Are you an NA fan suffering from chronic short-term memory loss? You’re not alone! I don’t think any of us remember what happened this past weekend. Maybe some tournament was supposed to happen? Something about a rivalry grudge match? I don’t know — must have been unimportant. What is important is that the NA LCS is already a third of the way through the season. Here are 10 thoughts going into Week 4!

[4-2] A New Roster

The Council of 100 Thieves: You’ve been failing as a jungler.

Meteos: But I played support last week… and we went 2-0.

The Council of 100 Thieves: Exactly. We do not grant you the role of jungler.

Darth Meteos: ??

Okay, so there’s a lot of speculation about the Meteos trade and the TLDR is it’s complicated. It seems there were internal issues, but that could mean anything from personality conflicts to poor scrim results. The result is the same, though: this is a huge roster shuffle in the middle of a tightly contested split. Meteos also has residency, so it’s not as simple as replacing him with Levi.

Let’s break down the different scenarios:

1. Levi plays and Ssumday plays; they need to bring in an NA midlaner— popular names being thrown out are Yusui and Linsanity
2. Levi plays and Ryu plays; Brandini is the toplaner
3. .AnDa plays; both Ssumday and Ryu can play

I think mid lane is the most important position in the game. Sure, right now 100 could play a funnel comp mid with Levi, but that’s not going to be the standard meta forever. They will need a proper midlaner eventually, and NA’s native pool is infamously shallow. Guys like Goldenglue, Hai, or one of FOX’s midlaners (Damonte or Fenix) could potentially be available, too — but getting a bonafide star is more or less not going to happen. Which is, to me, fine. I think Levi and Ssumday could be the strongest pair in the league and their potential gives you a shot at Worlds. I’m sure they’ll try a few different roster pairings, but ultimately I expect them to find a native midlaner.

[4-2] Live by the Huni, die by the Huni

Have you ever laned against someone who’s at least a tier below you? And in the load screen, maybe you even told your friends, “I’m going to dunk this person.” And then you go on to feed first blood 1v1 a few minutes later. That’s kind of how I feel every time I see Huni get solo killed — like, the sarcastic way of saying “unlucky” was invented solely for the kinds of deaths that still plague Huni’s career. His Rift Rivals showing was definitely lackluster, but I don’t think that means he’s suddenly awful. That’s just Huni— he’ll bounce back just fine. What FOX does need to wrap their head around is how they’ll manage their substitutions. Right now both Feng and Damonte are being rotated into the starting lineup — I am left wondering if this is just in response to the meta or if they are still in flux about which roster might be best (or both). Establishing stability will be critical if they want to avoid another late season collapse.

[4-2] Snake-bitten

Not since 1997 when Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez ventured into the Amazon Rainforest has a surprise snake attack devastated North Americans so badly. Splyce’s win over Team Liquid during the relay at Rift Rivals effectively sealed NA’s fate, but prior to that game, TL actually looked pretty strong. It was a sentiment echoed by pretty much everyone there, but it’s also clear that if this is NA’s best team, then we’ve still got some work to do to avoid another disappointing Worlds run. I think a small tournament like this could prove to be the wake-up-call that helps steer NA in the correct direction, especially in this particular meta that has so many different strategies on the table. Liquid is still top dog in NA, and if they can identify a macro identity, then their individual pieces could easily propel them to the top again. Just like at MSI, they seem to be a little too reliant on Doublelift playing a strong marksman champion right now.

[4-2] Team funnel mid?

I saw comments about how if TSM was at Rift Rivals, NA would have won, which is in a way blaming TSM for not being there. Basically, it’s always their fault if NA fails internationally. TSM righted their ship when we last saw them — Zven in particular played a flawless week and didn’t die even once. Alongside mithy, the two have faced some criticism for, well, literally not being the best bot lane in the west. Which is kind of a ridiculous expectation, but it’s to be expected considering their prowess when they were on G2 and also that expectations around TSM are always ridiculous. This team hasn’t done much with swapping roles, and I think that makes sense given Bjergsen’s skill, but I’d like to see what he could do within a funnel comp. I suspect the slow-paced farm-reliant one carry style would match well with Bjergsen and TSM.

