At its core in 2016 the Dire Wolves were a squad of great mechanical players who couldn’t seem to deliver on the LAN stage at OPL finals, the squad lacked structure, I was constantly left wondering what the Dire Wolves of 2016 might have achieved if they had a coaching structure in place.

Enter 2017, a gaming house a stone’s throw away from the Riot Studios, with an investment backing full of sports expertise and contacts in their network, things were looking up for the Dire Wolves.

But what was the icing on the cake was the acquisition of Shernfire. Out of respect to the encumbent Sybol they tried to balance a dual jungler setup within 6 man roster, but it wasn’t to be and with the decision to make Shernfire the full time jungler, Dire Wolves unleashed a beast onto the rift.

Now we all know how the story goes, Dire Wolves win split 1, have a disappointing appearance at MSI, Win split 2  to qualify for Worlds. And while they couldn’t quite reach their own internal expectations of reaching groups it was always going to be a tough ask.

Here we are at 2018, days shy from seasons start, what can we expect from the wolfpack?

Firstly let’s call out the elephant in the room, it’s extremely disappointing to see Shern cop a 2 week suspension, it has really put a bitter taste in this DW vs CHF week 1 opener. I mentioned earlier how crucial Shern is to Dire Wolves 2017 success and this really hurts the Wolves coming up against a weakened Chiefs lineup.

With that said, it’s only a 2 weeks and there is a 10 week season to playout, in the grand scheme of things the Wolves have a lengthy period of time to recover should things turn pear shaped while Praelus fills in.

The Dire Wolves have retained Chippys in the top lane, this is a great retention for the Wolves, he showed brief moments that he was happy to run tanks top lane but what really unlocks Chippys is giving him the ability to be a split pushing threat. Sherns control of the jungle has really unlocked Chippys gameplay and taken him to the next level, I am very excited to continue to see this players growth in 2018.

A new mid laner is a big change for the Dire Wolves. Replacing a veteran like Phantiks with someone who even approaches how mechanically gifted he was is a big ask. With Phantiks moving onto to become the new head coach of the Chiefs they’ve picked up Triple as a replacement. Triple is a great choice for the wolves, he’s had a really solid stint at Avant gaming and will thrive under the Dire Wolves set up, initially I would see this as a slight downgrade for the Wolves, but give him time and he will show to be a great replacement.

Finally the bottom lane has retained K1ng as ADC with Cupcake being the new Support. This is a really interesting line up, K1ng can look like he is the best ADC of the region, an absolute prodigy, other times looks like he’s switched off, with that said he’s talented and definitely has the drive to compete, he just needs consistency.

Cupcake came as a bit of a surprise, with Destiny leaving and EGym electing to become a caster, the Support pool had really thinned out, as a result the Direwolves have essentially claimed a great support for what was left. With that said, it is important to remember that Cupcakes laning partner last year went on to join Echo Fox, so I’ll be interested to see if Cupcake can prove a point that it wasn’t just Lost carrying the lane.

All in all, It’s a well rounded bot lane that should ensure the Dire Wolves are able to push for title contention.

The Wolves have had a massive 2017 that they’ll be wanting to repeat and have 2017 to learn off and use as a platform to build future success. However the competition this year is on another level and the Wolves will have to dig deep to show that their bite is still as big as their rambunctious jungler’s bork and ensure the Wolf pack can add to their trophy cabinet.

Tectonic received a bit of grief online for their plan with coaching staff, despite it more-or-less resembling what you would see in major orgs overseas, at least as far as structure goes. The team has assembled positional coaches that you may have seen around on the internet in the coaching arena. While this is akin to the staffing structure that Team SoloMid had at one stage, dedicating positional coaches to midgame and teamfighting and getting a separate coach for early game seems to be a bit of cross-pollination of focus. It’s this “too many cooks spoil the broth” risk that saw them catch a few jokes at their expense. The point of bringing up this coaching fiasco is that it all seems to leave little responsibility to their retained Head Coach Jonny “Saiclone” Weatherly. Known as an innovator of unique ideas and strategies, one would hope that it will be his job to solely focus on the strategical play of his team and that his positional coaches will handle the player skill development. By all accounts I know of Saiclone is a popular coach with his players which is an important trait when it comes to a roster such as this. The trust they build between each other will be vital when it comes to facing the challenges that inevitably come the way of inexperienced rosters. The one standout critique of Saiclone is that TM Gaming had a mechanically sound roster in Split 2 that utterly stagnated as a unit and collectively was not any better when they finished than when they started. It will be up to Saiclone and the rest of the staff he has assembled to show Tectonic fans that he has this capability with this newly retooled roster.

