The Mid-Season Invitational is here and the best teams from their respective regions will battle it out. This time it is not just for a title, but also for seeding at the 2016 World Championship. I have ranked all six teams attending the event based on their individual player strength, teamwork, macro play, shot calling, execution, and understanding of meta. I have also predicted each teams’ record through the group stage as well.
S Tier
SK Telecom T1 (10-0)
It should come as no surprise that the best team in the world is ranked at number one. Coming off of a third LCK title in a row where they defeated the ROX Tigers, and considered by many to be the best team in the world in the Spring, SKT are once again on top. Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok has continued his reign as the best player in the world, making outstanding and game-changing plays on all sorts of champions. Bae "Bang" Jun-sik has ascended and is now arguably the best AD carry in the world.
Their newest additions, Lee "Duke" Ho-seong and Kang "Blank" Sun-gu, were shaky during the regular season but found form during the playoffs, with Duke winning the Playoff MVP. The team has had some questionable pick/ban phases during their playoff run, but their teamwork and execution has led them to success. Even in games where they seem to be losing, their stellar individual play often gets them out of trouble.
With the most talented roster and the best team play at the event, I do not see SKT dropping a game in the group stages. Maybe FW or G2 could take advantage of Blank’s inexperience and win the mid-jungle 2v2 and snowball the game. However, history shows us that it is nearly impossible to completely shut down Faker and he always finds a way to impact the game in the later stages. At the last international event SKT went undefeated all the way through and won the title, and they had just incorporated Blank into the lineup. That event was a turning point for SKT, and since then they have only continued to get better. They should go through the group stages without dropping a game.
A Tier
Flash Wolves (7-3)
G2 Esports (6-4)
FW and G2 play very similar styles and have similar team make-ups. They both like to play with low-economy top laners in order to get their jungle-mid duo ahead. They both also have subpar AD carries who somewhat compensated for by their supports. With the two teams being so similar, it was very difficult to decide who to put ahead, but I gave the edge to FW due to their prior international experience and team coordination.
Huang "Maple" Yi-Tang has already shown that he can perform on an international stage as he was a stand out for FW at the 2015 World Championship. Hung "Karsa" Hau-Hsuan did underperform at that event, but he was taken out of his comfort zone by having to play tank junglers like Rek’Sai. The current meta favors his more damage carry jungle style. Luka "PerkZ" Perkovi? and Kim "Trick" Gang-yun dominated in the first season in EU LCS, but neither have any international experience. This event will provide the best mid lane and jungle competition they have faced, and they will have to prove that they can perform at this level.
In terms of team play and execution, FW are much cleaner in their map rotations and tower dives. G2 have a tendency to be over-aggressive and push their advantages too far, sometimes costing them some of their leads and elongating their games, where FW seem to be wiser with their leads and close out games faster than G2. Teams in EU may not have been able to consistently punish the overextension of G2, but teams like SKT, FW, and even RNG or CLG can exploit those tendencies. This is why I give the slight advantage to FW.
B Tier
Royal Never Give Up (4-6)
Counter Logic Gaming (3-7)
I almost wanted to put these two teams into a lower tier to create more separation between them and the A tier. RNG were able to defeat EDward Gaming in the LPL Spring Finals in order to get to MSI, but did not look very impressive. In fact, EDG were underwhelming in that final and it looked like they lost that series more than RNG won it. However, RNG did finish in first place in their group and had times during the regular season where they looked strong. After beginning to incorporate Zhu "NaMei" Jia-Wen into the lineup towards the end of the season, RNG seemed to develop two different play styles.
With NaMei at AD carry, they seem to focus on team fighting and objective play since NaMei has shown weakness in the laning phase. With Wang "wuxx" Cheng at AD carry, RNG are more focused on being lane dominant with Li "xiaohu" Yuan-Hao as one of the better mid laners in LPL and wuxx and Cho "Mata" Se-hyeong being strong as a duo lane. Unfortunately for RNG, neither of these two styles has been consistently effective for them and there are times when they do not seem to know what to do in games. They seem to have a very wide spectrum of potential for how well or otherwise they can play, at times looking strong and controlled and other times looking confused and lost.
CLG was barely able to win in NA against Team SoloMid due to their lack of individual skill, with the individual strength of TSM nearly compensating for the disparity in team synergy. CLG thrives off of their superior macro play and team coordination in NA, but it remains to be seen whether this will work at the international level. CLG finished in last place at the IEM World Championship, and we saw that they just could not match up in terms of talent. Zaqueri "Aphromoo" Black is able to shot call around the pressure exerted by Darshan "Darshan" Upadhyaya in NA, but internationally Darshan has never been very effective.
Without the split push pressure from the top lane, CLG fails as a team. Aphromoo is the only player on the team that can stand up internationally and as a whole, aside from the wildcard team, CLG has the least skill of any of the teams. Their team coordination and macro play is their strongest asset and they may be able to rotate and avoid the enemy team enough to take objectives and win a few games, but I do not see how they can match up to the sort of talent the other teams at this event possess.
C Tier
SuperMassive eSports (0-10)
As the International Wildcard team, expectations for SUP are not high. Mustafa "Dumbledoge" Kemal Gökselo?lu and Berke "Thaldrin" Demir have some international experience, as they attended MSI last year, but they were not able to win a single game. Man-for-man, SUP easily have the weakest lineup at the event and it is difficult seeing how they will win a single game, barring some massive underperformance from one of the other teams.
SUP are good at diving into enemy backlines and taking out the carries in team fights. Koray "Naru" B?çak, especially, is known for his ability to get into the backline and eliminate an enemy damage threat, sometimes at the cost of his own life. Perhaps if SUP are able to get into the backlines of a team like CLG or RNG, they may be able to swing a late game fight and pick up an upset. Besides that, SUP should be focused on gaining experience, learning from their loses and using the information gained to improve as a team.
-Images from Riot flickr, LoLeSports, RiftHerald, surrenderat20, and ESL
