League of Legends IEM: San Jose preview!

Intel Extreme Masters

Intel Extreme Masters: San Jose 2015 is literally hours ago from now. Six teams from around the world will compete to win the biggest League of Legends off-season tournament with a 50,000$ prize to the winner.

First off, we have Origen, who reached the semifinals at Worlds this years. They were voted in by their fans and received. On their side, the EU LCS champions, Fnatic, who were also voted in by the fans, had to cancel their trip to San Jose due to “medical issues”, so Unicorns of Love (4th this year in EU LCS) will make a comeback in San Jose since they were the 3rd team in the fan vote.

Last year, the rookie team and roster got their first real test at IEM where they performed really well knocking out NA LCS champions Team SoloMid in semifinals before losing to Cloud9 in the grand finale. Speaking of Team Solomid, they will once again take part in this tournament.

TSM finished 5th in NA LCS this year but still managed to reach the Grand Final in the playoffs losing to the 2nd seed, Counter Logic Gaming, who will also attend IEM. Representing China’s LPL, it will be LGD Gaming and invited to represent Korea’s LCK, it will be Jin Air Green Wings.

Here is the IEM: San Jose format:

– Single-elimination Knockout Bracket

– Best-of-3s in Quarters and Semis

– Best-of-5 in the Grand Final

Match-ups

Quarterfinal one:  Team SoloMid vs. LGD Gaming

Quarterfinal two:  Counter Logic Gaming vs. Unicorns of Love

Semifinal one:  Origen vs. the winner of quarterfinal one

Semifinal two:  Jin Air Green Wings vs. the winner of quarterfinal two

Team Solomid vs. LGD Gaming

Since the end of Worlds, TSM changed 80% of their roster. They signed 2 European players and 2 North American players in Dennis “Svenskeren”Johnsen in the jungle, Raymond “kaSing” Tsang as the new support, Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng on AD Carry position and Kevin “Hauntzer” Yarnell who will have to fill big shoes, replacing Dyrus in the Top lane. With shot caller and mid laner Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg being the only remaining member of last year’s Team Solomid. They will have a really good first test as they face LGD Gaming in the  quarterfinal round. Back in October, the 2 teams faced each other twice at Worlds. TSM took the first game, while LGD bounced back and took the second one the week after. LGD got voted in by their fans to represent China and they will have to make a good impression if they want to remove the sour taste of their bad performance at Worlds, finishing 3rd in the group stage and not qualifying for the quarterfinals.

Counter Logic Gaming vs. Unicorns of Love

The second quarterfinal will be interesting since, at the moment, CLG does not even have an AD Carry since their ADC superstar Doublelift was kicked out in late October. We know that Jason “WildTurtle” Tran did tryouts but it ended up not working for him. We are exactly 36 hours from their first game at IEM so expect an announcement really soon, probably later today. Sources close to the team said to TheDailyDot that Trevor “Stixxay” Hayes was probably to start for CLG at IEM. One thing is sure, they will be facing Unicorns of Love tommorow for the second quarterfinal of the day. On their side, UoL also made major changes in their roster. In October, Cho “H0r0” Jae-hwan left the team. A couple of weeks later, Tristan “PowerofEvil” Schrage and Pontus “Vardags” Dahlblom also left, leaving Jungle, Midlaner and Ad Carry’s positions open. On November 18th, Berk “Gilius” Demir, Hampus “Fox” Myhre and Pierre “Steelback” Medjaldi joined the team to fill in the open spots. With an entire new team, I can’t wait to see what UoL can offer vs CLG and their new midlaner Choi “HuHi” Jae-hyun.

Origen

On their side, Origen got a bye directly in the semifinal since Fnatic declined the invitation to the event. Ex UoL’s midlaner PowerofEvil will make is début with Origen since Enrique “xPeke” Cedeño, founder and ex mid laner of the team, decided he didn’t have enough time to play, stay competitive and manage the team at the same time. PowerofEvil and xPeke will switch during the regular season of EU LCS, but for IEM, PowerofEvil will be the starting midlaner. Origen will face either TSM or LGD who both were in Origen’s group at Worlds.

Jin Air Green Wings

Also getting a Bye directly into semifinal is Korea’s Jin Air Green Wings. Jin Air GW is an LCK team who always failed to reach higher than 4th place in regular seasons. With recent departure of the their top laner Lee “GMB” Chang-suk for NRG Esports in the NA LCS, Jin Air looks to win a first international event in their history of League of Legends with their new top laner, Jun-yeong “SoHwan” Kim.

 

 

 

 

Rosters

Origen

• Top: Paul “sOAZ” Boyer
• Jungle: Maurice “Amazing” Stückenschneider
• Mid: Tristan “PowerOfEvil” Schrage
• AD Carry: Jesper “Niels” Svenningsen
• Support: Alfonso “mithy” Aguirre Rodriguez

Unicorns of Love

• Top: Kiss “Vizicsacsi” Tamas
• Jungle: Berk “Gilius” Demir
• Mid: Myhre “Fox” Hampus
• AD Carry: Pierre “steeelback” Medjaldi
• Support: Zdravets “Hylissang” Galabov

Counter Logic Gaming

• Top: Darshan “ZionSpartan” Upadhyaha
• Jungle: Jake “Xmithie” Puchero
• Mid: Jae-hyun “HuHi” Choi
• AD Carry: Will be announced soon (Probably “Stixxay”)
• Support: Zaqueri “Aphromoo” Black

Team SoloMid

• Top: Kevin “Hauntzer” Yarnell
• Jungle: Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen
• Mid: Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg
• AD Carry: Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng
• Support: Raymond “kaSing” Tsang

LGD Gaming

• Top: Ho-jong “Flame” Lee, Cheon-ju “Acorn” Choi
• Jungle: Yongquan “TBQ” Zhu, Lisheng “xiaoxi” Wei
• Mid: Zhen “GODV” Wei
• AD Carry: Seung-bin “Imp” Gu
• Support: Bo “Pyl” Chen

Jin Air Green Wings

• Top: Jun-yeong “SoHwan” Kim, Chang-dong “TrAce” Yeo
• Jungle: Sang-hyun “Chaser” Lee, Tae-jin “Winged” Park
• Mid: Seong-hyeok “Kuzan” Lee
• AD Carry: Hyung-woo “Cpt Jack” Kang, Woo-hyung “Pilot” Na
• Support: Sun-ho “Chei” Choi, Eun-teak “Sweet” Lee

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