Looking first at their carry-over players, and their AD Carry Omar “Low” Abouelkheir, Low was one of the few successes of TM Gaming and it is nice to see him retain his place for the new season. Indeed, even the Dire Wolves noted that he had…well it’s hard to say exactly what they meant but the approximate point is that Low was the only player who seemed to improve at all over the split. It’s a testament to the hard work he put in, and no small amount of credit can be given to what he learned from his former botlane partner in tgun who also brought similar improvement out of Raid and Crayzee in their first splits with the Esports veteran now playing StarCraft. Low had a couple strong Twitch games and only seemed to consistently struggle to farm lined up against FBI and SIN so has all the makings of a competent if not flashy secondary carry.

Slightly more perplexing is retaining mid laner Ari “Shok” Greene-Young. Shok’s highlights included a couple of highlight Orianna ultimates, giving rise to the “Shok-wave” line that followed him around during Split 2. But overall these moments were few and far between and he was dealing nowhere near enough damage to be relied upon as a carry threat, and lost lane far too hard to counteract the utility he provided on the Karma and Galio picks that were frequently his. If Tectonic wanted to retain a control mage player who has a decent Orianna and Karma and has a pocket Zilean, then they already had Wzrd in Split 1 2017 and he rode the bench all last split for TM Gaming…and Wzrd is strictly better version of Shok. Make no mistake, Shok is in this team as a New Zealander representing a New Zealand-based org. There’s nothing wrong with putting a New Zealander on an NZ org in the abstract, on the contrary I think it adds a wonderful identity to the org overall. But when it comes to putting the strongest possible roster onto the rift, then for my money it’s not a good selection metric.

Joining Low in the botlane is Isaac “Tilting” Bellamy. Historically we’ve seen Tilting on mage supports and he is famous for his pocket Sona pick. Tilting returns to the OPL after last appearing on the 2017 Split One Tainted Minds roster, replacing Broler and was uninspiring in his performances. He spent Split 2 with Legacy Genesis in the OCS and was at the forefront of the blow-up involving stand-in coach Burstfire while the rest of the org was away at Rift Rivals. It is hard to judge that team’s performance too harshly, as an incident like that is sure to destabilize any team. It will be up to Tilting to show that with preparation for a full split rather than just the fill-in duty he’s performed in the past that he is more than just an OCS player.

Tectonic completed their roster with two additions from the highly successful Abyss Academy OCS roster. I don’t know a lot about these two players, jungler Ryan “Swathe” Gibbons and wunderkind top laner Daniel “Papryze” Francis. I have watched Papryze a bit in Solo Q and he is rightfully touted as the next Pabu – a pro-ready top laner who has a wide skillset that if develops could fill the void of talent that exists in Oceania once you get past Swip3rr, Tally and Chippys. For Swathe’s part, he didn’t blow me away in the OCS finals that I watched, but he seemed to have a reasonable sense on how to play the pro-style game, more so than a lot of high-elo SoloQ junglers I watched. This is what I’d assign his reasonable Rek’Sai performances in that series to. The other thing I thought he did well is that he got his laners into the game, which is great when you have such a dynamic threat like Papryze on the team. From a roster construction standpoint, the pair coming in together makes a little sense – when the team is likely going to time and again turn to Papryze to need to solo-carry the game to win, it makes sense to have a familiar face in his back pocket coming out of the jungle.

All in all, this Tectonic roster is underwhelming. I hope I’m wrong, because I am super intrigued to see Papryze in the OPL and I’m very curious to see if Low can take the step up and be a leader and show that he’s an OPL-calibre AD Carry all at the same time. I worry about Shok, and I hope this team doesn’t just become a doughnut – solid at the sides but nothing in the middle.

