League of Legends LCS Season 2022: What To Watch For

With the North American League of Legends Championship Series officially kicking off on Friday, January 14 and the start of the second Lock In tournament, now is the perfect time to review some of the biggest offseason changes and expectations for both the tournament and spring split. This offseason has been a busy one with many teams importing new players, veteran players shifting around, and the arrival of new talent. Beyond just the players, several teams have made big changes to their coaching and organization.

Undoubtedly one of the biggest offseason roster changes was the departure of Bjergsen for TSM to Team Liquid. However, TL’s changes didn’t stop there, they also imported Hans Sama, a talented ADC from the EU and Bwipo, a top laner. With the addition of Santorin and Bjergsen, they have been dubbed Team Europe with four members originally from Europe.

Other teams that made big changes to their roster were TSM and Cloud9, who imported heavily from China and Korea, respectively. TSM imported two rookie Chinese players for the mid and support roles. Furthermore they brought in a new head coach, something that C9 also did. The appointment of Nick “LS” De Cesare, a long time League commentator with polarizing opinions, to the position of head coach for Cloud9 came to the surprise of many. In his new role, he brought in three relatively unheard of Korean players for top, ADC, and support. This new Cloud9 is filled with players and coaches who believe in LS’s opinion on how League should best be played and has since been dubbed the Church of C9.

Another team that stood out this offseason and made no changes to their roster was 100 Thieves. This decision isn’t particularly surprising given their strong showing last year and their LCS Championship win. This lack of change also gives them an advantage for the Lock In tournament where many teams will be playing with new rosters who haven’t had time to adjust to each other.

Although fans will be excited to see some of these new and exciting rosters play against each other, immigration troubles will cause half of the teams to run modified academy rosters. Teams that have been hit by immigration issues include C9, TSM, Golden Guardians, and Dignatas. Some teams like Dignatas and C9, who are only missing a couple of players, have opted to substitute in their academy players while maintaining the rest of the roster. TSM and Golden Guardians have chosen to completely swap to completely replace their roster with the academy for the tournament. TL is in an interesting spot due to CoreJJ’s green card issues, forcing CoreJJ and Hans Sama to split time due to the two import per roster policy. EU-import Bwipo will be playing all the games. 

Despite these roster changes to half of the teams, Lock In 2022 will still present a great first look at several teams and their performance. Additionally many new players will be making their LCS debut, along with the potential for academy players to prove themselves against seasoned LCS veterans. Look forward to an exciting four weeks of games every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, starting off the Spring Split.