Preview the upcoming League of Legends Championship Series NA Regionals at PAX!

With the sea of fans at Gamescom and the EU Regionals behind us, we look forward to PAX Prime at the League of Legends North American Regionals. Six teams will compete for the three North American spots in the World Championships next month at the sold out Staples Center. 

As it stands

When PAX comes around on the 30th and the teams are put on stage in front of thousands of roaring fans, it is hard to say what will happen. While C9 and Team Vulcun are certainly less experienced in front of large crowds when compared to the others who have made a career of it, I don’t see that changing things much when they get into the game.

Falling just short of qualifying in the Spring 2013 season, Cloud 9 made sure not to make the same mistake as they’ve shot to international fame as the dominant NA team, finishing the season at 25W-3L. 

Leading the pack alongside C9 is Team Vulcun that, since spreading its wings during the Spring Playoffs, has taken flight and shown itself to be a professional team in every sense of the word, with a burning desire to win. Team Vulcun finished this season 20W-8L, not quite as dominant as C9, but it has proven itself to be as good as or even better than the long-standing teams. 

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With only a win or loss between them give or take, household names Team SoloMid, Team Curse, Team Dignitas and Counter Logic Gaming make up 3rd through 6th place respectively. The small difference in their scores is a testament to how closely they are matched.

The teams

If Team Vulcun gets off to a good start and the crowd gets behind it, team AD Carry Zuna is likely to match the crowd’s enthusiasm with his own and carry the team on the momentum. It is also possible that he could get lost in the moment and cause a breakdown in communication, though each of the team members knows his place and that hasn’t been a problem to date. 

Cloud 9 is also a momentum based team, with the additional threat of it being incredibly well composed and confident. If your concentration lapses for a moment and you get caught, Cloud 9 will be sure to take full advantage and take your tower, Dragon and buffs, then continue to push down your inhibitor and before the 30 minute mark it’s check mate. Adding thousands of cheering fans to the mix may just fuel the fire. 

In the past Team SolodMid has always risen to the occasion and delivered the victory its millions of fans wanted, but this time things aren’t looking good for the boys as once more internal conflicts have shrouded them in doubt. 

Once again this really is a question of how the team starts off, if its scrims are going well and it gets off to a good start, the tension between the team owner and member Reginald and his team members (especially Dyrus) is likely to ease and allow them to breathe a little. On the other hand, if they aren’t doing well one misguided word could spark chaos.

Prior to and during the spring season Team Curse looked to be one of the strongest teams in North America, but with the acquisition of  acclaimed European support player Edward it has struggled to find its footing. Fortunately in the last few weeks it has started to perform as expected going 4W-1L in the final week, allowing it to surpass Dignitas and CLG.

Its Week 9 performance showing it is back on form, I find it hard not to put Curse as my favorite for that third place spot.

Team Dignitas seems like a fairly well balanced team; it has been at the upper part of the league, but for the most part they hover around the middle and has never really been considered the best in NA. In the spring season it finished 3rd, which is a good result, but when it came to the playoffs it fell at the first hurdle and finished last.  

It is important to note that, like Team Curse, Team Dignitas has never done well in-front of large crowds; throughout its history the team has had as many second and third place finishes as it has roster changes, with only one 1st place during IPL 3 (the roster then included only two current members and Jatt, who is now an LCS commentator, different times). 

Counter Logic Gaming, the oldest professional League of Legends team, is one that last season entered the summer promo games facing an uncertain future. Going into the summer the team underwent a radical facelift, seeing owner and team captain HotshotGG step down to make way for the fallen Marn AD Carry Nientonsoh and the return of bigfatlp. 

Through the summer season Counter Logic Gaming has fluttered up and down, treading water rather than rising to the top. But, with the recent trend in teams picking up analysts and team coaches, CLG bagged, in my opinion, one of the best in the business when it took on MonteCristo.

MonteCristo’s effect on the team hasn’t really become clear yet, but I feel that as the team enters these all important Regional Finals we will begin to see his influence take hold and CLG become a more cohesive team. 

For an in-depth look at what MonteCristo has been doing with the team you should watch the interview Matt Demers did with him on his debut Inner League episode. 

Team Coast and Velocity eSports really struggled to gain traction, finishing bottom of the stack, which unfortunately means they will need to win the qualifiers to get back into spring 2014.  

It is important to remember that Team Coast played in the spring season under the name Good Game University and lost out on first place in the spring playoffs by a single game to TSM, and they too have a stellar coach in former Team Curse support Elementz. In the spring 2014 qualifiers, three months from now, I can see Team Coast doing well. 

Matt Demers just released his second episode of Inner League, where he spoke to Velocity eSports jungler Nk Inc about the team’s future among other things. 

Predictions

With its second place Vulcun is seeded past Quartfinals – where the others will start – directly into the Semifinals, where it awaits the winner of TSM and CLG. With the fragmented relationship between TSM members Reginald and Dyrus, along with CLG’s 4W-0L record against TSM this season, CLG is likely to go on to face Vulcun, from there Vulcun and CLG are tied 2-2, so whoever is best prepared will probably win; this will be where we see if MonteCristo’s coaching benefits CLG. 

On the other side of the bracket Cloud 9 lays waiting in the Semifinals for the winner of Curse vs Dignitas. Statistically Curse has the advantage with a 3W-1L against Dignitas, but both teams are strong and I honestly think it’ll come down to who is playing better on the day.  

If I was to pick a favorite to win between Dignitas and Curse I would put Curse ahead simply because it’s riding on the back of a good super week and a generally good atmosphere around the team at the moment (with large new sponsorships, etc). They also have a better track record, so there’s that. 

No matter who wins, both teams have a 0W-4L record against the tyrants that are Cloud 9,  and neither of them has had a particularly good showing against the dominant team. It would be crazy not to call this a victory for Cloud 9, but of the two I would say Curse has a better chance of beating Cloud 9 since it has more room to prepare specific strategies against them since it has a proven record against Dignitas.

For the final match I predict and hope for an epic showdown between Team Vulcun and Cloud 9, a battle-royal between the two proven best of the summer season. My head votes that Cloud 9 comes out marginally better in that finale with its better preparation skills, but I do think it’ll go all the way to a game 5, a 3W-2L victory to C9.

The top 4 will receive $50,000 for first, $25,000 for second, $15,000 for third and $10,000 for fourth, the final two go home empty handed. But the bigger picture here is that the top three will go on to represent North America in the World Championships, due to be held at the sold out Staples Center in-front of a crowd of somewhere in the region of 10,000.  

This time around the World Championships has a total of 14 teams (12 previously): three from North America, three from Europe, three from Korea, one from Southeast Asia, one from the International Wildcard tournament at Gamescom and two from Mainland China. 

The already qualified teams include, Mineski from the SEA Regionals, GamingGear.eu from the International Wildcard Tournament and Fnatic, Lemondogs and Gambit Gaming from the just finished European Regionals.  

The North American Regionals kick off at PAX on the 30th of August, the first match between TSM and CLG begins at 13:00 PDT, 16:00 EDT and 22:00 CEST over on the official lolesports.com portal. 

Chris Rainey, Columnist