However 2017 was the first year the organisation was unable to find success a strange feeling to the viewers who were so accustomed to the Chiefs dominance, this unfortunately marked the end of an era as this offseason 3 long serving Chiefs members decided to part way with the organisation. With such an overhaul of the starting 5, for the first time in a long time Chiefs fans could find themselves with a lot of unknowns, they can no longer expect Spookz to be in Swiffer’s back pocket of the mid lane or EGym to make his aggressive roams. Luckily for the Chiefs and their fans, they have quickly retooled their lineup to give themselves a genuine shot at the success that has been their birthright.

With the new year, new Chiefs line up, what can fans expect in the coming year? I’ll start with the bot-lane.

Unfortunately Raes has found himself on the wrong end of a 2 weeks suspension, but the Chiefs bottom half of the map is incredibly strong, Destiny is a force to be reckoned with and fans were left in awe of Raes pentakills. The Chiefs success this year will be driven from this bottom lane, it is a lane that should expect to have resources funnelled into it and be ahead most games. On top of this you could probably expect Destiny to pick up the shotcalling duties for the team. If this botlane can’t get the advantages it needs to carry the games, the Chiefs maybe in for a very average season.

One of the core members the Chiefs have retained is Swip3rR for the top lane. Big Swips has been one of the most meta-resistant top laners the region has ever seen and could partly be attributed to the Chiefs long lasting success, he can play tanks, carries, and split pushers…he really does do it all. The problem is now that top lane talent is starting to really rise in talent and it’s no longer a tier list of 2 top laners for the region, Chippys had a breakout 2017 and foreign imports have really filled the regions talent gap.

The final two spots, Jungle and Midlane is where the biggest changes have been made for the Chiefs, it’s also where the most uncertainty lies in their performance.

The prodigal son Ryoma, once a Chiefs substitute has now returned to the throne after a massive season with SIN having the biggest breakout performance of any player in 2017. However the question remains whether he can back this performance in a new team with a different patch that maybe less favourable to his champion pool.

While in the Jungle they’ve stolen what many would have seen as Carbons successor at Legacy, their long-time sub Babip. Babip has plenty of competitive experience at an OCS level with Legacy Genesis but so far to date has no experience in the OPL which leaves most OPL viewers unsure what style of jungling to expect, whatever the case he’s definitely been groomed for success on the top stage and shouldn’t take too long to find his feet.

Chiefs have also made a change in coaching structure with retired Dire Wolves mid laner Phantiks appointed as the new head coach. Phantiks in his retirement tweet did mention his passion and desire to become a coach, while not completely unexpected to find himself in this position, being a head coach for such an experienced organisation feels a little premature.

I was able to ask few questions to Phantiks about how he has found the transition from dominant mid-laner to coach, he believes his biggest strengths as a coach are drawn from his experiences as a competitive player along with “very player first focused dynamic” which he believes he can leverage to ensure the individual skill level of his players reach great heights. I continued to press him about the high expectations Chiefs fans may have, whilst he admitted last year could be seen as a disappointment for the fans, he has assured me that it’s in his nature to be a competitor and has a constant desire to win, this year will be no different with intentions to lead the Chiefs to an OPL title.

Chiefs have the building blocks of a great squad, third place is the absolute minimum for this organisation, however I think people have been over-inflating the tyres Dire Wolves and Order wagon, so if that comes to pass this team really does have the potential to do damage when we get to the pointy end of the season.

Leading ORDER, Simon “Swiffer” Papamarkos joins from long-time home at Chiefs Esports Club, where he forged his reputation as the “best player Oceania has ever produced”.

 Little needs to be said about the accolades he has received over the years – Winning 4 OPL titles; representing Australia on the global stage…he even solo killed Ambition at WCG 2013. A mainstay of Oceanic League of Legends, the value Swiffer can bring to a team can be highlighted by the difficulties the Chiefs had faced while Swiffer was overseas, with Cheese filling his position until return. The Split 1 ’16 Chiefs struggled to a 5-3 record, a major deal for the near unbeatable team of the past, Swiffer returning to lead Chiefs to the OPL title, spawning the now omnipresent phrase “No Swiffer, No Clue”. Coming into the OPL in 2018 Swiffer will be against fierce competition from his opponents if he is to hold onto his position as the best mid laner in Oceania.

