European teams have their starting rosters ready for the upcoming season of the League of Legends European Championship.
Ever since the 2019 World Championship finished, the League scene has been focused on news of its many roster shuffles, free agencies, and new players joining the league, while veterans are moving to other regions.
After weeks of rumors, leaks, and announcements, most teams are now ready for the 2020 LEC Spring Season. Here are all the official LEC roster changes that happened so far during this offseason, together with an outlook to what’s coming in January.
Having joined LEC for the 2019 season, Excel is a young team in the scene, and the lack of experience shows in its lack of results. After finishing the regular season as the last team, Excel is heading into 2020 with a new bot lane. Both Patrik and Tore, who was previously known as Norskeren, are bringing in skills from higher levels of LEC play. However, a lot of work will be on their backs if they wish to take this team to the playoffs.
Schalke finished LEC 2019 Summer in fourth place with its former jungler Trick earning himself the player of the game title four times during the split. Although they had potential, the team didn’t stand a chance against the biggest names in the league.
Going into 2020, Schalke’s performance will depend on FORG1VEN. If the bot laner will be able to perform as well as he did before taking a military break, Schalke will be a team to reckon with, but that outcome could go either way.
It’s expected that Fnatic will stand at the top of Europe. With a number of regional titles under its belt, Fnatic finished the 2019 season as the second-best team, failing only behind G2. Therefore the team wasn’t in need of big changes for 2020.
By bringing one of the best junglers in the LEC to the roster and re-signing the rest of the team, Fnatic will very likely continue to dominate the regional league. If the synergy works out, the team might even have a shot at another international title.
Ever since Caps joined G2, no other European seemed to be able to come close to besting this team. From winning 2019 Mid-Season Invitational, running through LEC 2019 Summer with 15-3 record, to playing in the Worlds 2019 finals, G2 proved not only to be the best team in Europe, but also one of the best in the world.
Showcasing its flexibility, G2 is starting 2020 with the same roster but with Caps in bot and Perkz back to mid. The role switch worked for the team once, so there’s no reason to believe it won’t work this time around too.
Misfits wasn’t a team considered to be able to compete at the highest level, and 2020 is looking much the same. With most of the roster joining the team for the first time in the upcoming season, it’s unclear how Misfits will perform. But the odds are the roster will stay in the bottom half of the league for another year, especially without Paul “sOAZ” Boyer and Kang “GorillA” Beom-hyun, players that performed the best in the previous roster.
If there’s a team whose performance will surprise everyone at LEC 2020, it’s Origen. Through the team’s previous seasons, the team had many ups and downs, and the LEC 2019 Summer Split was one of the downs.
Finishing the regular season ninth overall, Origen had to make big moves heading to 2020, and now it does have a good chance to become one of the best teams in the region again. In theory, the new roster makes for a very scary one, especially with additions of Xerxe and Upset who are both highly skilled players in important roles.
Having only joined the league this past season, Rogue has been steadily getting better at competing. From last place in the LEC 2019 Spring to fourth place in the Summer Playoffs, the team has shown improvement.
But whether or not it will continue to grow at the same pace will heavily depend on Hans Sama, Rogue’s only new signing for 2020. The bot laner had some good performances with Misfits in 2017, but has recently been lacking success. Rogue has a chance to do better if he steps it up.
SK hasn’t achieved much lately to be proud of. The team finished the LEC 2019 Summer Split seventh, and was no threat to the league’s top-tier teams. SK is hoping to turn its luck around with the addition of Trick, who is individually a highly skilled jungler, but this likely won’t be enough to push the team to the playoffs. No player on the new roster has before been considered a star.
Splyce was one of the three teams that represented Europe at the 2019 World Championship after taking second place at LEC 2019 Regional Finals. But the team ownership’s decision to shut down Splyce and rebrand the team as MAD Lions resulted in most of its previous roster leaving.
The three new members aren’t really at the level Splyce was in 2019, and the team is very likely to fall behind the best regional teams its previous roster was challenging. Another Worlds ticket doesn’t seem reachable for Lions this year.
Read more: Splyce rebrand to MAD Lions, introduce new roster for LEC Spring
Vitality has consistently been mingling at the middle levels of the European league. It was the sixth team in the LEC 2019 Summer Split, and it doesn’t seem like the 2020 season will be much different. With the three new members having zero experience in the LEC, Vitality’s new starting roster isn’t looking as promising as before, and it’s very unlikely the team will have a shot at taking down the LEC’s biggest teams.
All eyes will be on Milica, a rookie that has the potential to push the underperforming team a step forward.
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