Team Liquid’s Jatt, Cain, and Dodo win LCS coaching staff of the split. After finishing ninth in the spring split, the team brought in long time LCS caster Jatt as the head coach. Jatt, along with Cain and Dodo, turned Liquid around, finishing first in the summer split regular season.

Coming off a tumultuous spring split, and parting ways with the winningest player in LCS history, Doublelift, the four-time champions seemed to be in flux. The team was stacked with talent and fans and analysts were stunned at Liquid’s spring results.

The team started the spring split strong, keeping up with the first-place team Cloud 9. The defending champions began a massive downward spiral in the second half of the split. While this was happening, Liquid consistently got better. Support, CoreJJ, returned to his MVP form and carried the team to important victories over Cloud 9 and TSM. He also made the LCS first all-pro team.

The addition of Jatt brought on many questions. How can a caster transition to head coach? Can Jatt juggle the stars on this team? Can Jatt bring Liquid back to its winning ways? The answer is yes to all the above. The team completely shifted back to a similar form to when they won four championships in a row. 

Even though Liquid finished first, the team has multiple issues that the rest of the league can take advantage of during playoffs. The first, and major issue, is the jungler’s, Broxah, performance. While the meme of his 0/0/1 Graves game is overused, there is some truth behind it. Every player on Liquid made all-team, except Broxah. His passive play will certainly be taken advantage of on an international stage. Junglers like Top Esport’s Karsa and Invictus Gaming’s Ning will run over passive junglers. If Cloud 9’s Blaber or Golden Guardian’s Closer can do the same, Liquid may stumble on their road to their fifth title. Another major issue is Liquid’s rigidity. This applies to draft and in-game. Every player seems to be dependant on two or three champion picks. The team overall played only 32 unique champions. Compare this to Cloud 9 with 47 unique champions or Golden Guardians with 42 unique champion picks. Broxah, in particular, has only played four different champions through 18 games. Opposing teams can take advantage of this trough draft and force Liquid to play champions they have little experience on. The roster overall is talented enough to adapt and resolve these issues, however, the issues still stand.

Sources: LoL Esports, LoL.Gamepedia