As the crazy offseason continues, a common theme in Korea has been the strength of the top and mid duos. With a lot of new pairings of top and mid from a majority of the teams, the upcoming season will prove to be very exciting. But just how strong are the top and mid duos of the LCK teams? That’s what we’ll begin to figure out with the bottom five duos currently in the LCK.
Courtesy of: Invenglobal
Without their all-star ADC Park “Teddy” Jin-seong, Jin Air will be looking for great play elsewhere to turn around their poor performance from the 2018 season. Unfortunately, Lindarang and Grace likely won’t be the solution to their problems this season. Last season both players were some of the worst performing players in their positions, usually finding themselves in the bottom 3 for most stats. Along with that, it’s fairly arguable that Lindarang and Grace were both the weakest links on their respective teams during the 2018 season as well.
As such, it’s hard to see this duo outperforming other top and mid laners of the league. This is going to be very noticeable as a majority of other bottom tier laners from 2018 are no longer in the league. Because of this, unfortunately, Lindarang and Grace receive the 10th spot. Whether this will be a sign of what’s to come for Jin Air is yet to be seen.
Courtesy of: Leaguepedia
While Team Battle Comics looked great during the Promotion tournament, they find themselves at 9th place. The main reason behind this is the roster change from top laner Lee “SoaR” Gang-pyo to Wizer. During the Promotion tournament, SoaR looked like the impactful and overall better player when compared with Dove. In general SoaR was considered the best player for Team BattleComics. As such, Wizer will likely be a downgrade in terms of roster moves. Along with that, Wizer is very unknown, as this will be his first professional team. Due to this uncertainty with a new top laner and a mid laner that will be facing a lot of tough competition, the duo for Team BattleComics find themselves in 9th.
Courtesy of: Invenglobal
The future for Hanwha Life Esports is exciting for fans thanks to their new rosters, highlighted by the former Flash Wolves jungler Kim “Moojin” Moo-jin. However, their top and mid duo will likely be on the weaker side. While both SoHwan and Lava were both fairly solid players in the 2018 season, they were definitely mid tier at best. Between the two, Lava likely has the higher skill ceiling, but even then, considering the talent of the other mid laners he’ll be facing, it may not be enough.
In most seasons in the past, the duo of SoHwan and Lava could’ve been a decent top/mid for a team contending for playoffs and Worlds. However, with all the talent in the LCK this season, it’s hard to see them doing well against most of the other duos within the region. As such the duo for Hanwha Life Esports find themselves at in 8th.
Courtesy of: Invenglobal
With the loss of top laner Kim “Khan” Dong-ha and mid laner Gwak “Bdd” Bo-seong, Kingzone DragonX’s 2019 season looked fairly scary. In an attempt to fix this, they decided to take a risk on signing former World Champion PawN to takeover the mid lane. With top laner Rascal sticking around, the potential for this duo will be very high. For now though they find themselves lower on the list for a couple of reasons.
First, PawN only played one game during the Summer split and has been mostly missing otherwise. It’s hard to know if PawN will be able to perform well, something he has yet to show in a very long time. However, PawN has been grinding it out in Ranked and has shown some great results. Second, while Rascal’s recent performances were great, he has yet to be fully tested for an entire season. So in general, he’s fairly unproven.
While this duo finds themselves in 7th place, they have the most potential to move up later on depending on how they perform. But for now, both players are simply too unproven based on the circumstances to be placed higher in the list.
Courtesy of: Invenglobal
While Gen.G had a very disappointing Worlds, the team can still build off the positives of their run leading into qualifying for Worlds. At this point Gen.G could be considered the gatekeepers of the top-tier Korean teams. As such, the same could be said for CuVee and Fly. While both players aren’t the best in their roles, they’re clearly the gatekeepers that separate the top-tier top and mid laners of the league with the lower tier top and mid laners.
Despite this, both CuVee and Fly have the potential to absolutely dominate the game on any day. With no subs for either players yet, this season will be their best chance to prove themselves once again. For this reason, the duo for Gen.G find themselves in the 6th spot, once again gatekeeping the lower tier duos from the top 5.
To watch League of Legends tournaments, visit watch.na.lolesports.com. For more information on the Split, teams, standings and players, visit www.lolesports.com. Recaps of former weeks and other LoL content can be found at https://thegamehaus.com/league-of-legends/.
Featured image courtesy of OGN.
You can like The Game Haus on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for more sports and esports articles
Follow Rui on Twitter @ruixu38
From Our Haus to Yours.
Players must be 21 years of age or older or reach the minimum age for gambling in their respective state and located in jurisdictions where online gambling is legal. Please play responsibly. Bet with your head, not over it. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, and wants help, call or visit: (a) the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey at 1-800-Gambler or www.800gambler.org; or (b) Gamblers Anonymous at 855-2-CALL-GA or www.gamblersanonymous.org.
