The LCS has gone through a lot of changes for the 2021 season. The format is different, the league has rebranded and most of the teams have almost entirely new rosters. This should be a new era for the LCS for a lot of reasons and heading into the Spring portion of the season (no longer known as a Split), teams will be looking to show that they made the right moves. To start things off, here is the CLG 2021 LCS Spring Preview.
*Note: All predictions assume the main roster plays all of the games.
[Related: What is the 2021 LCS Start Date?]
CLG Team Page
2020 Review
Coming into 2020, CLG fans were ready to see this team take strides. They brought in a former World Champion, Crown, to replace PowerOfEvil and traded Biofrost for Smoothie from TSM. While many expected to see CLG do better, they, unfortunately, did quite the opposite. In the Spring they missed the Playoffs, finishing tenth with a 3-15 record. They made a big change bringing in Pobelter for Crown and while he helped it was not enough.
Heading into the Summer, CLG started off strong leading into a big game against TSM. After a loss to their rivals, the season just went downhill from there with the team finishing in ninth at 5-13 and missing out on the playoffs yet again. It was a far cry from where the team had started the Summer and it made it clear that changes must be made.
2021 Roster
Top- Finn
Jng- Broxah
Mid- Pobelter
Bot- WildTurtle
Sup- Smoothie
This is one of the two rosters to use all veteran talent with players mostly from NA or who at least player in NA in 2020. Keeping Pobelter was not much of a surprise as he clearly showed that he can still compete at a high level. Smoothie on the other hand was a bit of a surprise. Apparently, the higher-ups in CLG must really like him because his performance over the past two years has been a bit underwhelming.
As for the additions, Finn will be the most intriguing one. He comes over from a solid Rogue team where many doubted his abilities, he will be out to prove everyone on both continents wrong. WildTurtle and Broxah both had solid but unspectacular years and will be looking for a fresh start as well.
If there was an award for being a good guy, then every single player on this team would be in contention to win it. They are full of great personalities and are truthfully just good people. It will be hard to cheer against this team for any fans because they are players who have endeared themselves to a multitude of fanbases in the past.
2021 Schedule
The full schedule is still not known. Only the Lock-In teams have been revealed along with the dates for when the team plays in the regular season. They do not include who they face or at what time.
Predicted Lock-In Placement: 5th-8th and 1-3 in Groups
The thing is, CLG will actually be very tough at the beginning of this year. They have all veteran talent and most of their players are not necessarily past their primes, they are just coming off of a bad season. There is a chance that this prediction is way off, especially with it being a beginning of the year tournament instead of just the regular season.
CLG should expect to get their win, to nearly guarantee them a Knockout Stage spot, against GG. If they lose that game then they are in trouble. Since they likely won’t, taking a game off of any of the other three teams, 100T, TL or TSM wouldn’t be a total surprise but, still seems unlikely. If there is a dark horse to make a run in this opening year tournament though, it is CLG.
Predicted Spring Placement: 6th
Potential Range for the Team: 3rd-8th
All five of these players know what success looks like. Most of them played League of Legends back when best of threes were still a thing. Now with more games and more chances to prove themselves, there’s no doubt that each and every player on CLG are hungry to prove the haters wrong. This is why they could very easily finish near the top not only during the regular season but similarly to the Lock-In tournament, if everything falls in place, they could make a deep run in the Playoffs as well.
The problem is that everything needs to fall into place for this to happen. This includes every person on this team playing at their ceiling and having teams like C9 and TL play at their floors. In a normal year, this might actually be a team that is expected to finish top three but the league has evolved and some teams spent a lot more money than others. CLG will likely make Playoffs in Spring but if all five players play as they did in season’s past, they could also be a team that finishes near the bottom once again.
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