement in the Challenger scene was somewhat marred by shady roster moves, including the replacement of two of their key players right before the 2015 Promotion Tournament to bank on two Korean imports to carry the team into the LCS.

When that plan didn’t work, they imported Europeans Matthew “Impaler” Taylor and Jesse “Jesiz” Le, two players that had fairly successful runs on Supa Hot Crew and SK Gaming, respectively. Again, Coast’s management seemed to handle their team much like a 4-year-old would handle Lego pieces — that is, disregard the manual and go wild.

Coast has held valuable individual pieces before, as with the players already mentioned. Other names of note would be Lucas “Santorin” Larsen who now finds success as Team Solo Mid’s jungler, and Greyson “goldenglue” Gilmer, who showed much promise in the mid lane in early 2014.

Coast’s inability to make these talents fit, and their blatant disregard for some of their players in some cases, boxed their team into a corner as the Coast squad’s individual skills could never mesh in the 2015 Spring Split, resulting in the team earning the distinction of having the worst LCS record ever, at 1-17.

To add insult to injury, they pulled what they deemed to be the most salvageable parts of their main roster in Impaler and Jamie “Sheep” Gallagher to put them on their newly acquired challenger squad, Final 5. This allowed Coast to effectively hedge their bets: their main squad was heading for auto-relegation, and their Challenger team was now more stacked, increasing the organization’s chances for indirect requalification. Except F5 failed to qualify.

Now Coast faces the shame of their team’s abysmal record as well as the bad taste of their desperate bids to make and stay into the LCS. Should they look to rebuild, they would do better to build on their infrastructure and make sure they can bring out the best in the players they have, instead of trying to form a patchwork team out of skilled individuals that lack synergy.

Meet Your Makers – #BigSorry

MYM has a lot in common with Coast when it comes to the LCS. The organization has also been relegated in a previous split, and likewise requalified with an entirely new roster, purchasing the players of SUPA HOT CREW, a team that made a name for itself as a top 4 contender in the summer of 2014.

MYM came in dead last in the first split of 2015, managing a 5-14 record (if you include the last place tiebreaker loss to GIANTS! Gaming). Thrashed around for the majority of the split, with most of their losses looking like the team had given up hope on the game, MYM was a squad without conviction.

Even though late additions in top laner Jesper “Jwaow” Strandgren and support Lewis “Noxiak” Felix managed to somewhat revitalize the roster enough to net a few wins in the last weeks, MYM’s spirit seemed collectively crushed.

While outside circumstances wouldn’t normally have such a heavy impact on in-game performance, we cannot overlook what could be the biggest scandal in professional e-Sports this year. MYM’s mid laner Marcin “Kori” Wolksi, a big carry for the team, went MIA right before the start of the split due to claims of non-payment by the management, causing a last minute replacement that started MYM’s season off on the wrong foot completely.

Later, it would be revealed through recorded conversations that the team manager had threatened Kori, claiming he would take Kori’s mother’s house away should the young lad not return to play for the organization.

Marcin “Kori” Wolski, the player at the heart of the MYM scandal

The situation ballooned into a scandal that rocked the entire organization. What is now known as the #BigSorry incident had ramifications such as the MYM higher ups firing the manager in question and Riot redefining their bylaws on player welfare.

Surely no amount of team spirit and in-game preparation could steel these players against the negativity surrounding the banner they played under. Though the team performed poorly, their record will always be held under the lens of a group of players, or at the very least Kori, struggling to make it through the split and ride out their contracts in order to eventually get away from the organization.

While indeed a sad story for the players, the LCS and eSports as a whole, the MYM incident opened many eyes to how important regulation is to the scene and surely prompted certain people to push for better player welfare before the team’s season met its makers.

Welcome to the LCS

Origen – The Chosen Ones

It’s easy to see why Origen made it into the LCS as Europe’s #1 Challenger team. No less than four of its members have attended a World Championship before, and the team was actually founded by a Season 1 world champion in Enrique “xPeke” Cedeño Martínez, who also serves as the team’s captain.

xPeke made the controversial decision to leave Fnatic after the 2014 Worlds event, ending a nearly 4-year run with the team. The driving force behind the drastic change was that the Spanish mid lane legend wanted to create a brand of his own from the ground up, with people he handpicked for success.

