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.

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.

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!