NA LCS Rosters in 2020 - Teams and Roster Changes
NA LCS Roster changes are here!
All teams in the LCS have opted for a roster change (or four). Also, Evil Geniuses bought out Echo Fox’s spot in the league and shopped around North America and Europe for their brand new squad. Clutch Gaming rebranded to Dignitas, and the Immortals brand rejoined the LCS after the transition period from OpTic Gaming purchase.
Let’s go over the changes team-by-team.
Team Liquid roster changes
Following another Worlds group stage elimination (5/5 for Doublelift over the 5 years), Liquid opted to replace Jake Kevin “Xmithie” Puchero by Mads “Broxah” Brock-Pedersen (Worlds 2018 finalist with Fnatic). Interestingly, Doublelift was sceptical of Liquid’s only change, recalling how TSM tried to chase perfect by signing Jesper “Zven” Svenningsen and subsequently lost what made them good during Doublelift’s reign.
Cloud9
After losing Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen and Tristan “Zeyzal” Stidam to Evil Geniuses, C9 promoted Robert “Blaber” Huang to the sole Jungler and bought Philippe “Vulcan” Laflamme from Dignitas. The reported transfer fee amounted to $1.5 million. After 6.5 years of sporting the Cloud9 jersey, Zachary “Sneaky” Scuderi was benched in favour of Jesper “Zven” Svenningsen. Zven had barely finished his two-year contract with Team SoloMid.
Counter Logic Gaming
CLG team replaced Tristan “PowerOfEvil” Schrage with the 2017 World Champion, Lee “Crown” Min-ho, and then turned to former Team SoloMid members. Kim “SSONG” Sang-soo coached the rival in 2018, while Andy “Smoothie” Ta was TSM’s support in Season 2019.
Dignitas more of the same?
After retaining Heo “Huni” Seung-hoo on a reported salary of $1.15 million per season, DIG was mostly forced to pick up leftovers as they spent a reported 1/3 of their budget just on Huni. Perhaps the only bright spot is Henrik “Froggen” Hansen, who has been going at it since 2011.
Team SoloMid roster
TSM news is fun: Vincent “Biofrost” Wang came home, Kasper “Kobbe” Kobberup jumped on board to fill the Danish quota, Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnett finally made it back to a Big 3 lineup. Zhang “Peter Zhang” Yi completed his two-year redemption arc in Academy and was promoted to coach the main squad.
Immortals roster changes
The Immortals management parted with every former OpTic player and started anew. Love me some Paul “sOAZ” Boye and Jake Kevin “Xmithie” Puchero!
Evil Geniuses join the NA LCS
Once again, a returning brand (and ownership) brought a new set of players. And a cheeky announcement video.
FlyQuest
As is tradition, FlyQuest keeps recycling players that peaked about three seasons ago but can still compete. The “new” additions are Tristan “PowerOfEvil” Schrage and Lee “IgNar” Dong-geun.
100 Thieves
100T are going back to 2018 roots, with William “Meteos” Hartman and Sun “Cody Sun” Li-Yu returning to the starting lineup. Anthony “Zikz” Gray is the new head coach.
Golden Guardians roster changes
2020 is another budget year for Golden Guardians. They even have a former Mid and an ex-ADC player in Support. I wonder if the NBA founders behind Golden Guardians are aware that tanking is not viable in the LCS.
NA LCS 202 Start
The 2020 NA LCS Spring Split will start on January 25, 2 pm PT. As is a tradition for North America, the first match will feature the last split’s finalists, Team Liquid vs Cloud9. You can catch all the action on Riot’s official stream.
Past that, the key dates for the 2020 NA LCS are:
- Spring Split Regular Season: January 25 – March 22
- Spring Playoffs: March 28 – April 19
- Round 1 Winners: March 28-29
- Round 1 Losers: April 4-5
- Round 2: April 11-12
- Finals: April 18-19
- Summer Split Regular Season: June 20 – August 16
- Summer Playoffs: August 20 – September 13
- Round 1: August 20-23
- Round 2: August 27-30
- Round 3: September 5-6
- Finals: September 12-13
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