League of Legends Championship Series (North America)
Spring 2020 Pre-Season Tier List
So I simply don't have the time to do a fully detailed writeup like I did for Europe but I will put my tier list here for reference so you can have some context on my NA wagers. If I get a chance I'll come back to this at a later date, maybe next week.
Tier Definitions:
F Tier - I'm not sure I'll give any of these out but it's mostly reserved for uniquely bad situations like an expansion team or team from a smaller, weaker region at a large tournament.
D Tier - Non-playoff teams that have next to no shot without a miracle developing to have a chance at playoffs. Not all regions will have these. Often rebuilding teams, teams with large rosters and constant swaps of subpar players, or generally weak teams.
C Tier - Non-playoff teams that need a lot of things to go well to have a shot at competing domestically. Often these teams are competing but lack the players and skill to really compete with the stronger teams. Sometimes will beat middle of the table teams but will also drop some games to worse teams.
B Tier - Teams that might make the playoffs or might just miss. Most of the "middle of the table" teams fall into this category. Often they either do one thing well but have weaknesses or they're a pretty solid team that just doesn't have the skill and ability to be much better than they are.
A Tier - Likely playoff teams that could contend for a title if a few things go their way. Usually solid teams with a single weakness or high upside teams with a few question marks.
S Tier - World Championship caliber teams and/or teams that are substantially ahead of their region. S+ rating indicates teams that I feel have a strong chance at winning the World Championship.
Final Tier List:
D:
C: 10) Golden Guardians, 9) Dignitas, 8) FlyQuest, 7) 100 Thieves, 6) Immortals
B: 5) Counter Logic Gaming
A: 4) Evil Geniuses, 3) Cloud 9
S: 2) Team Solo Mid, 1) Team Liquid
NA is fairly clear cut to me in terms of who the definite playoff teams are, it's just a matter of who gets that last spot but unlike Europe, NA has opted, as usual, to go with more veteran and import players to fill in the holes on a lot of these bottom tier rosters instead of young talent so while the upside may not necessarily be there, they should be a bit stronger right away. A lot of the C Tier in Europe have B or higher upside while most of the C Tier in NA are more or less that with less upside.
This is certainly not aging well. Holy crap on TSM, not gonna say fanboi but man, you were dead wrong on them. I didn't think their roster was that strong, Biofrost we already knew was bad, and he showed it in the game against Liquid. Dardoch is great but can only imagine what's going on in his mind right now.
ReplyDeleteAlso, FlyQuest being C Tier is way underselling them. They are really good and look the part.
Dignitas I think are overperforming and are benefiting from veterans who are getting up to speed quicker than teams with less cohesion and more rookies. Don't think they will be this good here-on out. TL once they get Broxah are going to be in S+ Tier with the next closest at A tier. They are that good.