The Best Possible Academy/Amateur Lineup – Spring 2021

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The North American Academy and amateur system has a lot of great players in it, both in the sense of current performance level and future potential. Today we’re going to look at the first category by putting together the two strongest possible LCS-eligible teams from among the Spring 2021 Academy/amateur rosters.

Top: V1per

V1per probably could have signed with an Academy team for the Spring split, but he ended up playing in the amateur circuit with Anew Esports, before they were disbanded via competitive ruling, forcing V1per and his teammates to play the rest of the split with no organizational backing.

That didn’t stop V1per from leading his squad all the way to a Proving Grounds championship.

The gap between V1per and the rest of the Top laners in Academy/amateur was simply enormous, in terms of laning and carry potential. He blind picked contentedly and destroyed people on Gnar, Renekton, or Jayce, or brought up Vayne, Tristana, or Lucian if you gave him the right circumstances with an opportunity to counterpick. He brought out 20 different picks and won on 19 of them. And he closed out the championship win with great flanking engages on Sett, in case you thought the only thing he could do is smash lane and snowball on carries.

V1per is an LCS-level Top laner playing himself back into the league. He’s not a perfect player, and some of his tendencies might be exploited by top-tier LCS opposition, but he is worthy of another look from LCS orgs, no question.

Jungle: Contractz

Jungle is a tougher choice, with two main candidates. I’m selecting Contractz because of his ability to take over games and creatively path to apply as much pressure as possible to just the right part of the map. You could also go with AnDa, who is a more stable player than Contractz (the Udyr to Contractz’s Nidalee) and who has existing rapport with V1per, if you prefer to play this roster-building “game” with that in mind.

Contractz had a great year in 2020 as a pairing with Ssumday on 100 Thieves, but landed on Evil Geniuses Academy for 2021 and has been working to prove that he didn’t deserve the demotion. He made that case very clearly, putting together a strong body of work across a diverse champion pool and leading his team to a 4th-place finish in Proving Grounds.

Mid: Pretty

The Academy/amateur scene hasn’t seen a Mid laner play as well as Pretty since Damonte won his way back into the LCS during the 2020 Spring split. Pretty is very well-rounded, able to carry on control mages or marksmen or provide utility on Galio. He stands out for the subtleties of his play, knowing when to work the river and play with his Jungler and when to play more selfishly.

Pretty was recently able to switch his residency from Europe to North America because of his Australian citizenship, and while that doesn’t really change his stock within the Immortals organization (since they had an import slot free in Spring already), it does alter the picture somewhat for his value in the ecosystem as a whole. I’m personally hopeful that we’ll see him get a shot to move up either this summer or for 2022.

Bot: K1ng

The Bot lane role was another tight two-horse race, in this case between K1ng and Luger. K1ng was able to edge out the Turkish import for my selections because of a more stable body of work throughout the Spring split, though Luger’s peak performance was slightly higher. K1ng’s status as a domestic player also works in his favour, if you weigh that in the decision-making for a list like this.

I liked seeing K1ng add more of a late-game carry profile to his play this split, with a lot of time on Jinx and Tristana. He’s been a dominant laner for a long time, but hasn’t been relying on generating 2v2 leads as much this year.

K1ng could be a mid-tier LCS Bot laner right now if the market for his services was strong enough to entice anyone to pay his buyout. We’ll have to see what happens with his contract over the rest of 2021.

Support: Eyla

It’s been tough to find strong talent in the Support role in Academy for a while, but Eyla has been leading the charge to change that story in 2021. The Oceanic “import” was one of the best players in all of Academy in the regular season, but his play fell off a little during Proving Grounds, which was one factor (though not a primary one) in why Team Liquid Academy underperformed and fell out of the tournament so early.

The main focus of Eyla’s champion pool this year–like most other Supports–has been melee engage (Alistar, Rell, Nautilus), and he had some huge highlight moments. Hopefully he’ll able to flex himself into some other styles for Summer to show that he can do more than primary playmaking, but having a strong engage sense is already a great to stand out from the crowd, and Eyla very much has that.

Eyla could be playing in the LCS right now, and I suspect he’ll get the chance in 2022.

Summary

A roster of V1per, Contractz, Pretty, K1ng, and Eyla would be jam-packed with playmaking and carry potential. Pretty would likely end up playing for his side lanes a lot, and he and Contractz could make a great pair since Contractz likes to play on the front foot and Pretty is good at backing up his Jungler. With V1per’s lane dominance and K1ng’s growing ability to either play for lane or play to scale, there would plenty of strategic flexibility.

I believe this roster could compete for a top 6 spot in the LCS.

Second Team

After building a team with the best player in each role, we could still make a decent second lineup. My second team would look like this:

Top: Darshan
Jungle: AnDa
Mid: 5fire
Bot: Luger
Support: Yursan

Support is difficult. Isles might be a safer choice. But I saw some good things from Yursan in his brief time with TSM Academy, and I think he has a lot to offer, once the communication falls in place.

Allorim is another candidate for the Top lane.