League of Legends news » Teams shuffle rosters for 2015 Summer

Each Split, every team hopes that they can win the Championship. But only one will reach that goal. Sometimes, progress towards that goal is enough for an organization, but sometimes, failure has consequences. Many teams opted to make dramatic changes to gear up for a Summer push.

Check out all the roster shuffles of the offseason and see who the favorites are heading into the 2015 Summer Split.

EU LCS

Copenhagen Wolves, H2K, Giants Gaming, and Unicorns of Love all made no changes.

Copenhagen Wolves showed such improvement with their slightly changed roster and new coach Karl "Dentist" Krey that they probably thought changes would only break up synergy. Unicorns of Love and H2K, as new teams in the League, greatly exceeded expectations with 2nd and 3rd Place finishes respectively. Giants Gaming still has some work to do as far as improving, but they've decided this roster gives them the best chance.

Origen is one of the new teams competing in the EU LCS. They haven't made any roster changes, but we'd like to introduce you to this new team:

Origen

• Top: SoaZ
• Jungle: Amazing
• Mid: xPeke
• ADC: Niels
• Support: Mithy

Elements

• Top: Wickd → Jwaow
• Jungle: Shook → Dexter
• Mid: Froggen
• ADC: Rekkles → Tabzz
• Support: Krepo → promisQ

Elements has undergone the most heavy renovation of any team in the LCS. After their disappointing 7th Place finish, they replaced all members except for their star mid laner Henrik "Froggen" Hansen. Their new lineup has some of the more reliable veterans in the EU scene such as Erik "Tabzz" van Helvert and Marcel "Dexter" Feldkamp, along with relative newcomers Jesper "Jwaow" Strandgren and Hampus "PromisQ" Abrahamsson. Both new members were hyped players coming from the Challenger Scene, particularly Jwaow from his time on Gamers2 and later MeetYourMakers in the EU LCS.

Fnatic

• Top: Huni
• Jungle: Reignover
• Mid: Febiven
• ADC: Steeelback → Rekkles
• Support: YellOwStaR

Despite winning the EU LCS Spring Split and a very strong showing at the 2015 Mid-Season Invitational, Fnatic decided to change their ADC. While Pierre "Steeelback" Medjaidi performed decently at ADC, he had many mechanical, positional, and strategic errors throughout the Spring Split. To put Fnatic over the top, the team decided to bring back former EU LCS MVP Martin "Rekkles" Larsson because of his strength as an ADC and synergy with team captain and support Bora "YellOwStaR" Kim.

Gambit Gaming

• Top: Cabochard
• Jungle: Diamondprox
• Mid: Betsy
• ADC: P1noy → FORG1VEN
• Support: Gosu Pepper (formerly Edward)

Gambit Gaming had a great rebound year after narrowly escaping elimination from the EU LCS last Split. With a roster of new stars and veterans alike, Gambit finished in the Playoffs, but they unfortunately didn't make it beyond that after losing to Unicorns of Love 3-1. As a result, Gambit made the impressive acquisition of reigning EU LCS MVP Konstantinos "FORG1VEN" Tzortziou-Napoleon. With one of the most mechanically gifted players in the world at ADC, Gambit hopes to make a push for the top of EU.

ROCCAT

• Top: Overpow → Steve
• Jungle: Jankos
• Mid: Nukeduck
• ADC: Woolite
• Support: VandeR

In 2014, ROCCAT came into the EU LCS as one of the most hyped teams, and justified it with finishes in 3rd and 4th in the Spring and Summer Splits. Given the upgrades of Erlend "nukeduck" Holm and Pawel "Woolite" Pruski, it was believed the roster might be a favorite in Europe. But the team had a very rough Split, finishing in 8th Place with a 6-12 record. They decided to shift long time member Remigiusz "Overpow" Pusch to the substitute position and bring in the little-known Etienne "Steve" Michels, formerly of Team-LDLC and ThunderBot SPARTA. ROCCAT expects to have more on their new roster in the coming days.

