Team 8
Predicted Record: 3 Wins 15 Losses
R
oster Breakdown
Mid: Slooshi
Top: Calitrollz
Jungle: PorpoisePeeps
ADC: Frommaplestreet
Support: Dodo8
Team 8’s best player is without a doubt Calitrlolz. Members of the panel looked highly on his ability to play a wide range of Champions, and and his status as one of the few carry top laners left in the LCS. Like many challenger players, he also has more than a few off-meta picks waiting in the wings, making him one of the biggest wild cards in the LCS.
Their Mid Laner, Slooshi, played Prolly to a draw in the Promotion Tournament. As Prolly was one of the weakest mid laners in the LCS last season, I would expect much of the same from Slooshi. Champion Pool is small with a heavy reliance on Orianna, and to a lesser extent, Yasuo and Syndra. Occasionally pulls out Twisted Fate to mixed success and uses Tristana as a pocket pick.
Porpoisepops is your typical NA jungler. Plays a lot of Kha’Zix and Elise, avoids Rengar like the plague and doesn’t play a great Lee Sin. In short, he’s fairly weak. Porpoisepops can struggle to exert pressure on the map at times, especially when forced off Kha’zix. Held Nocturne as a pocket pick even before the Season 5 jungle changes made him more popular again.
Team 8’s bot lane duo of Maplestreet and Dodo8 graded out as the 2nd weakest bot lane in the LCS per our panelists rankings. Maplestreet’s Champion Pool is almost exclusively Trinity Force ADC’s like Kog’maw, Corki and Lucian. He has a tendency to stick with one Champion until the opponent forces him off of it, and his play style can be fairly predictable. He and Dodo8 lost lane almost every game against Complexity’s duo of RobertxLee and Bubbadub, who weren’t exactly world beaters themselves in the Spring Split.
How they got here:
After just missing out on qualifying for the Promotion Tournament in the Spring, Team 8 entered the Summer Season of the Challenger Series as one of the favorites. Despite losing to the Coast roster that featured Golden Glue and Rhux, T8 was able to secure their place in the playoffs by virtue of their 3rd place finish. In the Playoffs, T8 was able to turn it up a notch, taking a close series off of XDG gaming before dominating Coast in the semi-finals. A 3-1 victory over Curse Academy secured their spot in the promotion tournament and a winner take all match against Complexity. At the Promotion Tournament, it seemed like Team 8 would take the series in a clean sweep before Complexity stormed back in games three and four to tie the series at two wins a piece off the back of Prolly, who played one of the best series of his life. It looked like Complexity was going to pull off the rare reverse sweep until Dodo8 caught Kez out of position, allowing Team 8 to pick up two kills, a mid tower and a dragon. Complexity clearly went on tilt afterwards, and Team 8 was able to snowball the game from there and secure their place in the LCS.
Biggest Headline: Calitrlolz looking to make the most out of his one year deferment.
After qualifying for the LCS, Calitrlolz made the bold decision to defer his enrollment into Pharmacy School for a year in order to chase his dream of winning the World Championship. This was all made possible by a petition that garnered thousands of signatures in a matter of hours. Calitrlolz endeared himself to fans with strong performances on meta picks like Maokai and Alistar, and off meta selections like Katarina and Fizz. With Team 8 looking like one of the weakest teams in the LCS, Cali’s work will be cut out for him if he wants to achieve his dream within the established time frame.
Future Outlook:
Team 8 looked like the strongest Challenger team coming out of the promotion tournament, but roster changes by Gravity and Coast now have T8 looking like the weakest team in the LCS. They currently project to have only one above average player on their roster.
Like many Challenger teams, Team 8 struggles to close out games that they hold obvious leads in. This is in part because of poor vision control and questionable decision making. In game 2 of their series against Complexity, coL was able to sneak a baron that T8 knew they were prepping for when they saw three of T8’s members recall within vision. That Baron extended the game about 15 minutes longer than it should have lasted. Vision Control has a direct correlation with how strong or weak a team’s shot calling and objective control is. Strong vision control allows the shot caller to make more informed decisions, and prevents situations like the above where objectives are taken for free because the team is out of position. Ergo, T8’s weak vision control leads to weak shot calling and objective control.
Team 8’s Pick and Ban phase is heavily reliant on Calitrlolz large champion pool and the assumption that opponents will focus their bans on T8’s strongest player. Against experienced LCS teams that are able to counter Cali with a skilled player of their own or have a plan to contain him, this strategy is likely to fail and Slooshi and Maplestreet’s Champion Pools won’t hold up under the microscope. Expect lots of bans against these two players.
Panelist Breakdown
| T8 | AVG | |||||
| Slooshi | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4.4 |
| Calitrollz | 8 | 9 | 9 | 5 | 7 | 7.6 |
| Porpoisepops | 3 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 4 |
| Maplestreet | 6 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 5.2 |
| Dodo8 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 3.8 |
| 5 | 4.8 | 4.6 | 5 | 5 | 5.6 | 5 |
| Mechanical Ability | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4.8 |
| Shotcalling | 4 | 4 | 6 | 5 | 7 | 5.2 |
| Understanding of the Meta | 4 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Objective Control | 4 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4.6 |
| Picks and Bans | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4.6 |
| 4.84 | 4 | 4.6 | 5.2 | 5 | 5.4 | 9.84 |
Among the panelists, Team 8’s highest ranking was 8th and their lowest ranking was 10th. Slooshi and Porpoisepops were rated the worst players at their respective positions in the LCS. Dodo8 rated as the 9th best Support. Maplestreet rated as the 8th best ADC. Calitrlolz was the highest rated player on the team, coming in at 5th best among top laners.
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Wrap Up
Team 8 has had a long, arduous road to the LCS and their place is well earned. They had the misfortune of being placed against LMQ in earlier attempts to qualify for the LCS, and luck never seemed to be on their side. It must have been a huge relief when they finally qualified. Now that they are here, they’re going to have to hope that their luck turns because right now it’s hard to see them finishing any higher than 8th. And that would be a sad fate for Calitrlolz after he put his future career on the line to chase his dream.
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