With just a few days to go before the LEC starts, read on to get to know the remaining five teams that will be fighting for the Winter title!
Rogue
Rogue joined the LEC way back in 2019, ending their debuting split with a terrible 2-16 win-rate in dead last. At that point, you can only go up, and up they went! From the years 2020-2022 Rogue has consistently been in the upper middle half of the teams, even ending first in three separate regular seasons, before finally earning a championship in the Summer of 2022.In 2023, Rogue rebranded to KOI, with most of the Rogue players staying on the roster, but for Andrei "Odoamne" Pascu, who had moved to Excel. However, KOI couldn't replicate Rogue's successes from the years prior. Now, in the 2024 season, Rogue is making a comeback, in name, roster, and hopefully in success.
The 2024 iteration of Rogue will feature Mathias "Szygenda" Jensen in the top lane, Mark "Markoon" van Woensel in the jungle, Emil "Larssen" Larsson mid, with Markos "Comp" Stamkopoulos and LEC rookie Théo "Zoelys" Le Scornec. Aside from the addition of Zoelys, this roster is chock full of LEC veterans, and Rogue seem to be hoping to just pick off where they left off before the KOI rebrand. We'll see if that's possible!
SK Gaming
SK Gaming is an old team, one with roots in the old European league franchise, the EULCS. They rejoined the league following the rebrand to LEC in 2019, but they haven't enjoyed much success. There were virtually no expectations from SK - every split, everyone expected they would end up somewhere between 6th and 10th place, and that's pretty much what they'd been doing...
... until 2023. In the Winter of 2023, having shaken up their roster substantially - keeping only their mid laner Daniel "Sertuss" Gamani from 2022, SK Gaming just started winning. There was a week in the Winter Split where they just beat everyone - G2 Esports, Team Vitality, and defending champions KOI/Rogue as well. Suddenly, SK was the team to watch, and even though they couldn't get past third place, the Winter Split of 2023 was their most successful split to date.
Suddenly, there were expectations. And, sadly, SK Gaming couldn't really keep up. Whether it was the meta, the pressure, other teams just getting the hang of them, SK Gaming went back to sort of a middle-of-the-pack status. In 2024, they're looking to change that, and they've brought out a couple of roster changes to make it happen.
While their top and bot lanes are remaining in tact, SK is saying goodbye to Sertuss and welcoming Yasin "Nisqy" Dinçer, formerly of MAD Lions, in the mid lane. Love him or hate him, Nisqy has quietly been one of our most successful mid laners in past years. On the other hand, SK's new jungler, Ismaïl "Isma" Boualem, is a new face to the LEC, though a player that's been active in various professional leagues since 2020.
SK Gaming's roster announcement, sourced from their YouTube channel.
Team BDS
Team BDS shares a similar story to SK Gaming in many ways, though they're a much younger team overall. BDS started in the LFL with great success, but had a rough debuting split in 2022 in the LEC. In 2023, they changed all that, pulling off some terrific games in Winter and showing off a kind of potential we hadn't seen from them before. Then, in Spring, they just narrowly lost to the MAD Lions in the finals after finishing first in the regular season.
Spring and Summer didn't go quite their way, but they did manage to qualify for (a chance at) Worlds, their first Worlds, during the LEC Season Finals. BDS managed to beat out the Golden Guardians and qualify for Swiss Stage, to the delight of European fans everywhere, but that's where their Worlds success ended. In the Swiss Stage, they secured zero wins, even losing out to somewhat winnable match-ups such as against fellow LEC team MAD Lions and Korea's fourth seed.
In spite of these circumstances, the team seems confident, and their roster has remained almost entirely intact for 2024 with the exception of their bot lane. Yoon "Ice" Sang-hoon is taking Juš "Crownie" Marušič's spot as the bot laner, coming from Serbian team Zero Tenacity, with roots in the LCK academy league. Whether this change is enough to bring them back to form, we'll see. Some rejuvenation was definitely required.
Team Heretics
Team Heretics joined the LEC just last year but quickly became fan favourites. Their initial roster inspired confidence, being centered around beloved formerly-G2-affiliated jungler Marcin "Jankos" Jankowski, still considered possibly the best European jungler in history, and Shunsuke "Evi" Murase, Japanese top laner, who had been playing for Japan's best team for five years prior to joining Heretics.
In spite of this big names, the Heretics struggled in 2023, especially in Spring, when they failed to even make group stage. They shuffled up their roster for Summer, taking on Victor "Flakked" Lirola Tortosa in the bot lane (also a former G2 player) and Vincent "Vetheo" Berrié mid lane. These changes went over smoothly, but Team Heretics still couldn't quite make top three in the Summer Split or qualify for the Season Finals.
For 2024, Team Heretics made some exciting changes to ensure this 2023 season doesn't repeat. While Jankos and Flakked remain, the rest of the roster has been dismissed. Instead, they're bringing in two more former G2 players - top laner Martin "Wunder" Nordahl and mid laner Luka "Perkz" Perković. These two alongside Jankos made up what was once the golden age of G2, and were part of the roster that won MSI in 2019, though Perkz was in the bot lane at that time.
This G2esque roster is rounded out with Norman "Kaiser" Kaiser, who is instead known for hios time playing with MAD Lions and, more briefly, Team Vitality alongside Perkz. Though his couple of years have been far from glamorous, Kaiser is already a two-time LEC champion and will certainly be an asset to the team. The bigger question mark is probably Perkz, once known as a rival to Caps and potential mid lane GOAT, Perkz has been floundering since leaving G2 and whether he can climb back to the top remains to be seen!
Team Vitality
Last, but not least, we have Team Vitality. This team has been almost completely revamped, and for good reason. Vitality brought out a "superteam" roster in 2022, which flamed out, before they brought out a new "superteam" in 2023, which started off great - securing first place in the Winter regular season - but fell off, hard.
In 2024, they've said goodbye to their star import, Zhou "Bo" Yang-Bo, beloved formerly G2 mid laner, Luka "Perkz" Perković, fan favourite bot laner Elias "Upset" Lipp, two-time champion Norman "Kaiser" Kaiser. All they've got left from their 2023 team are top laner Kyeong "Photon" Gyu-tae, who had previously played in the LCK academy leagues. In the jungle, LEC rookie Kacper "Daglas" Dagiel has come in from Vitality's academy team to replace Bo.
A bunch of other familiar faces, from a motley of different teams, have come in to round out Vitality's new 2024 roster, including Vincent "Vetheo" Berrié (known for Heretics, EXCEL, Misfits), Matyáš "Carzzy" Orság (known for MAD Lions and 2021-2022 Vitality), and finally, one of Europe's finest supports, Zdravets "Hylissang" Iliev Galabov, known primarily for being Fnatic's steadfast support until 2022. Between all these big names, surely this will be the year that Team Vitality delivers on all of its promises.
The new hive, as announced on Team Vitality's twitter page.