Also joining from the Chiefs is long-time partner in the jungle, Samuel “Spookz” Broadley to unite with his mid laner once again. Having been together since 2013 under Exile 5, being able to bring these two players under the same banner is invaluable. Spookz like many junglers in the OPL comes in off the back of an inconsistent 2017. During the season Spookz made uncharacteristic mistakes and had been targeted as a hole in an otherwise strong Chiefs line up which had seen them not only break their streak of OPL titles at 4, but saw them not win a single OPL title in 2017. Spookz will no doubt be seeking to prove his doubters wrong moving in to 2018. Spookz is an emotional leader and when he on-song he leads from the front and rallies his whole team to his call when he gets vocal. With a match up against Dire Wolves being a juicy proposition as Spookz seeks to reclaim his throne as not only the best jungler in the region but as a 2018 OPL Split 1 champion. Along with Swiffer forming a strong base to build around, it is certainly a possibility.

Joining the long-time allies is one of their long-time rivals. Former Legacy sidelane specialist James “Tally” Shute fills the top lane position off the back of a lacklustre 2017. The former OPL MVP spent last season expanding on his craft, often being made to fill a tank position for the team. As a strong mechanical player, without a doubt Tally would’ve liked to have had a flashier 2017 and in 2018 one can only hope that he returns to filling a carry position on occasion that saw his now teammates tremble at PAX 2014. With the way the meta appears to be shaping Tally will be right at home, being able to fill a flexible position playing tanks and carries with equal ease, will look to regain some lost ground to re-establish himself as the strongest top in the region.

A relative newcomer, at least compared to his teammates is AD Carry Victor “FBI” Huang, who joins from SIN Gaming. After a successful debut year, FBI has solidified himself as one of the brightest talents in Oceania bringing himself into contention for the best ADC player in the region in his rookie year. Leaving what was an on-the-rise SIN Gaming, it is of little doubt that FBI joins looking to increase his chances of securing an OPL title. As with the other players on this roster, FBI defines flexibility, while being at home on supportive champions he can play carries to just as deadly of a level. While Oceania has many strong carry players in the position, FBI is by far the most versatile; being able to play supportive champions such as Ashe in particular to a level that far exceeds his peers. It is this fact that makes me certain that FBI will not only build upon his performance in 2017 but look to create a gap between himself and his opposing numbers.

Sticking with both his 2017 bot lane partner and arguably best buddy-cop-duo of 2017 is Jake “Rogue” Sharwood who also joins from the ranks of SIN Gaming. With the departure of EGym Ali God from the competition, Rogue is a perfect position to claim the support throne. The best play making support in the region, Rogue is a deadly and decisive when it comes to engaging. In 2018, it will be interesting to see how far Rogue diversifies from this status as on SIN Gaming he often found himself as the primary source of engage, and an ever versatile ORDER roster may be filling a defensive role from time to time. An interesting point of note is that Rogue also exceeds his peers when it comes to pushing a vision line forward, a job that many a team in the OPL struggled to fulfil. However, this is not without fault as this tendency to push vision could be punished upon resetting, leaving gaps in vision that force a more defensive style upon said reset. That being said, without a doubt Rogue will come into 2018 looking to solidify his position as the top support in the region, and alongside FBI, the best bot lane.

ORDER has without a doubt, been able to build one of the best rosters that the Oceanic region has ever seen. Building a roster from scratch can be a difficult task and with the securing of familiar pairings of Swiffer and Spookz, and FBI and Rogue has led to foundations having previously been built before the rift has even been taken.

This roster is the big unknown, there’s lots of mystery about how this team might perform to those outside of the inner workings of the OPL. Two new imports from Europe’s challenger scene and 2 players serving a 2 week ban makes it difficult to put your finger on the pulse for this team.

Christian “Sleeping” Tiensuu comes in similarly to Flaresz/Dhokla where no-one is sure what to expect. While Sleeping will be pivotal to the Bombers success, can he be dominant enough to steam roll over the likes of big Swips and Chippys? Sleeping has had a small amount of competitive experience, his most well known accolade to date will be reaching his highest rank of 11 on the EUW server, his solo queue history tells us that we can expect Sleeping to be a carry orientated top laner, with Jayce/Riven/Jax/Fiora being 4 of his top 5 champions played in season 7.

However Sleeping may be looking to round out his overall play and become a more meta resistant top laner. This preseason he has expanded his champion pool by adding Rumble and Gnar to his arsenal. If his solo queue champion pool is anything to go by, Sleeping will be the lane the Bombers will be looking to unlock to bring success.

