Rumors, rumors, rumors...: All about transfers in League of Legends
Maksym ShylovHello everyone! It should be said that for me personally, this preseason is developing much more interesting than the last World Championship, because it was impossible to guess the defeat of DAMWON KIA in the grand final. Lately, there have been a lot of rumors about reshuffles in this transfer window, and now I will tell you about the bottom, and also share my opinion. Let's get started!
LCS
Let's start with North America. The failures of TSM and Cloud9 had a huge impact not only on the region, but also on the entire esports scene: both of these teams essentially lost their rosters, which is a big disappointment not only for fans, but also for investors. TSM's experience made us understand that money is not everything.
SwordArt completely missed its $ 6 million price tag in two years and was kicked out of the team. Three supports are already being matched in his place: MikyX, who remained on the bench in G2, Life from Gen.G or IgNar from EG. I do not think that Life will agree to change the region, since it will definitely receive good offers from its home region after the end of the contract, and then we will have MikyX and IgNar. Both know English well and have experience of playing at the highest level, but most likely TSM will make a choice in favor of a European player, since at the moment they only have Spica and Huni, who are US residents, which means that the quota for players from other regions have not yet been used up.
In TSM, FATE from Liiv SANDBOX is wooed into mid, and after his departure this option became more likely, although at the very beginning this outcome was skeptical.
Cloud9, even in terms of rumors, is more and more sad than TSM. Insiders unanimously trumpeted that Nisqy had already moved from Fnatic to the North American organization, but in reality everything went wrong and so far the Belgian remains in Europe, although he is not particularly happy about it. PerkZ and Alphari from Team Liquid are almost certainly leaving for Team Vitality, and there is still no replacement. And only recently the news reached us that Berserker, a former ADC player from T1 Challengers, seems to want to fly to America, and Winsome will help him on the bot. In the community, this news caused a great resonance among some people, but it did not seem very significant to me.
In Korea, there is now a "crisis of smart players" and everyone understands this, so sending really good personnel to another region is suicide for the whole region. If Berserker and Winsome do move to Cloud9, this does not mean that they are good players. It is difficult to win on one "mechanic", you still have to be able to think.
At the same time, Team Liquid, despite the departure of Alphari, has an extremely combat-ready team consisting of European players.
Possible Team Liquid roster:
- Bwipo
- Bjergsen
- Hans Sama
- ???
- ???
On paper, this may look like the strongest LCS roster, if you get good jungler and support into it, but there are no rumors about these positions, and no one has left the team yet, and at the same time, everyone unanimously says that the information already "confirmed" for these three players. Wait and see.
The last person I would like to talk about is CLG. It's not even a matter of the possible composition and/or players, but of the rumors around this organization. The fact is that over the past year, many North American players and analysts unanimously say that CLG "literally spoil your life and suck your energy." Most recently, they parted ways with their composition, leaving not a single person behind. WildTurtle has already found a new team, but for the rest of the players everything is not so rosy: very soon the teams will begin to announce their lineups and it is likely that all four will be forced to go to the second division or to the academies. At the same time, CLG does not match talented players either, but only those who are not needed. It is very sad that such an organization has earned a bad reputation and now it will be extremely difficult for it to launder itself.
LEC
In Europe, real chaos reigns, which also created two of the best teams in the region: G2 and Fnatic. If everything is clear with the first ones, then something is going on with Fnatic, but let's talk about everything in order.
The G2s had a terrible season and didn't make it to MSI or the Worlds, although the odds were good. In this regard, the management decides to disband the entire squad except for Caps and gather the squad around him. Jankos also remained as the first piece of the puzzle. The best player of the spring split and the best ADC player of the year, Rekkles, was forced to go to the second division to Karmine Corp... Surprisingly, such a frame was not needed either in LEC or in LCS and I could have "burned" for a long time decision from the leadership of the organization, but it would not change anything. Just to say that, in my opinion, Rekkles brought a lot more value to the team than Caps, requiring less game resources.
In G2, half of the FC Schalke 04 roster (which sold the slot to Team BDS) is matched, and not only the game one: manager, coach, assistant coach, topper. All these rumors do not inspire much confidence, but there is nothing else. From the strongest team LEC G2 we came to the conclusion that few people want to deal with them.
The discord within Fnatic began even before the World Championship, when it became known that Rekkles was leaving G2. It is likely that Upset, when it received information that the former ADC Fnatic is again a free agent, lost motivation to continue playing, because he would have been replaced by a Swede at the end of the season, but all this is just speculation. Upset does not come to Worlds 2021, citing personal circumstances, and instead of him, BEAN sits down - the player of Fnatic Rising. At the same time, BEAN began training long before the start of the World Cup. This became known when we looked at the recordings of games from the BEAN and Upset accounts. The inquisitive minds of the community still think that the reason for missing the main event of the year for Upset lies elsewhere. In parallel with this, drama is developing for Bwipo and his beloved: Bwipo began to play worse and thought about leaving. The news that Nisqy was looking for a new team came after all these twists and turns, but it is understandable that in such an atmosphere few people would want to stay playing.
This is how the two most recent best teams in Europe were left without players and offers from new players. I think that they will not be left with nothing, at least they will receive a lot of offers from players from regional leagues.
Since we have already started talking about FC Schalke 04, I propose to continue. Broken Blade most likely goes to G2, Gilius, sitting inactive, can get into SK Gaming, Neon is wooed into Misfits, but LIMIT can go to Team BDS. The financial problems of the main club, as you can see, did not become problems for the players of the roster, and they have offers from top European teams, which is good news.
Team BDS, which take the place of S04, will not be left without good players either: Cinkrof, xMatty, LIMIT and former G2 coach GrabbZ are among the possible contenders for the hit. In any case, I don't think Team BDS will be able to shoot from the first season, although under certain circumstances I can believe in their trip to Worlds 2022.
LCK and LPL
Despite the big hype around these two regions, we know little about the inner cuisines of China and Korea. Over the past few months, one can only highlight the possible dissolution of FunPlus Phoenix, which apparently has already begun, and the return of Kanavi and other Koreans to LCK. I have no more information from the Asian region.
Outcome
This preseason is truly exciting for the players and teams as well as for us. We will definitely follow the development of events and keep you updated with the latest news in the world of League of Legends. See you soon!
Maksym has been working at EGamersWorld since 2017. Joining the company during his first year at university, he worked as a translator until 2022. After that, Maksym began working as an editor. His main discipline is Dota 2, and over time, Maksym's responsibilities expanded to include CS:GO, CS2 and Valorant. Additionally, as an editor, he publishes various materials on gaming topics.