Xpeke and the other Origen members, in front of their beautiful gaming house in the Canary Islands

Origen actually follows a line of “vanity projects” sparked by old school European mids. An example would be then Evil Geniuses’ Henrik “Froggen” Hansen, who was given free reign by Alliance to draft his own super team that eventually went on to win the 2014 Summer Split.

While Froggen did not own his team, xPeke’s old rival Carlos “ocelote” Rodríguez Santiago struck out on his own to create Gamers 2. Though Gamers 2 has not found much success even in the Challenger scene, Origen’s first crack at chasing an LCS spot ended in resounding victory.

For now, xPeke seems to be blazing down Froggen’s path at an even quicker pace towards success. The road seemed all too easy for Origen. They only dropped 1 game in the regular season of the EU Challenger Series and they cruised into the playoffs on a bye. What happened next would leave questions in many people’s heads.

Reason Gaming, a team that shouldn’t even have been in the playoffs, was given a second chance when Team Dignitas EU could not field enough players of legal age. Despite their odd circumstances for qualifying, Reason gave Origen a tough series to close out. Yes, Origen won, but for a team stacked with so much talent and experience to be rattled by the 5th place challenger team was unheard of.

Origen makes their first major tournament appearance.

However, it appeared that the series with Reason was but a fluke, as xPeke and crew entered the finals series against Copenhagen Wolves Academy, the only team they dropped a game to in the regular season, and emerged without a scratch. It seemed that appearing live on stage made Origen’s members play better than ever before. Origen completely drove CWA into the ground, sweeping the series and claiming their LCS spot.

The world would have expected no less from such a team, and already many are hopeful that Origen will be a big factor in upsetting the balance of power within the European scene. Only time will tell if these seasoned veterans will live up to the immense hype propelling them into the big leagues, but for now, they look like they have what it takes to be a top team.

Enemy eSports – On the Rise

The winners across the Atlantic are a stark contrast to Origen’s vast wealth of big stage experience. Enemy (NME) only has one player who boasts a prior stint in the LCS — two if you count the two games their top laner played as a substitute.

Tyson “InnoX” Kapler, the former top laner of Evil Geniuses, makes his triumphant return as NME’s mid laner. InnoX showed amazing carry potential during NME’s regular season run, and he styled in the finals with a heavily favored Kassadin pick that completely stomped the opposition.

Though the team never made significant headway in the Challenger Series prior to this year, NME bot lane Brian “otter” Baniqued and Adam “bodydrop” Krauthaker have been trying to get into the LCS for quite some time now.

NME’s fortunes picked up after replacing the rest of the team with an LCS veteran in the mid lane, an LCS worthy sub in the top lane in Cuong “Flaresz” Ta and Jonas “Trashy” Andersen. Trashy, formerly of the H2k-gaming squad that tore through the European Challenger scene, is next up in a growing line of Danish talent making the jump to NA in hopes of a bigger career. So far, the young jungler is delivering in spades.

Enemy celebrates their victory, with otter holding a Poro

NME may be full of green hopefuls, but what sets them apart from many of the previous teams that have dominated Challenger is that they do not rely so much on individual skill. Most of the previous squads that have moved up from Challenger, especially in last year’s Expansion Tournament, have done so with the aid of talent that already saw success on the big stage, while NME merely has the same group-of-friends-that-love-the-game feel as fan favorites, Unicorns of Love.

The best part is that without an established superstar on their roster, they have all the freedom to make a name for themselves in the LCS. With no expectations or doubts weighing down on their shoulders, NME’s trajectory can only go up from here.

Last Chance Lane

While two LCS teams have been replaced, four still seek to buckle down and retain their LCS spots. Up against them are four Challenger teams hungry for a chance to play on the grandest stages in the West.

Will Dignitas and Winterfox manage to fight off the surging Team Dragon Knights and revitalized Team Fusion? What of Team ROCCAT and GIANTS! Gaming? Do they have it in them to turn their disappointing seasons around and shut down the Copenhagen Wolves Academy and a resurgent Reason Gaming?

Stay tuned for the second part of The Promotion Picture, after the conclusion of the 2015 Summer Promotion Tournament.

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