Sebastian “Seb” De Cegile is the mainstay of this team and has been in every Abyss roster since joining the OPL, yet he’s somewhat fortunate to be on this roster. You wonder how someone like Seb would perform in a better environment with coaching and better laning on offer, but coming off a very ordinary 2017 he will need to prove himself in 2018. It is also important to note that Seb has been juggling the OPL with his studies, apparently even during the 2017 in-house season so the Bombers will be hoping that going full-time will be the key to unlocking the best of Seb.

Carlo “Looch” La Civita is the bad boy of the OPL – another competitive ruling and yet he managed to avoid a harsher penalty than his colleagues despite being a repeat offender. Looch has had a big fall from grace since his Rookie of the Split honour in 2016 Split 2, a massive feat considering he beat both Lost and Raid for this award. Looch really does have the potential to put this team on his back, but the Rookie split of Looch seems so long ago after a painful 2017.

Alan “Tiger” Roger and Andrew “Rosey” Rose has the ability to really shake up the landscape of the OCE bottom lanes, forming a real chemistry that the Bombers haven’t seen since Scott Lucas and Matthew Lloyd. Rosey has been a laning partner to OPL ADC royalty with Raydere and Lost and his most recent bottom lane partner Raid earned a promotion to Legacy. Rosey definitely has the experience but what seems to be a red flag is that his teams seem to slide with his performance. The prospect of seeing if this bottom lane can stay toe-to-toe with the heavy hitters of Raes/Destiny, King/Cupcake and FBI/Rogue is an exciting one. Should Tiger and Rosey be able to find their stride OPL bottom lanes will be an absolute joy to watch this split, aspiring pros take notes!

What is also an interesting addition to this roster is their coach changing, I was far from impressed with Drak in 2017 and bringing in Scott “Windowsmonkey” Farmer could be a great start, he was around with the team in Split 2 2016 when they narrowly lost a playoffs birth in tiebreakers. This will be Windowsmonkeys first attempt at full time coaching, giving him the opportunity to grow into his role and he has quite a large job on his plate in making sure this team can gel and play to its potential. I was able to get a comment from Windowsmonkey about how he hopes to unlock this team, He believes that “the facilities that the Essendon Football Club has provided will be the driving factor to allow him to develop the squad”.

Potential will be the buzzword for the Bombers, as this roster has a very high ceiling with a number of questions on how they may perform. If all goes well, they could end up in play-offs threatening to end a team’s run. However if the imports flunk, Looch can’t dominate his lane with 10CS/Min and the Bombers find themselves falling into the 2017 Abyss ways, they’ll be warming themselves up to a disappointing 6th place with ambitions of a split 1 top 3 finish up in flames.

Importantly for the organisation, they have retained the services of head coach Luchio “Soulstrikes” Park. Soulstrikes adds supreme gameplay knowledge, an eye to innovate without torpedoing his squad with off-meta picks, and OPL experience as a coach which is a rare combination among coaches. He’s added international experience with his appearance at Rift Rivals with Legacy. My take on Soulstrikes is that he is naturally a collaborator and this approach is perfect to build a young squad from the ground up.

2017 was a Jekyll-and-Hyde year for Brandon “Claire” Nguyen. Had he spent split 1 in an org that had Legacy’s expectations but was perhaps not as dedicated to player development as Legacy is known for, he may very well have not made it to split 2. Claire paid off Legacy’s faith in him with a significantly better latter half of the season. Retaining Claire gives the Legacy some much-needed organisational continuity as they rebuild the rest of the roster. Ask anyone with any background in high-elo Oceanic league of legends and they will tell you about the monster Claire, the scrim god that haunts the mid lane. He also has his signature series to his credit which came out of Split 1, a masterful Viktor that was some of the most sumptuous teamfighting you’ll ever see out of a control mage.  This is the Claire that Legacy are banking on seeing. Claire is now the local centrepiece that they intend to build around, and the starting point for the dominant solo lane play of days gone by for the green and black legion.

