And so it begins. Another season in the LCS...

Wait, hold on.

The LCS is gone. Now we have

So yeah. If you've been living under a rock, the LCS, CBLOL and LLA have all joined forces to create THE LEAGUE OF THE AMERICAS, which has 2 divisions:

  • LTA North: made of former LCS teams, a guest team and a former LLA team
  • LTA South: made of former CBLOL teams, a guest team and a former LLA team

You'll notice that I said guest team. That's right, promotion and relegation is back, but just for the guest spot, which for this season was picked by Riot.

We're going to focus on LTA North (from this point abbreviated to LTAN because I can't be asked to write North every time).

We're going to answer a couple questions in each of these bits, including what's new with this team, have they improved and where they're ranked overall?

Without further ado, the power rankings:

By process of elimination, Dignitas is going to end up 8th. There are a couple bright spots with an almost completely new roster.

Srtty getting a shot on an LTAN roster is a good thing. He was the best top laner in NACL, and with open spots, he deserves to get a chance. Tomo took 100T to worlds, or rather helped take 100T to worlds, and played some decent games there.

Keine is the former mid laner for Rainbow7 (now Lyon Gaming) who played fine at worlds, though he didn't play many "good" teams (paiN, GAM and 100T). He could have some potential, but personally, I don't know how much stock I would put into him.

Sheiden and Isles have been here before, at least a little bit. Sheiden was the backup Jungler for EG, who got playoff playing time over Armao in 2023, while Isles is the only carryover from this team. Both players are fine, but neither of them will be enough to move DIG up in the rankings yet.

Lyon Gaming is the LLA representative, a combination of the former LLA teams Six Karma and Rainbow7. I don't think this team is a bad team, but I do think it's the weakest team in LTAN this split.

Licorice is in the top lane, and if we get "Best LCS Top Laner" Licorice, this team becomes more dangerous. But if we get DIG Licorice, then the top side becomes a lot more volatile.

Jungle and support are Oddie and Lyonz, who were both legends in the LLA, but never showed they were dominant on the international stage.

The carries of this team are both new to North America. Saint comes from the Dplus Challengers team, where he was quite a good Mid Laner. Lyon wasn't the only team that really wanted Saint, so this seems to be a good step in the right direction.

Hena is the other Korean import. He's been playing in the LCK on teams like OK Brion and FearX, but he hasn't shown himself to be a really elite player in that competition.

This team feels like it could have a really high ceiling, depending on Licorice's form and how good these two Korean imports are, but it also feels like the floor is really low for them. This is a team that I can be very wrong about though, and could end higher then 7th.

Toast! LTAN's first guest slot team is Disguised Esports. I love this roster. It's not going to win any championships, but it's really fun.

The top laner is Castle, formerly from Immortals. While I've got a lot to say about Immortals and their former team, Castle was actually a perfectly reasonable player in the top lane. I never felt like Castle won them any games (not that IMT was winning many games), but I never felt like he was the reason they lost them either.

Exyu is in the jungler, and absolutely deserves this spot. He got cut from DIG, found a spot in NACL, and was insanely good for Fear x Starforge as they won second place across the Americas tournament.

Abbedagge and huhi are in mid and support respectively, and I'm putting them together because they're the veterans on the roster. Abbedagge has been in and out of Tier 1 for the last couple of years, most recently playing for Karmine Corp Blue in the LFL, but has always been a decent mid laner. As for huhi, the season with NRG didn't end incredibly well, but huhi has shown that he's kind of an ADC whisperer, and has made most ADC's better while playing with him.

That's going to be important, as they've got a brand new ADC, ScaryJerry, formerly from Dragonsteel (Maryville University). Jerry's been really really good in NACL and collegiate, and should be a bright spot for this team.

Do you remember the Shopify team from last split? Great, who cares? Brand new team incoming.

It feels like SR have taken this split seriously with a set of really good veterans that have something to prove. Fudge is back in the top lane after his split off from Cloud9 in Spring of '24.

Contractz and Palafox are here after NRG got out of League. Though Palafox specifically is coming off a dismal split, I believe that the two of them can really get it going and make this a decent team if they're on their game.

