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.

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.

5) Dr Only or Only Hyde?

By all accounts Tainted Minds jungler Only had the breakout performances his widely touted potential had promised during League of Origin. This is fantastic news for him and encouraging news for a Tainted Minds roster looking to emerge from the mire they found themselves in during split one.

A stable presence in the jungle will be just the starting point that TM fans would like to see, as some torrid early games hindered their efforts as split one progressed. Only turned in what were at-times putrid performances, including getting thoroughly manhandled in one game by his lightning-rod of a rookie jungler counterpart from Exile 5 in Guts before rallying to take that set. He’ll want to leave his Split 1 performance behind him and carry his Origin performance into the split. To that end, it’s good that he was able to work closely with tgun while on NSW duties and the two will look to form a strong pairing to accompany rising top lane star Praedyth.

4) Abyss have almost run out of excuses

After picking up a major sponsor and the recent announcement of their ownership investment, this roster, like TM, then secured a young promising top laner and stable veteran support to solidify their squad. The pieces are all there to finally succeed after sixth (after tiebreakers, don’t give me that tied-for-4th PISH when you 0-2 the tiebreaker games) and seventh-place finishes in their first two OPL splits. Looch and Pabu are encouraging solo lane talent, and Rosey is for my money one of the two or three best choices they could have made to unlock the Split 2 2016 edition of Raid. The only remaining question mark was Seb, who was unquestionably one of the 2-3 worst performing players in the entire league last split. If Seb can have a bounce-back performance, then the team is all but set. With that said, though, I remain to be convinced by Looch’s return and I’m far from encouraged by Seb, who is best described as erratic. I would love to be wrong about this, so I’m excited to see them show it on the rift but if they don’t end up getting it together they may have scant few excuses left to account for why.

3) Don’t sleep on the big two top laners

Somewhat lost in the shuffle of the oceanic top lane this split were the historical big two top laners of Swip3rr and Tally. While neither had the breakout split or got to take home the trophy as Chippys did, both veterans brought a deceptively high level of play. Tally seemed to undergo a transformative period in he produced more and more assured tank play. His engages sometimes left a little to be desired but beyond that Tally really began to reach a new level where competency became proficiency. This move to evolve his level on a multitude of play styles indicated an acknowledgement of one of the real strengths of Swip3rr that Tally would benefit from adding to his game.

For his part, Swip3rr continued to display his usual level of play that I feel has become underappreciated. For my money, Swip3rr is still the most meta-resistant top laner in the region and has a deep understanding of how to carry his team when he is not actively carrying the game. Looking back at the gauntlet and comparing how he and Ceres each handled a Fizz with an early lead really shows the stark difference between Swip3rr and OPL top laners not named Swip3rr, Tally, or Chippys. Swip3rr’s big advantage is that he puts up respectable numbers while earning a comparative pittance of gold. The big two Oceanic stars may have a new challenger in Chippys but as impressive as the Dire Wolf has been he’s still not yet the five-tool players in the region that Swip3rr and Tally are.

2) Gut-check time for The Chiefs

The Chiefs have lost games before. The Chiefs have lost series before. The Chiefs have lost playoff games before. Admittedly not many of each, but never before had they lost a playoff series in Oceania, as anyone who watches the OPL is keenly aware. Until Sin, that is. Sin Gaming put forward a workmanlike first two games, running a train through The Chiefs’ bottom lane before The Chiefs spectacularly regained momentum in two bruising victories to knot the series at two. But then uncharacteristically the Chiefs, like a 24-hour McDonalds, didn’t close. They were unable to counteract the mounting pressure of the Fizz elsewhere on the map and got smothered out of the game. As gutting as it would have been the series loss also presents a fantastic opportunity for The Chiefs to really show their quality and put out a display of mental resilience that they’ve not yet needed to show. History has told us that The Chiefs take losses personally and I think they’ll come into this split with a chip on their shoulder and a lot to prove.

1) Dire Wolves vs. Chiefs HYPE~!

This series is, not to put too fine a point on it, going to bloody pop off. The final standings from last split coupled with the performance of the two teams would indicate that it may not be a particularly close series. However the deeper you dig back through the split, the more exciting it gets as you realize the number of unanswered questions this series still has. The prevailing logic that would lean towards a Chief win is “Form is temporary, class is permanent” but the two teams didn’t meet each other in playoffs so even form is misleading to an extent. What jumps off the page is that the Chiefs squad that the Dire Wolves wiped the floor with in what was the fastest series win in league history by my count is not the Chiefs that they’ll meet this weekend. To this end, one notes that the Dire Wolves have not yet beaten the main roster of the Chiefs this year, having lost to them in week one. But thinking back to their Week One meeting serves as a reminder that the Chiefs have not yet beaten this iteration of Dire Wolves either, as Shernfire was serving his two-week suspension. In fact due to the same suspension issue with Korean accounts we have not yet seen Chippys-Shernfire-Phantiks-k1ng-Destiny face off against Swip3rr-Spookz-Swiffer-Raes-EGym and that makes this series truly exciting.

That’s the OPL Take 5 for this week. Hit us up with what you’re excited to see for this week of games!