The addition of Lachlan “Sybol” Civil into the jungle is an intriguing pickup. With long-time development prospect Babip heading to eternal rivals The Chiefs it seemed that Legacy were content to let Claire and Raid to provide the leadership from the traditional carry roles. Not the easiest of tasks. Legacy’s great fortune was having veteran jungle presence Sybol fall into their lap after Avant pivoted to their youth movement. At least, it would have been incredibly fortunate 12 months ago. Sybol went through a true period of adjustment in 2017 as it started being released from the Dire Wolves for a crime no more sinister than being not as good as Shernfire, a description that arguably describes every jungler on the server. He started brightly for Avant, but as the year progressed his consistency abandoned him. With that said, he has incredibly high peaks and some frightening champions in his pool. All Sybol has known before 2017 was stability and if Legacy can provide him that I would tip his experience to lead him once more towards the top of the oceanic jungle pile that he has previously called home.

Joining Claire after an inconsistent year of his own is the former Abyss ADC Julian “Raid” Skordos. Over his career Raid has played one very ordinary Split 1 and two absolutely stellar Split 2’s. Despite taking flak for being able to only carry his team as far as the line without getting them over it, with the declining spiral of Looch’s performances he was playing with some of the heaviest Rock Lee training weights since the Chiefs tried to carry lqdcheese. Raid’s strengths are safe laning and consistent damage. He has consistently among the best numbers outside the big 4 oceanic AD Carries – (FBI, K1ng, Raes and Lost) and was arguably the “best of the rest” outside these four. To the credit of his critics, he hasn’t shown the “pop-off” tendencies that have been seen from examples such as the hero play to close out Sin in the split 1 gauntlet from his Legacy predecessor in Lost, so Legacy will need to account for this. They will have entered free agency knowing they were not going to get as complete a player as Lost, and Raid is the best player to fit the aims of their roster construction, which is built around their solo laners.

Joining Raid in the bottom lane is Daniel “Decoy” Ealam. This move increases Legacy’s Elam/Ealam counter to two. Decoy came into a Regicide outfit that was kind of spinning its wheels with a subpar Kpop and after being fed to the wolves in his first match against the Chiefs was impressive on a team that began to ramp up through the two-man support rotation between himself and Chenxuan.  His win/loss rate was quite poor, but so was Regicide’s, and his efforts in-game showed that there’s some talent that Decoy brings to the table. There’s not much more that can be said about Decoy’s young career, but given that Legacy needed to go to the Free Agent pool for a support there was probably only one or two other names that were on the same level of ability, so this addition locks up a solid if unspectacular botlane, and that’s frequently all you need when you build around your solo laners.

The last of these solo laners is Legacy’s shiny new import, Min “Mimic” Ju-seong. Mimic has a career path that has only spanned two full years but has plumbed the full range from the mighty KT Rolster all the way to the national leagues of Europe. Mimic was most recently on EU CS team Millennium where they endured a shocking time, winning only a single series and the roster disbanded before the org failed to requalify for the summer split of the Challenger Series. Mimic’s play in EUCS was best on tanks, though it is hard to pick out performances when he only won three games out of ten. He has been trying to augment this with some strong recent SoloQ play on Camille, Jax and Jayce in low KR master tier. Legacy have acknowledged in this pickup that they want to be able to control the game through solo lane play and have looked to the example set by Sin in 2017 that and concluded that importing was the best way to do it. Being able to secure even a journeyman import like Mimic is a huge boon for Legacy and the OPL as a whole and Legacy will be hoping his diverse experiences will fill the hole left by the departing Tally.

As a collection of names the players Legacy have picked up don’t fill you with the confidence that they will live up to the…institution…of success that the organisation has displayed. But what I like about this roster is that it’s been created with a plan in mind. They believe in their solo laners, and they secured a veteran jungler who prefers and looks best when he is ganking for his laners over controlling and being a teamfighting presence. Add into that a safe and solid botlane that you only want them not to overbalance the map and it’s clear to see Legacy’s path to success. All that’s left now is for Soulstrikes to get them firing and hope that talent doesn’t let them down.

It is only appropriate that we address the retention of Brandon “Juves” Defina. The life-blood of SIN gaming, Juves brings a wealth of experience, having been the sole remaining member from not only 2017 but, since the organisations inception at the beginning of 2015. The SIN captain has seen a myriad of players come and go in this time and with a rebuild on this scale, is possibly the most important member to be retained. While he may never be held in the discussion for best jungler in the OPL, by many he may even be regarded as one of the bottom players in OPL, he certainly has a knack for coming out of seemingly nowhere to secure influential leads – after all he outsmited Levi! His value truly comes from his experience, leadership and personality, not only for the players but for the organisation as a whole. Juves has the power to bring viewers in to watch SIN games, and is one of only a handful of players in OPL to be able to do this. I have absolutely no doubt that with Juves at the helm that SIN will be able to once again foster young talent into top OPL talent in due course.