SK Gaming

• Top: fredy122
• Jungle: Svenskeren
• Mid: Fox
• ADC: FORG1VEN → CandyPanda
• Support: nRated

After SK Gaming finished the regular season with an impressive 15-3 record, there were high hopes for them going into the Playoffs. However, after FORG1VEN earned the EU LCS MVP award, his team was unable to advance in the Semifinals against Unicorns of Love, and then fell to H2K in the 3rd Place match (both series being 3-2). For team synergy reasons, FORG1VEN was transferred from the team, and SK Gaming's former ADC Adrian "CandyPanda" Wubbelmann will fill in instead.

NA LCS

Team SoloMid, Team Liquid, Team Impulse, Team Dignitas and Team8 were the North American teams that made no changes.

Although TSM had a shaky MSI performance, their dominance in NA leaves them hopeful for improvement. Team Liquid and Team Impulse started with rough chemistry issues, but improved dramatically over time. Team8, as a new team, vastly exceeded expectations, and narrowly missed the NA LCS Playoffs. Team Dignitas had some roster changes during the season at jungle (multiple times) and likely was a reason they felt they didn't need to change during the offseason.

We'd also like to welcome team Enemy Esports and Team Dragon Knights to the LCS

Enemy Esports:

• Top: Flaresz
• Jungle: Trashy
• Mid: Innox
• ADC: Otter
• Support: Bodydrop

Team Dragon Knights

• Top: Seraph
• Jungle: Kez
• Mid: Ninja
• ADC: Emperor
• Support: Smoothie

Counter Logic Gaming

• Top: ZionSpartan
• Jungle: Xmithie
• Mid: LiNk → Pobelter / HuHi
• ADC: Doublelift
• Support: Aphromoo

Oh boy.

After simultaneously an impressive regular season and a disappointing Playoffs, CLG hasn't done too much wheeling and dealing this offseason. But a flurry of dramatic posts have revealed a lot of inner organizational turmoil. The team has decided to stay with many its core members despite the trouble, including Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng and Zaqueri "Aphromoo" Black. However after many Splits of investment, CLG and mid laner Austin "LiNk" Shin decided to part ways. Replacing him is not just one player, but two. The CLG organization is trying out a Korea-like structure of time-shared mid laners similar to SKTelecom T1's Sang-hyok "Faker" Lee and Ji-hoon "Easyhoon" Lee. The two players the team selected are Eugene "Pobelter" Park and Jae Hyun "HuHi" Choi.

Cloud9

• Top: Balls
• Jungle: Meteos
• Mid: Hai → Incarnati0n
• ADC: Sneaky
• Support: LemonNation

Cloud9 stumbled out of the gates in Spring, but managed to finish up strong in 2nd Place despite their inconsistency. The team ultimately decided that they wouldn't be able to succeed with their current lineup, and mid laner Hai "Hai" Lam voluntarily retired to join the organization as Chief Gaming Officer. As a response, C9 held tryouts for their mid position and ended up making one of the most anticipated acquisitions of the offseason. After several years of being banned from League of Legends, Nicolaj "Incarnati0n" Jensen was added to C9's roster. After holding rank 1 on EU Solo Queue, Incarnati0n is touted as one of the best mechanical players in the world. Cloud9's success will depend on if Incarnati0n can adjust to the professional metagame and team play.

Gravity

• Top: Hauntzer
• Jungle: Saintvicious → Move
• Mid: Keane
• ADC: Cop → Altec
• Support: Bunny FuFuu

Gravity hasn't mentioned a lot about their roster this offseason. Saintvicious tweeted he was likely retiring, but not much else was stated by the team. It was later announced that he joined Team Coast as head coach. The roster that Gravity have submitted for the LCS features former Winterfox ADC Johnny "Altec" Ru and former Edward Gaming academy player Kang "Move" Min-su. Given the lack of public communication by Gravity, we can only speculate why Brandon "Saintvicious" DiMarco and David "Cop" Roberson are leaving the roster.

What roster changes are you most excited about? Which teams do you think won the offseason? Let us know on Twitter @lolesports or in the comments below.

Tune in to the start of the 2015 LCS Summer Split, where you can see all the rosters in action on May 28, 2015.

Frank Fields is a Senior Editor for Riot Games' Esports Web Content team. You'll find him flash charming people in Diamond... or on Twitter where he'd love to talk to you about esports.