North America resumed play after Rift Rivals by looking exactly like they did at Rift Rivals, which is to say they did not look very good. One of the downfalls of a nine week season is that there isn’t a true halfway mark, and thus it’s hard for me to make a grandiose halfway mark claim. But it’s pretty rare to be this far along in the season and still not have anyone actually stick out — there are glaring issues on every single team so far this split. The parity might be a sign that the league as a whole has elevated their play, but I think that’s a worrying trend going into Worlds, where regions want to send dominant teams to represent them. If you can’t separate yourself from this pack, then how are you going to be able to do that come Worlds? Here’s 10 more thoughts going into Week 5!

[5-3] The early frontrunner for MVP is Ssumday

Ssumday went Super Saiyan last weekend and turned into SSSsumday for a ssssuper performance, but it was still only enough to grab one win for 100. I think he’s a beast on Dr.Mundo, but he can’t quite go everywhere he pleases. I feel like that champion doesn’t have enough agency to hard carry games the same way a champion like Jax can. It’s good for 100 to get these kinds of games in now, though — they’re probably confident in their ability to make it to the playoffs, and there will be times when they can’t just lean on Ssumday to steal a game for them. You figure at least someone else can do that from time to time considering they’ve got 100 Thieves, right? They continue to be one of the teams most resistant to the mage bot meta, but after getting bopped by Heimerdinger, I suspect they may branch out and expand their repertoire of strategies.

[5-3] Biodaddy leads the way

My favorite part about CLG games is they always have a hint of that NA solo queue greatness in them. My least favorite part about CLG games is they always have a hint of that NA solo queue greatness in them. And you can’t learn that on 10 ping or in in-houses. Biodaddy led the way for CLG last weekend with a lot of aggressive plays on his Rakan — it felt like every single Flash was used offensively, which is exactly the kind of proactive play that separates a contender from a pretender. It’s really awesome how much he has grown as a player from when he first started on TSM, where he basically just did whatever Doublelift told him. And after being discarded by TSM last offseason, I think his level of play lately must feel very vindicating. It took a while, but I think CLG is really rounding up to form in the post-Aphromoo era. Also, shoutout to Huhi who received his green card last week and will no longer count as an import player — this will give CLG some options in the future, but I don’t really see them making any changes to this roster any time soon.

[5-3] Huni’s slump?

This is probably true for a lot of players, but I suspect that whenever Huni dies only one time or less, his win rate is insanely high. Like, 95 to 100% high. He’s the type of player that will force stuff when he’s behind instead of just waiting to roll over and die, which I really respect. But that also means he sometimes has really sloppy games where he forces stuff (even if his team isn’t actually behind). I feel like I make a variation of this point a lot, but Huni is still kind of caught in the same cycle. It’s interesting to see people talk about how he’s “bad” now after a handful of games instead of looking at his overall body of work. Which is frankly ridiculous. Huni’s ceiling still makes him the guy you want as we start veering towards Worlds. Yeah, he might feed his ass off against a bot tier player in NA, but he might also hard carry you at Worlds. That’s the kind of gamble I’d take every time as an NA fan who’s got nothing to lose.

[5-3] Olleh-oops

One of my favorite plays in basketball is the alley-oop — when it connects, it brings the whole house to its feet. I let out feral sounds as if I’ve been personally attacked. But when it misses, it’s fun, too. There’s something about the missed interaction that just makes me laugh, and sometimes the miss is really bad, like the pass sails into the stands or the ooper realizes in midair he won’t actually be able to dunk so he tries to catch it instead. The whole play is Olleh to me lately. Sometimes he’s an Olleh-oop and sometimes he’s an Olleh-oops. Electrifying or head-scratching. The consistency issues were a big part of their struggles at MSI, but the peaks also helped them get there in the first place. So he’s kind of like Huni in that sense — and in the regular season, I can see why fans might call for more consistency. They want TL to win every single game — the games in Week 3 and the games in Week 9. The ones against TSM and the ones against OPT. But ultimately, what’s more important is having a roster that can spike when it matters — that means playoffs, and it means Worlds. Just like FOX, that’s the end goal here for TL. And it’s not like the rest of Liquid looked any good in their loss to FLY — the biggest issue for this team right now is their rigidity. They may become overly reliant on having a meta sync with their preferred style.