Moving down the roster, we introduce a familiar face to the OPL with Mark “Praedyth” Lewis moving from TM Gaming to join SIN. Praedyth brings a style that can be directly compared with Dhokla, setting up for almost a seamless transition for Juves to be able to play around. Known for his ability to play split pushing carries, he joins a long line of former SIN gaming top laners that have been known for this exact ability. However, while being known for this ability he struggled to execute on a struggling TM roster that went through tumultuous changes in the first split, and lacked leadership in the second. One could argue that his struggles were due to a systematic issue within the team itself, as opposed to individual – with Juves guiding his hand, it is definitely possible we see significant improvement in this area. However the primary concerns lie in his poor sense of how to engage and when. With top lane often being the primary engage tool, inside of “tank meta” it should be expected that Praedyth struggle, unless SIN look to capitalise on counter pick opportunities to allow him to play his natural style. While not the best of the free agents, SIN have certainly done a good job in filling the hole left by Dhokla with a player in a similar mould.

Continuing to the mid lane, we see our first new face to the OPL, Dimitry “Bdoink” Botov. Coming off of his 3rd split in the OCS, Bdoink returns to the organisation that gave him his taste of competitive League of Legends having played for the SIN academy roster in 2016. Originally renowned as a Yasuo one trick, his champion pool has expanded over the years being able to play a myriad of champions. However, based off of his 2017 performance, you can only rate this as a significant downgrade from Ryoma and within the role that is filled with the most talent one can only expect him to struggle, entering the OPL as one of it’s weaker mid laners. However, in the past Bdoink has shown rapid improvement when he joined the OCS in 2016, yet stagnated somewhat in 2017. Fans of SIN gaming can only hope that upon joining the OPL, Bdoink is able to once again rapidly improve upon joining the top league in Oceania.

Another new face, Ronan “Dream” Swingler (formerly known as PVA) fills the void left by FBI. Dream comes into SIN Gaming having limited experience, playing only two games in the OCS under Lynx. While the overall performance was slightly above average, and with the limited sample size it is difficult to give a true gauge on how he will perform in the OPL. However FBI joined last year with even less, and proved to be a top 3 ADC in the region without a doubt. While the sample size is limited to solo q and the two games of Ashe played in OCS it would appear that Dream does not appear as comfortable as being as source of engage as FBI did, where due to how meta was tailored in 2017 and how SIN played, FBI was able to carry despite being in a utility position. Dream will have large shoes to fill in 2017, and I’m not entirely sure if he will be able to perform to an OPL level but is definitely worth giving him a crack given the parity a majority of OCS ADC’s have shown in 2017.

Lastly, Mike “Cuden” Le makes his return to the OPL having spent the most recent split with Abyss in the OCS. While Cuden may have three splits of OPL experience, he has never truly solidified his position in a team having changed teams in each of these splits, SIN will be his fourth. Cuden is often criticised for his lack of aggression, staying true to the player he was when he joined having been known for his Soraka. This is in stark contrast to the player Rogue was, being the aggressive playmaker and possibly the best playmaker from the support position in the OPL. Cuden will have big shoes to fill being paired with the rookie Dream, and having the experience of three splits in the OPL will definitely have to fulfil a primary engage role at some point given what we already know about Praedyth. In 2018 hopefully we witness a more aggressive Cuden.

All in all, SIN were in an exceptionally difficult position to fill the voids that they were left with, while they were largely left with the scraps they have been able to pull together a roster that has a good balance of experience and new faces. While in 2018 I have this roster falling towards the bottom, they have the tools to create some upsets.

Looking first at what hasn’t changed, and that’s Charles Wraith returning as coach, and Myles “Blinky” Irvine along with Jayke “Jayke” Paulsen as their bottom lane. Retaining Wraith, to me, is a case of “The Devil You Know” as he has been decent enough without blowing me away with his efforts. Avant’s own AV Life production has on occasion highlighted deficiencies in his approach. That said, he does have the marquee victory over Legacy that I personally attribute a great deal to his preparation as a great feather in his cap and I know for a fact the work and effort he has gone to in order to attempt to develop as a coach. that sort of commitment to improvement can be infectious which is perfect for a young team like Avant’s.