[3-3] The measuring stick

Clutch is basically the line that separates the good teams from the bad, so it’s super fitting that they sit at 3-3 right now. I figure if you can’t beat this team consistently (quick camera pan to TSM…) then you’re not going to do anything on the Worlds stage, where there are teams who are as consistent as CG but are also better. Which is maybe an uninspiring thing to hear if you are a CG fan, but from what we’ve seen so far it’s hard to say with confidence that they’re more than a measuring stick. This team will continue to get better, but I feel like it’ll be a slow and steady process — they’re still a little too reliant on Febiven making plays in the lull of the mid and late game.

[3-3] CLG Expo

CLG missed the playoffs altogether last split and thus did not represent NA at Rift Rivals this year. You might have thought it was because they were bad for too long last split, but I discovered the real reason: anime. CLG had a booth at Anime Expo last weekend (which honestly was really cool to see), and since that coincided with Rift Rivals, it’s pretty clear to me they purposely finished outside the Top 3 in the Spring Split so they could attend AX. It’s the kind of dedication to the weeb life that we should all admire. Anyway, CLG is kind of like Clutch in that they’re at the line between good and bad, but also beating them doesn’t mean you’re good and losing to them doesn’t mean you’re bad. It’s a special kind of consistency in that they’re always a bit of a wildcard to predict. I always end up buying into this team’s hype, though, and I think you’ll see them string together wins sooner rather than later. This wild meta just works well for a highly adaptive team like them. Or maybe they’re so adaptive that they overadapt and then miss the mark? Who can really say.

[3-3] A battle for the starting jungler role?

So last week I more or less wrote off FLY already and then they bounced back with a 2-0 week. Sure, the wins weren’t super impressive, but they’re still sitting at 3-3 which gives them a fighting chance so long as they continue to improve. Ultimately they faced one of the steepest hills to start the split because so much of their team and staff had changed, and maybe the slow start could be attributed to that. It could be a super vindicating split for Santorin, who at this point is labeled as bad more because of perception than his actual play. I’m not saying he’s suddenly going to vault into MVP talks, he had a really strong week and if he can continue that trend, then he can reverse the narrative surrounding him. That said, he now also has Meteos in his shadow — the star jungler has enjoyed a resurgence in the last year and calls for him to start will escalate if Santorin slips up even a little.

[2-4] Demoted back to gold

The Guardians are now on a three game slide which is probably making fans nervous again. Maybe they are having flashbacks to last season. Maybe they are saying, “It’s still early and we look a lot better this split!” To which I have to say, do you really? This is a critical week for a team that was looking like it was on the up — another 0-2 week could break their morale and kill any sort of momentum they managed to build to start the season. As is, though, they look to be at a similar level as they did in the second half of the Spring Split. I was, however, happy to see them play Mickey on Kai’Sa and Irelia — putting him on mechanically intensive playmakers was always their endgame. They just need to translate that into wins. This week will show us if they truly leveled up over the offseason.

[2-4] Optimal approach?

I mean, I guess it makes sense to try to funnel PowerOfEvil when he’s your best player, but I don’t really know how I feel about leaving a rookie alone in the top lane. Yeah, Allorim made some mistakes, but I think this just speaks to what OpTic has struggled to do since their inception, which is make any sort of plays around top lane. If you’re going to funnel, then you need to be prepared for both of your sidelanes to incur — at the very least — slight disadvantages. And if you respect your opponent, then you should also expect for them to exploit the holes in the side lanes. With a fresh face in Big in the bot lane as well, it seems like a really risky strategy to tunnel on the funnel. I think PowerOfEvil is very good, and they could definitely win some games with this strategy, but I also think it hinders the growth of their side lanes, which is, to me, more important in the long run for this team.

[1-5] Worlds run in danger

Pop star and cultural icon Katy Perry once wrote a song foreshadowing her fandom (this is canon) for this team, in which she sang, “I’m falling from Cloud9.” Anyway, Jensen and Smoothie are back, which is great, but they’re still throwing gold leads, which isn’t great. That, to me, speaks to their shotcalling and preparation — how is a team with this much talent and this much early game success so bad at closing out games? I can’t tell if it’s a stage nerves thing (which has affected some of them in the past) or if it’s just a misunderstanding of how to close out games in this meta, but this puts C9 in a super dire situation that calls back to 2015 when they also started the Summer Split off poorly. Last split, the cutoff for the playoffs was seven losses. Cloud9 could hit that number this week. CLG and FLY aren’t the top teams in the league, so they do have a chance, but if they also flop here, then I think we might be staring at C9 missing Worlds for the first time in their six year history.