State of the League

Most League of Legends players are familiar with the swapping period of draft mode, where participants can choose to swap their champ with another player on their team. At the highest levels of competitive play, champ swapping is a regular occurrence, with early picks being used to form team comps and strategies, or to just ensure one team ends up with high priority champs.

The professional teams, meanwhile, have taken this to acompletely different level.

Shakeup, Shakedown

The changes began yesterday with Crumbzz announcing he'd left Team Curse. Crumbzz cited personal reasons for his decision to leave Curse; as teams gear up for the major prizes at season 2's end, priorities had to be made. From his statement, it sounds as though Curse will be moving into a gaming house to better prepare for the championship. As a student, Crumbzz elected to continue pursuing education over prioritizing his professional gaming career.

News quickly broke after that Saintvicious had joined Team Curse: 

"Crs Saintvicious."

But if you weren't paying attention to the League forums yesterday, you wouldn't know that this decision was because top laner Voyboy had joined Counter Logic Gaming. Speculation suggests HotshotGG wanted Saintvicious to lead the announced but unformed CLG "B" team, a move Saint was not interested in. Otherwise, it's possible that CLG simply felt adding Voyboy improved the team regardless of the potential roster shuffle and fallout. Either way (or perhaps other factors were involved), with Voyboy joining CLG as the new top laner and Saintvicious gone, HotshotGG has moved to the jungle position.

With Curse's roster quickly filled and CLG's revamped and reshuffled, Team Dignitas remained the only team in need of a fifth player. Turns out we'd be brought full circle; Crumbzz was announced as Dignitas' new player, taking over top lane (as I Will Dominate is the current jungler). The move is slightly suspicious as Dignitas is known to be traveling to Korea for the next OGN competition, but with most of Dignitas being students AND players, it's likely that he was able to make his schedule work with the trip.

Fallout! Er, Fall Top. Y'know What? Just Fall.

CLG and Dignitas have unquestionably suffered setbacks. While CLG must think it's better in the long term with Voyboy instead of Saintvicious, the reality is that HotshotGG is learning a new role, and Voyboy is learning the mannerisms of new teammates. It's difficult to envision an easy transition; CLG struggled out of the gate after adding Doublelift and moving Chauster last winter, and it simiarly struggled in the Reign of Gaming invitational with this new roster, losing to TSM.EVO... though in CLG's defense, this roster couldn't have been newer.

Dignitas, meanwhile, seems more the victim of circumstance than anything else. It's difficult to envision a scenario where Voyboy felt he had to leave because he wasn't getting along with his teammates; it's most likely that he felt CLG presented the best opportunity for his career. In acquiring Crumbzz, Dignitas essentially took the best player available out of the pool of competitive "free agents," even if he's not currently a top lane player. Like CLG, Dignitas is willing to gamble that a talented player can quickly learn a new position and become as good as the other players of that role. Time will tell how this works for both Crumbzz and HotshotGG; role changes of this variety are few and far between, and never have we had so many relevant players in the conversation.

In all likelihood, Curse will be least affected by these changes. No players are changing roles, and Saintvicious is widely regarded as one of the best junglers in the NA circuit. He and Curse support player Elementz have played together in the past and maintained a good relationship with one another after Elementz left CLG. Additionally, Saintvicious found success working with mostly new teammates during WCG Korea. So we know he's a good player and we know adapts well to his circumstances. However, Curse will continue to be plagued by the same problems it always has; player availability. Pobelter still does not meet the age requirements to compete at many venues. Beyond that, Curse is notorious for always needing a substitute or three every time it travels.

I'm most interested to see how long the leash will be for these players on their new teams. New players often put additional pressure on themselves to "prove" they belong in the organizations they've joined, and this can lead to mixed results. With competition cracking down in preparation for the season 2 circuit championship, I honestly wonder if the teams involved will give their new players the opportunity to succeed before considering other avenues for improvement.

[Sources: League of Legends Forums; Saintvicious' Twitter; Team Dignitas; Leaguepedia (images)]