Coming off of a disappointing Spring Split which had the team finish second to last in the EU LCS, Roccat is looking to rebound with a revamped roster. Roccat shared a Facebook post today to announce their new roster going into the 2016 EU LCS Summer Split:
Meet the New Top Laner and Support for ROCCAT!
We’re pumped to announce that Sangwon “Parang” Lee and Jihwan “Raise” Oh will be joining our team. After securing our spot in the LCS, we started to scout for top talent and the pair of friends caught our eyes.
Parang and Raise have been playing together for two years and showed a strong performance in their premier split in Challengers Korea 2016. They finished 3rd place in the regular season with Stardust and were also able to beat the newly promoted LCK team Ever. In the playoffs they got reverse swept in the first round after leading 2-0.
Ultimately we decided on them because they were highly motivated to join our team and bring all the tools to be successful in the EULCS. Parang is known for his mechanics and usually resides in the top half of the Korean challenger ladder. Raise was the backbone of Stardust and also their main shotcaller. With them, our roster for the Summer Split 2016 is complete:
Sangwon “Parang” Lee
Karim “Airwaks” Benghalia
Felix “Betsy” Edling
Pierre “steeelback” Medjaldi
Jihwan “Raise” Oh
The team is currently en route to our HQ in Hamburg, Germany and we’ll be doing a Reddit AMA and a special intro video in the coming days.
Stay tuned and #SetTheRules!
This means Roccat has officially parted ways with top laner fredy122, AD carry Tabzz, and support Noxiak. Roccat has been making many changes to their roster ever since core players Jankos and Vander left the team to join H2K at the end of last year.
The official roster heading into the 2016 EU LCS Summer Split features only two returning players; Airwaks and Betsy.
Rebuilding Roccat: Life After Jankos & Vander
Roccat has focused on rebuilding their team since losing Jankos and Vander to mixed success. This past Spring the team appeared to almost win many games before finding a way to be defeated in the late game.
Still, things are looking up for the team. Although the team certainly had its issues in Spring, jungler Airwaks and mid laner Betsy showed they are players capable of carrying games. Both players unquestionably had the best split of their LCS careers.
The Roccat heading into Summer looks much more promising that the one we saw in Spring. Steelback, like Betsy and Airwaks, is also coming off of a career split and will be looking to continue show he can be a top AD carry on the new Roccat team. The bottom lane duo of Steelback/Raise should be a considerable upgrade over Tabzz/Noxiak if Raise can prove he is an EU LCS caliber support.
The same goes for newly recruited top laner Parang. Both Parang and Raise are coming from Korean challenger team Stardust. There isn’t a lot known about either player, but they don’t exactly have very big shoes to fill. If Parang and Raise can establish a good synergy with the team and perform to a reasonable level then Roccat shouldn’t have to worry too much about playing relegation matches again this split.
How Much Better Is the New Roccat?
The success of Roccat is largely dependent on Airwaks, Betsy, and Steelback. These are all players that the community had mostly written off as average-at-best. Each of these players had breakout performances in spring, but are they for real? Whether or not these players can repeat their success on Roccat this summer will determine how good this new Roccat squad is.
The Korean imports will also have influence on Roccat’s success. We saw how crucial shot calling and communication is to winning games in North America when C9 played without Hai, or when the TSM ‘super team’ was struggling to gel together. This isn’t a Huni/ReignOver or Impact/Rush situation where the 2 Koreans can just solo-carry games for their teams. Parang is a top laner and Raise is a support. It will be key for the team to make clear communication a priority if they want to improve on last season.