Jayke will be entering his third OPL year and has made a name for himself as sound leader of young men. He has quietly developed as a support over the last year after spending 2016 with what I called the worst ADC in the league in each split. With the stability to continue to grow alongside Blinky for another year and what was a breakout performance at League of Origin, Jayke is a sneaky-good option to step up into the pantheon of top 3 OPL supports with the departure of EGym and the unknown status of Destiny. Jayke held a perfect pocket pick Malzahar throughout the course of 2017 but had an indifferent record on his most played champions. This will be the final piece missing from his play to take that next step.

The retention of Blinky is a move I would describe as “Okay-plus” which may be damning him with faint praise but I think Oceania’s ADCarries are probably our deepest position, talent-wise. It’s a competitive field that he is neither at the top nor bottom of. He was below 50% win rate on Varus, by far his most played champion (10 more than second and third most played), and not even in the top 5 best-performing champions, per best.gg. He also had underwhelming performances against competition that he should have done better against, as we’ve written about previously. All this being said, it was his debut year in the OPL and he did show flashes on certain champions, particularly Kalista, so with a more productive trip to Korea and a dedication to training we could see a much improved Blinky. I don’t think we’ve yet seen his final form.

Moving into the positions where we actually saw changes, adding Jackson “Pabu” Pavone to the top lane is a massive upgrade and, at the risk of calling it early, the most impactful move that will be made this offseason. For every great game Avant got out of Ceres they received at least two complete stinkers in return. Before Pabu came of age, your team either had Chippys, Swip3rr or Tally, or your top laner was irrelevant. The closest anyone came to breaking the holy triumvirate was Paradise/ZZZ. But with Pabu you have a competent top laner who has room to develop into something so much more. The only concern is that I think as the season wore on, Pabu and Abyss lost sight of what makes him a special prospect, but I’m backing Avant to correct this pretty quickly. This was going to be the best top laner on the domestic free agent market outside of the big three, and Avant have done a tidy piece of business securing his services.

Looking at the jungle we find an odd roster move to assess. The change of Sybol into Jordan “Only” Middleton I would classify as an investment in talent rather than taking the best-producing player, which may have seen Avant retain a player like Sybol. To peruse Only’s Gamepedia match history would be to paint a bleak picture of 7-29 in OPL games over the course of his 2017 season. But it is often said that one’s W/L record is not reflected of their skill at the best of times and being attached to the sinking-without-trace TM Gaming roster is far from the best of times. His gameplay throughout the year belied the mere wins and losses in that stat. He had a standout League of Origin and started freshly in split 2 before becoming “patched out” and tailing off to an extent while the TM staff were unable to set him up to transition him to success. In the immediate term this swap is a downgrade but I’m backing the Avant staff to do a much better job of shaping the talent that Only displayed at his peaks into a competitive jungler. I like the pickup, I really see it paying dividends as the season plays out.

It can’t all be sunshine and lollipops for this roster though and so with all this said we move to their midlane pickup in Leon “Frae” Lee. In fairness to the Avant leadership, they were losing one of the top 4 (top 3 with the retirement of Phantiks) mids in the region, so unless they managed to land Swiffer or Ryoma to replace Triple, they were going to downgrade. There is absolutely no shame in being worse at League of Legends than Triple. Most of us are. My area of concern is that he has been a standout player on a number of very bad teams and I have questions as to his impact on those teams. Few who have watched him doubt his mechanical prowess, but trailing after his wake are stories of a player who is less than pleasant to deal with when things turn south. It will be up to his (ample) abilities and the rest of Avant to keep this from happening and if they can’t it will be up to Frae to show that these stories were either wrong or a thing of the past. I’m extremely hesitant about this pickup from a “fit” standpoint, though it does bare mentioning that if Avant wanted the most talented free agent available to fill Triple’s void, then Frae is certainly towards the very top of that list.

Avant did good, early business to secure these players overall. I don’t have the on-paper roster cracking the top 3. So until we see these teams play some League of Legends my personal take is that they’re “the best of the rest” and are the most likely team to cause a ruckus among the top 3 of Dire Wolves, Chiefs and ORDER.