Bvoy is back from last split, but with a new support: Ceos, another CBLOL export. These two used to duke it out in CBLOL, so should be interesting to see them playing together for 2024.

It feels like every player is solid, but not top tier in their roles, with the exception of Contractz (who I may be the only person that rates him this high). Everyone on this team has something to prove, but I can't see them landing anywhere higher then this, and I really can't see them landing anywhere lower.

Disclaimer: 100T are a "Provisional Guest Team" in LTAN, which means they'll only be around for this year. They've sold their slot back to Riot, but due to time constraints, they'll be competing this year in LTAN.

Okay David, please don't kill me. At least I'm not ranking them in the bottom half?

1oo Theives are tough. They made one move; swapping Meech/Tomo for FBI. At the end of the day, this feels like a side-grade at best. Tomo showed flashes at the end of the split, and showed that he's worthy of a LTAN ADC spot.

The main problem is that FBI has kind of looked mediocre since he was on 100T, winning splits with Abbedagge, and it feels like 100T just signed whatever ADC was available.

Sniper, River, and Quid are still really good players, but this bot lane would keep me up at night if I was a fan of this team. You've got a monstrous topside that's shown it can fight it out with the best, but the bot lane could very well hold this team back.

I have a lot of questions about Cloud9. I have a lot of questions about most teams at this point, but C9 feel like the team with the least questions up till this point.

This team's changed since the last time we saw them. They've got Loki taking over the mid lane for Jojopyun, and Zven taking over the ADC role with Berserker going back to Korea. The bones of this team remain the same: Blaber in the jungle, Vulcan supporting, and Thanatos in the top lane.

Blaber and Thanatos were excellent last split, but it felt like the bot lane couldn't get it going. However, I feel like Vulcan's due for a bounce-back split. We've seen him play very well before.

Zven... sigh. Zven's really hard to figure out here. He was good on Dignatas (well, as good as you can be on Dignitas) but always felt like he wasn't the carry the same way Massu or Yeon were. C9 has never won without him though, and maybe he's the guy they need to get back to winning.

Loki seems to be a really good up-and-coming Korean mid laner from Hanwha Life's Challenger team. As long as there isn't any huge communication issues, I think this will work. Look for this guy to hang with the top tier mid laners immediately.

Overall, this team seems to be one that's going to have some issues gelling at the beginning, but as the year goes on, expect them to get better.

Yes, I know FlyQuest went further in Worlds then Team Liquid (foreshadowing: my number 1 ranked team). I do believe that Flyquest will get better this year then they were last year– I think they already have. However, this team feels very inconsistent in how they play, and with these top 2 teams, I think taking consistency into account is reasonable.

Sometimes this team comes out swinging with niche pocket picks, such as Inspired's Nunu and Fiddlesticks this Worlds. It can make them look unbeatable, and they're not scared to just play the same 15 champs that are considered meta at the time. On the other hand, it sometimes feels like this team is playing a 4v5 when Bwipo just kind of throws away the top lane.

Quad, Massu and Busio all played extremely well domestically. Massu and Quad have each only 1 year in the league, and Quad just a split at that. These carries are the real deal, and will only get better as the year goes on.

The way this team plays feels like someone needs to put a leash on it, not a big one mind you. They sometimes cook too hard and play themselves out of games before they even start.

Yes, I know Team Liquid had a worse Worlds tournament then FlyQuest. Yes, I know that both FlyQuest and Team Liquid have made no roster changes. However, Team Liquid brought in Swiffer, the former coach of SK Gaming, to be a mid lane assistant coach, which makes them a little bit more dangerous.

Looking at this team overall, where could you have actually made a roster move that really helped them outside of jungle (which I'd be willing to argue). Impact was the MVP of the league, while CoreJJ and APA were both receiving votes. Yeon also played his best split yet, and even though it was an AP jungle meta, Umti was playing tanks in the jungle and didn't seem to hamper the team (until it did).

This team, per the coaching staff, was designed as a two year project, and Spawn has showed us what he can do with just one. Hopefully this time they see the minions in the base.

Regardless of any of that, I think that winter this year is going to be a big gap between the top two teams and everyone else. FLY and TL are unchanged and only should have improved in the offseason. Mark your calendars for the FLY/TL game. It's going to be a banger.