[4-4] A meandering style

Clutch had the kind of week that makes you wonder if they actually regressed as a team. Sure, GGS and OPT are different from when they finished at the bottom of the standings last split, but in a league like this you’d hope to keep your pace ahead of the pack if you’re already there. And even if CG didn’t regress, other teams appear to have caught up to them, and ultimately isn’t the end result the same? If not for OPT being… well, OPT and throwing the game, this would have been an 0-2 week for CG. And honestly it should have been that. They are lucky to have escaped with a win, but they still show signs of the same strengths they had last split: mid and late game resilience, team fighting, and a stable midlaner. That formula isn’t enough right now, though. They might also be suffering from a meta that favors adaptability and creativity — things that aren’t as quantifiable by analytics. So I hope to see Apollo and Hakuho— widely regarded as one of the strongest bot lane pairings — experiment more on bot lane combinations. I feel like they should have the skill and coordination to bust out some truly bizarre champions.

[4-4] Flying high

FLY thrashed TL last weekend to keep themselves at .500 on the split in the kind of game that reminds you all of these guys on stage are professional players. I’ve put TL on blast in the past for having a bad habit of underestimating their opponents or treating the “lesser” teams as a place to try new comps, so I’m glad FLY was able to just step up and punch them in the mouth. And now this team is only one game out of first place, which has to have them feeling more confident right now than they’ve been all year long. It’s a roster full of players pegged as “washed up” that could be seen as strong veterans given the right light and context, but a lot of these guys don’t have the benefit of the doubt from the community, so they’re probably still going to be treated as a “pretender.” A lot of that is from their previous failures on the Rift, sure, but now they seem to be coming together — the question is whether or not they can actually ride this momentum and keep their roster stable.

[4-4] A sheep in sheep’s clothing

Reactions to TSM’s struggles are always the best. One of the top Reddit threads after TSM went 0-2 last weekend was “Why is TSM so bad?” Like, it wasn’t even a parody. Can you imagine watching two games and then making a thread like that? Anyway, that kind of reaction stems from the fact that TSM is in very real danger of not making Worlds this year (you can’t drop out of Groups if you’re not in Groups!) — this is kind of like watching Lakers and Yankees fans when their franchises hit brief rough patches. Their fans don’t actually know how to cope with struggle because it doesn’t normally happen to their teams. And mind you, TSM struggling is still 4-4 and one game out of first place — they still have the option of trying out MikeYeung again, and they also opened slowly last split before closing out the regular season strong. It’s definitely not all doom and gloom. That said, things like a funnel Taliyah strategy last weekend were truly perplexing. I’m sure it had some more success in scrims, but Kai’sa and Lucian were both unbanned, which makes you wonder if it just a comfort thing. I was glad to see them give it a shot, though — Bjergsen is a great player to funnel resources into.

[2-6] The D.E.N.N.I.S System

Careful analysis has led me to wonder if Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen is currently employing the D.E.N.N.I.S System on Cloud9, and that he is currently on the second N. Allow me to explain:

D – Demonstrate Value — Svenskeren immediately made his presence felt on Cloud9 in the spring split as the team was second only to Echo Fox to kick off the first half of that split. And while C9 ultimately faltered, it was clear that he’d embraced their meme-culture and was a good fit for the team both in and out of the game.

E – Engage Physically — By going to the gym and building his muscles, he was showing the team he was physically capable of starting engages in-game as well.

N – Nurture Dependence — As a result, the team became reliant on him to make plays for them — especially with Smoothie weaving in and out of the roster, he had the most experience playing engage-oriented champions.

N – Neglect Emotionally — Which leads to where we are now, where sometimes he just doesn’t seem like he has much presence on the map (which is what we say about literally every single tank jungler in losses).

I – Inspire Hope — What’s next for C9 is they will make a run similar to what CLG did at the end of last split. Sneaky suggested they can’t afford more than 8 losses, which means they have to go 8-2 at a minimum the rest of the way. I predict they get 6 or 7 wins. Or maybe they make a miracle run and reach Worlds again to rally the entire NA region.

S – Separate Entirely — The former result being they miss playoffs barely and are separated entirely from each other for the offseason as C9 retools and rethinks a roster that will have missed Worlds for the first time in their franchise history. Or they make Worlds and get bounced? Is there an optimistic way of spinning this? They separate entirely from the NA pack and advance to at least the Semis? Who says no?

[2-6] Rookie blues

As OpTic lost another heartbreaker (they really just don’t know how to close games), the screen briefly showed Dhokla’s player cam. His face was buried into his hands. It was the kind of shot that made me forget about my frustrations with watching that game as a fan. It was a sloppy affair that felt like neither team really deserved to win. The final thirty seconds featured a half-hearted base race where Dhokla’s Gnar scurried around aimlessly in the Clutch base. It felt like a metaphor for his career thus far, and his devastation after the fact was clear. There are things to criticize him and his team for — OpTic has fumbled around this entire year — but I found it really difficult to not want to reach out and hug him after that game. Sometimes analysts and fans (I’m not an exception) are ruthless with their assessments of players, but hopefully he realizes any snap judgements being made about him come from a small smattering of games.