No team had a bigger turnaround than Longzhu Gaming did between the Spring Split and the Summer Split. Longzhu was talked about as a potential playoff team before the start of the Spring Split, but looked disjointed and was routinely smashed by the best teams in Korea. They finished in seventh place and looked closer to a team set to be relegated than a potential champion. In fact, some analysts were calling on this team to be relegated in Summer Split after they switched out their top laner, jungler, and mid laner prior to the start of the season.
That turned out to be far from the case as those changes were just what the doctor ordered. Longzhu ended up being the best team in Korea in the Summer Split, finishing at the top of the table in the regular season before knocking off SK Telecom T1 in the Summer Split Finals. They are one of the teams to beat at Worlds.
Opening Betting Odds to Win 2017 League of Legends World Championship
Longzhu Gaming +175
Top Lane
Khan has been solid since taking over in summer. He was signed by Longzhu to replace Expression and was reliable throughout the Summer Split. Khan had bounced around five different organizations before being picked up by Longzhu and no one expected him to be a starting top laner for a Korean champion.
His play in the LCK Summer Split Finals was fantastic as he continually got the better of Untara and Huni of SK Telecom T1 and was named the MVP of those same finals. He is a fantastic Jayce player and must be respected whenever he is on that champion.
Just in case Khan falters, Longzhu used its one substitute to bring Rascal to China. We have seen very little of Rascal and he only became a professional player this year. Don’t expect to see him unless Khan has a meltdown.
Jungle
Cuzz has been a very good jungler this season in spite of the fact that none of his favored champions are S-Tier or even A-Tier choices. He posted the second-highest KDA of any jungler in Korea during the Summer Split. Not bad when you consider that he was just a 17-year-old rookie at the start of the summer.
He took over for Crash as the team’s starting jungler and has been superb on team-focused selections. If he gets to select Gragas, watch out. Longzhu is 8-0 with Cuzz on the champion and he has a 10.4 KDA.
Mid Lane
It’s hard to understate just what BDD meant to Longzhu after taking over for Fly in the mid lane. BDD set the Korean record for KDA in a season with an incredible 11.3 ratio in the Summer Split, but was more than just a KDA king.
He is fond of strong assassins in the mid lane, but was incredible on two team-focused champions. Longzhu was 12-2 with BDD on Taliyah and he posted an incredible 19.9 KDA on the champion. He was even better on Galio with a 25.2 KDA on him, but Longzhu was a little worse overall with an 8-2 record in that draft.
AD Carry
Longzhu might have the best bottom lane in the world at the moment. Pray came over from ROX Tigers at the start of this year with his bottom lane partner GorillA and has lived up to his billing as a superstar. He is a very aggressive AD Carry and can outduel almost any other AD Carry in the world with his superior mechanics.
He played a lot of Ashe in Korea during the Summer Split, which was a bit surprising as the meta seemed to favor Trystana, Kalista, and Kog’Maw. Pray was very good on the champion though. Now that Twitch is back in the meta, don’t be surprised to see Pray pick him up often during Worlds.
Bottom Lane
There aren’t many supports better than GorillA. Like Pray, he was one of the superstars on that 2016 ROX Tigers powerhouse, but left for Longzhu after the season.
GorillA had the second-most assists of any support in Korea during the Summer Split and adopted well to the roll of initiator. He played Thresh 16 times during the Summer Split and will continue to play the champion if it is not banned.
Look out for a potential pocket pick from GorillA at some point in the tournament. He came up with the idea of using Miss Fortune as a support at Worlds last year and that helped create a lot of mismatches for ROX Tigers.
Prediction
This is one of the tournament favorites and Longzhu should coast through a very weak Group B. Fnatic is the only team that might give them a little bit of trouble, but they shouldn’t have much of a problem with either Immortals or GIGABYTE Marines.
Their biggest competition will come in the form of their Korean compatriots, Samsung Galaxy and SK Telecom T1. Longzhu should continue to advance until they play one of those two teams.
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