The offseason of League of Legends is almost over, with LCS and LEC about to return for the 2021 season. Now that all the lists have been cut, Dexerto takes a look at the biggest winners and losers from the free agency LoL.
The 2020/21 off-season may have been one of the biggest in the League’s history. Several high-profile veterans, including Bjergsen, Doublelift, have gained time in their historic careers, and dominoes have fallen in North America and Europe in a massive escalation change.
At LCS, almost all lists look different; only the Golden Guardians’ main lineup has really held together, and even they will be displaying a different flag.
Two of the biggest changes in power were brought about by G2 Esports.
The first was to let Luka ‘Perkz’ Perković, the eight-time LEC champion, leave for North America. The second was their move to replace him; the perennial winners lured Fnatic’s Martin ‘Rekkles’ Larsen to black and silver towards 2021.
Here are our picks for the biggest winners and losers in the off-season 2020/21.
Off-season winners
Cloud9
Cloudk’s massive $ 11.75 million deal to sign Perkz is one of the biggest in the history of League of Legends.
For a team that so often “miss the off season”— at least according to LoL fans — The champions of Spring 2020, Cloud9, did very well in the 2021 season.
The perennial LCS heavy hitter actually made only two changes to their initial lineup, but they were big. Yasin “Nisqy” Dinçer and poster boy Eric “Licorice” Ritchie leave, the laner Ibrahim “Fudge” Allami and Perkz, the self-proclaimed king of Europe, in.
And that’s all Cloud9 needed to “win” the off-season this time.
We can be quick with Fudge. He is a rising star and moved from Australia last year. He has destroyed the Academy and is expected to do the same at LCS.
Then there’s Perkz. Your background speaks for itself; eight LEC titles, a world final and semifinal finals on each side. The only question about the Croatian is that he has played ADC for most of the past two years. A clear ‘winner’ for sure.
G2 Esports
G2 Esports is on pole position to claim another LEC title in the spring of 2021.
Interestingly, G2 Esports is another big winner in the off-season of 2020/21, despite losing Perkz to Cloud9. In short, losing a mid laner with a changed role playing ADC and taking the best bot laner in Europe instead can only be positive for the team.
The defending champions of LEC are losing their spiritual leader and captain, but Rekkles was never one to drag his teams.
If he can bring the same solid performances he has provided for Fnatic over the past seven years, while the rest of the G2 Esports lineup does what it does best – sowing chaos – then the G2 should win another title in 2021.
100 thieves
100 Thieves won fourth-fifths of the Golden Guardians’ 2020 list.
Nadeshot’s 100 red and white thieves are my litter choice for off-season winners. The 2020 Golden Guardians squad was well equipped to go to the Worlds, and if it weren’t for a small slip-up against Team SoloMid, they would have made it too.
Now, going to 2021, they’ve held the core together and received a monster update on the top lane to boot. Can ‘Closer’ Çelik, Victor ‘FBI’ Huang, Tanner ‘Damonte’ Damonte and Choi ‘huhi’ Jae-hyun have moved to 100 Thieves in long-term business.
Add Kim ‘Ssumday’ Chang-ho, and this is a killer LCS line.
Expect 100 Thieves to fight for your first American title by the end of this season. With so many twists and turns in the LCS, having four members of the same squad together right away will be the key, and Ssumday is just the icing on the cake.
SK Gaming
Could SK Gaming repeat the MAD Lions plan this time?
The final winner may be an external choice for some: SK Gaming. The German organization overhauled its 2020 list and won several young and exciting European Masters stars.
This receives a great green approval from our side. These are not names that many people will have heard of in the League of Legends community, but newcomers like Ersin ‘Blue’ Gören, Jean ‘Jezu’ Massol and Kristian ‘Tynx’ Hansen want to impress.
Treatz and Jenax are better known quantities, but mixing this big pot of young European talent should be an exciting roller coaster for SK Gaming fans. Dexerto has a good feeling that SK should reach the playoffs with an explosion, like MAD last season.
The only concern may be a similar fire, as the MAD Lions suffered at the Worlds in late 2020, but with Jenax and Treatz bringing in experience, everything should work well.
Off-season losers
Golden Guardians
The Golden Guardians are betting on young people for LCS 2021.
If 100 Thieves was one of the biggest offseason winners, then Golden Guardians have to be one of the losers. It makes sense, with the owners of the Golden State Warriors withdrawing funds in 2021 to deal with the situation without NBA crowds, but it is still a loss.
As I mentioned before, GGS came very close to the World Cup last year. Without the double elimination, they would basically have been a shoo-in. Instead, they had to watch from home while TSM flew to Shanghai instead, so they lost that star-studded cast.
There is also a lot to love about the new formation. Pickups from the academy like Ablazeolive are interesting, but unfortunately, new faces won’t win titles this year.
Astralis
Astralis looks set to finish tenth at LEC this year.
It’s kind of hard to lower expectations after you ran a tenth, but Astralis managed to do that. Picking up kids is a good idea, but when your veteran core is Nukeduck and promises, it’s hard to get excited.
Astralis was eliminated by Team Liquid, Fnatic and Immortals in the off season. They look like they’re just trying to make numbers at LEC again this year.
Jeskla may be a good thing, but there are doubts about the Swede until he plays, and having promisq as a support will not help. Astralis is excellent in CSGO, to be sure, but seems to have failed again in League of Legends.
Fnatic
Rekkles left Fnatic after seven years in the organization.
Now, on paper, Fnatic did not do too badly. Elias ‘Upset’ Lipp is considered a solid European ADC. Nisqy may be an upgrade over Tim ‘Nemesis’ Lipovšek. Any offseason in which you hand your best player over to your rivals is a defeat, however, and one that Fnatic knows very well.
Since LEC veterans gave G2 Esports their mid laner, Caps, they’ve lost four seasons in a row to their archenemies. Now they let Rekkles go too, and none of their new hires are likely to fill the widening gap.
Fnatic may have done a general upgrade and could be a team in second place if everything goes according to the script. Chances are against them to break that mold.
Team SoloMid
Doublelift retired, finishing his second stint at TSM, before the 2021 season.
And so we come to TSM and its 2021 list. That could very well be a coinflip line, and the defending North American champions might well have been dubbed “winners” if the team’s rivals hadn’t recruited so well. However, there are some problems.
The first is Heo ‘Huni’ Seung-hoon. The South Korean laner has a list of achievements that any League star would be proud of, including a world final and several national titles, but he is far from his glory days reaching 2021. For most, he is a terrible choice for the TSM.
This is especially difficult when Licorice and Impact are available.
TSM also lost two of its biggest stars, Bjergsen and Doublelift, before 2021. That alone makes the new season a difficult task as they seek to find their way into a new era. Only jungler Mingyi ‘Spica’ Lu remains from the 2020 schedule in a major overhaul.
Tristan ‘PowerofEvil’ Schrage, Hu ‘SwordArt’ Shuo-Chieh and Lawrence ‘Lost’ Hui are all solid. If they work together, well, we’ll see.
So, you have it; all LCS and LEC winners and losers entering the new year. Europe’s main competition is scheduled to start on January 22, while the LCS starts a week earlier with the pre-season “Lock In” tournament on January 15.