Immediately following any competitive tournament, the scramble to pick apart results, decisions, and specific plays begins. Although IEM San Jose 2015 was filled with uncertain rosters, and was played on the older 5.21 patch without patch 5.22’s payload of preseason changes, there are still bits and pieces of information to be extracted. Here are five things we learned from IEM San Jose 2015.

LGD Continues to Fall

For those who watched LGD Gaming in China throughout 2015, their disappointment continues to be a stabbing ache in one’s gut following their IEM San Jose performance.

LGD Gaming is a specifically bitter pill due to an assembly of incredible talent in nearly every position and their legitimately good performances in the 2015 LPL Summer Playoffs. Their unparalleled arrogance in failing to prepare cost them dearly at the 2015 League of Legends World Championship and it seems they haven’t righted their ship just yet.

Against Team SoloMid at IEM, LGD gave up objective after objective, often without taking any in return. The only advantages they took were ones gifted to them by TSM’s mistakes. This was coupled with poor performances from both LGD top laners and a continued lack of jungle pressure from Yongquan “TBQ” Zhu.

The talent on LGD is rare — TBQ is the only player not considered to be the best in his position in 2015 China — but their continued thoughtlessness on the Rift points to extensive communication issues well beyond the typical language barrier that plagues hybrid rosters. Changes are likely imminent, if they weren’t already, following this dismal 0-2 IEM showing.

TSM is Moving Past Their “Solo Mid”

This was Team SoloMid’s first test with a dual carry threat and the results were mixed.

Many words have been spilled over the logistics and resource distribution of having mid laner Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg and AD carry Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng on the same team. Of all players in the 2015 North American LCS Summer, Doublelift received the highest percentage of his team’s gold — nearly a third of it at 28.8% — and Bjergsen wasn’t too far behind with his own 27.2%.

Against LGD, Team SoloMid looked more coordinated than their opponent in spite of only having four days of practice time. Glaring mistakes in team fight positioning allowed LGD glimmers of hope, but TSM were one step ahead of their Chinese opponents for the entirety of the series. A surprising, but legitimate, secondary carry threat rose not from Doublelift, but TSM’s new top laner, Kevin “Hauntzer” Yarnell. TSM’s 2-0 sweep of LGD served as the former Gravity top laner’s coming out party against the top-tier talent of Cheon-ju “Acorn” Choi and Ho-jong “Flame” Lee.

However, against the far more cohesive Origen, TSM struggled mightily. Origen shut down Hauntzer with ease, and TSM’s lack of synergy in their warding patterns, as well as in their skirmishing, quickly became their undoing. With Bjergsen on Orianna and Lulu in Games 1 and 2 against Origen respectively, he was unable to dig TSM — and his new AD carry Doublelift — out from underneath their deficit.

This hardly means that TSM should completely return to the drawing board. Hauntzer is a talented prospect, provided that he receives a bit more coaching on how to play the long lane on a team with two other carry threats. Jungler Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen will also help exponentially with this — his early attention gave Hauntzer the necessary push to shine in the LGD series. As it turns out, TSM can still thrive without becoming wholly the Bjergsen show, and time will likely iron out communication kinks. It remains to be seen whether TSM will stick with this specific roster, but cautious optimism is in the air for TSM.

Jin Air Needs Chaser Back

There were already doubts surrounding Tae-jin “Winged” Park from the KeSPA Cup, and Jin Air’s performance at IEM San Jose made it abundantly clear he’s probably not going to cut it on this new team. Without steadfast mid laner Chang-seok “GBM” Lee, the newer players on the Jin Air roster are aggressive but volatile, and require a lot more practice under their figurative belts. Top laner Jun-yeong “SoHwan” Kim looked utterly lost at times without an experienced guide, even with his signature Riven pick, and mid laner Seong-hyeok “Kuzan” Lee’s team fighting varied from excellent to atrocious.

These two relative newbies need a more experienced jungler like Sang-hyun “Chaser” Lee to help jump-start their early laning phase and synchronize dives, areas where Winged floundered. Often too early or too late to fights, Winged lacked the assuredness that Chaser has while on the Rift.

It’s Another New Era For CLG

A top carry meta suits Darshan “Darshan” Upadhyaha well, and Counter Logic Gaming is now all too eager to set their top laner up to split push and carry. In a brave new world where the majority of CLG’s resources do not have to be funneled into the AD carry position, Darshan is now gifted more gold and attention, allowing him to shine. This was most notable in the Semifinals where the Jin Air Greenwings were unable to stop Darshan’s split push, leading to a frenetic backdoor victory for CLG. And CLG’s green AD carry Trevor “Stixxay” Hayes performed admirably under pressure too. Initially prone to mispositioning in the Unicorns of Love series, Stixxay improved as CLG progressed through the tournament. The opposite was true of CLG’s new mid laner, Jae-hyun “HuHi” Choi, who was out of sorts on the international stage and played worse in the latter stages of IEM San Jose, failing to hold his lane.

Following IEM San Jose, the jury is still out on the new Counter Logic Gaming, especially with a few North American rosters yet to be sorted out, as well as imminent 5.22 patch changes due on the competitive landscape. However, CLG have the entirety of the offseason to sort out these issues, and they have a head start compared to most teams, thanks to having a nearly complete roster.

Origen is Still Great with PowerOfEvil

In the midst of off-season wheelings and dealings, Origen efficiently made their one roster move count. It remains to be seen how much iconic mid laner Enrique “xPeke” Cedeño Martínez will swap with Tristan “PowerOfEvil” Schrage for the 2016 LCS, but plugging the latter into the Origen mid lane was a perfect fit at IEM San Jose. The former Unicorn of Love only died twice throughout Origen’s five games and boasted a solid 6.5 KDA. He attributes Origen, and his own, success to the tightness and direct nature of Origen’s shotcalling.

Thanks to this shotcalling, Origen vastly outclassed every other team at IEM San Jose in their map movements, pressure, and objective trading. While skeptics may cite the lack of overall competition in this tournament, there’s no doubt that Origen remain a world-class team.

What did you think of IEM San Jose? Let us know what you learned, and what some of your favorite moments from the event were below!