5. NRG Esports

Well so far in 2016 there’s been two blogs, and now two basketball references! NRG come to be when Team Coast’s LCS spot was bought by the Sacramento Kings.

Furthermore, I’m a big fan of plays on words, and if you spell NRG out instead of pronouncing it Ehnerguh, it sounds like energy! I bet you didn’t pick up on that!

This team has the potential to be top 3, or they could totally crash and burn. Impact was great on Impulse last year, and Altec had the potential to be NA’s number one ADC if Gravity didn’t plummet last split.

I think Moon definitely has potential to be a top tier jungler, but we’ll see how his dominance of the challenger series transitions into playing on stage.

As far as mid laner GBM goes, I am a big fan of people who wear bow ties, especially when it’s on stage during a competitive LoL match. What? Bow ties have absolutely nothing to do with someones skill? That’s ludicrous! On a serious note, GBM was once a great Korean mid laner, but has since been on the decline.  However, you don’t need to be a great Korean mid laner to be a good NA mid laner, so he’ll likely have success this split.

6. LA Renegades

Woah! There’s a girl on this team!  This team is like the Bad News Bears, once the really good dude with the motorcycle (Freeze) joins the team. This metaphor might not make any sense, because of the fact they qualified for LCS before Freeze joined, but just picture Montecristo in Billy Bob Thornton’s role and its absolutely hilarious.

Freeze was one of, if not the best ADC in Europe last year. He definitely was at least top 3.  And if you add the fact he did all this while playing for last place team Copenhagen Wolves, and he could be the best player who’s ever set foot on the rift.

The two established veterans on this team, Alex Ich and Crumbzz were both top players on two storied franchises in their careers. M5 may have blew Dignitas out of the water, but still if you were looking to build a team around two knowledgeable pros, these two were a good choice.

As far as the rest of the team goes, Remilia has proven she can make plays in the Challenger Series, and with an ADC like Freeze, she’ll just continue to improve. RF might be a little shaky at first, but this kid uses his elo to try and get chicks, so he’s already a legend in my book.

I’m definitely rooting for them, and this could be huge crowd favorite.

7. Echo Fox

Rick Fox bought a League of Legends team, and he put his name in the team name! He also got Froggen!

Froggen showed at all-stars that he is definitely still a force to be reckoned with. And I’d like to remind you all that KEITHMCBRIEF has a higher winning percentage on Liquid than Piglet did/does.

But this team is basically Rick Fox when played basketball.  It might be good, but there’s just too many Lakers/teams better than him/this team, for Echo Fox to go anywhere.

Hard was good on C9T, but C9T never went anywhere and always collapsed when it came to qualifying for the LCS.

Kfo has never been on a pro team before, and is just a Korean Soloq star. That being said the last Korean Soloq star that signed to an NA team was Rush, and he become league MVP.  Furthermore, I know for a fact kfo isn’t Keane, but for some reason I always think kfo is Keane. I don’t know man, that’s going to bother me.

Lastly, why is Baby on this team when Xpecial was available?

8. Team Liquid

Yeah, this team is going to finish 4th by some miracle, solely because it’s their destiny.

I don’t know if I like the idea of a ten man roster.  On one hand, it’s good to keep your starters on their toes to keep them playing at their best. On the other hand, it could absolutely kill their confidence. However, if this leads to Piglet being benched for Fabbbyyy, it’ll all be worth it. Just for the analysis/reddit reactions of Fabbbyyy replacing a world champion.

I do think FeniX and Piglet are good, but to me Piglet just has too many negative qualities that outweigh the good. He has the potential to hard carry, or tilt this team into the bottom three.

I’m glad they’re giving Lourlo a chance, by picking him up to be their starting top laner.  I just don’t know how well he is going to do. But you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, and I hope Lourlo dunks his.

Maybe Smoothie will be good? Maybe IWDominate isn’t on the decline? Who knows. I just think this whole thing is way too convoluted.

But I do want Fabbbyyy.

9. Dignitas

Dignitas looked good in their first game at IEM Cologne. Then they proceeded to ruin that, and throw the whole series at Baron.  But what was anyone expecting, it is Dignitas.

I don’t think this team is good! Apollo lucked out when he was on TIP, because he didn’t have to play AD carry. He was playing “AD Rush, XwX, or Impact will carry, no one pay attention to me please.” Which there’s nothing wrong with that! But on this dig team, they’re going to need something out of him.  And I don’t think he’s going to deliver.

Shiphtur has his moments, sure, but there’s just so many better mid laners than him this split.

Kirei has the most promise on this team, but the addition of him and SmittyJ don’t have the same wow factor as many of the other newcomers to NA.

KiWiKiD is fun, I guess.

10. Team Impact

This team is like the Bad News Bears before the cool kid with the motorcycle joins the team. Bad.

This team is going to be bad.

Really Bad.