Curse A Lack of Identity

Who is the leader and voice of this team? What kind of play style will we see from them?

These were the questions that many asked at the start of the split and in some ways still cannot
be answered. From the very beginning, Curse had two solo laners that did not fit within the
current meta. Diego "Quas" Ruiz was known as a player with strong mechanics and happened to
join Curse at a time where tanky top laners that did nothing but farm dominated the meta.
Voyboy's switch to the mid lane made a lot of sense last year when assassins such as Ahri, Riven,
Zed, and Fizz were the popular picks. With patch changes, Voyboy found himself having to play
champions like Ziggs, Nidalee, and Gragas. Kassadin and Leblanc were two mages that fit the
assassin criteria but could be easily banned away from him.

Curse tried their best to play to their strengths and ignored the meta. Quas played champions
normally not played in the top lane such as Karthus, Gragas, and Jax. Voyboy did his best to
keep to his style by playing Riven, Akali, and Vladimir. While playing to your strengths is a
good rule to follow, playing champions that are considered weak for the sake of playing to one's
strengths is not. Curse looked out of place, their matches could be considered fun to watch due to
their unique team compositions, but it did not cut it in the NA LCS.

The team attributed their lackluster results to the lack of a clear shotcaller. Saintvicious, their
jungler and shotcaller for the year before, was now the coach. They had three new members and
were still trying to find chemistry among themselves. The organization decided to bring back
their shotcaller from the past by placing him at support, a role that he had never played
competitively before.

In the end, the team looked more decisive, but also lost faster due to some of the decisions made.
Saintvicious was out of his element, although he was not a bad support player by any means. He
played fairly well for his first competitive stint as a support player, but like his veteran ex-
teammates HotshotGG, Chauster, and Bigfatlp the impact he had on the game was not up to
par with the current generation of players.

Curse finally brought in Michael "BunnyFuFu" Kurylo, a support player on the amateur team
known as Girlfriends. In addition to the change, the Voyboy and Quas were quickly picking up
the in-meta champions. Curse's playstyle looked more familiar to the average LCS viewer with
picks such as Renekton, Trundle, Nidalee, and Lulu.

Looking back, LCS viewers can see that the new Curse was a definite upgrade to the one during
the first half of the split. Unfortunately, other teams have for the most part improved as well.
There is still a clear difference between the map rotations of the top three teams C9, TSM, and
CLG and the rest of the NA LCS. Curse has to further tighten their shotcalling and playmaking
in order to see themselves evenly duke it out with the best of North America this weekend.




Dignitas Back to Square One

It was hard to argue against all the doubters back in January Dignitas looked like a team that
would not make it into the playoffs. Their star support, Jordan "Patoy" Blackburn, decided to
step down. In his place, a disheartened Alan "Kiwikid" Nguyen moved from the top lane to fill
the support role. Cruz "Cruzerthebruzer" Ogden, who was known for his Lee Sin play, stepped in
as the new top laner for the team. Roster changes were nothing new for the team so why had
the perception of one of the most consistent North American teams suddenly changed?

Competition. The only team that was relegated from the previous season was Velocity eSports,
whose roster was essentially replaced by a strong combination of North American and European
players under the Evil Geniuses brand.

But suddenly in Week Two of the Spring Split, they were the underdogs who looked to be a top
three team in the region. They handed Cloud 9 their first loss of the season; beat XDG who went
to Worlds only a few months before; defeated the strong newcomers in Evil Geniuses, and
finally ended the week with a win against CLG. The Dignitas bandwagon was real and the next
few months looked promising in addition to their week off.

The following weeks revealed the mist behind Dignitas' perceived inexplicable success and
downfall they were neither a bad team nor a top three team in North America. XDG's losses
were not flukes, something was clearly wrong with the team chemistry. Evil Geniuses' success in
the promotion tournament held no place amongst the top North American teams. The addition of
Dexter to CLG and Link's return to mid lane made them an incredibly strong team. Dignitas'
success in Week Two was the result of a weak strength of schedule.

Somewhere down the line the decision to bench William "Scarra" Li and replace him with
Greyson "goldenglue" Gilmer was made. Scarra had not voluntarily stepped down, the specifics
were never revealed, but he "found out he was off the team and accepted it pretty quickly. [He]
knew he had been underperforming quite a bit." It was a sudden decision that no one really
expected. Scarra was not the sole reason for Dignitas' relatively poor performance. Dexter from
CLG said he didn't "think [Scarra] was the reason [for the poor performance] and the new
midlaner seems like a downgrade."

Dexter was proven right. Goldenglue was not a significant improvement over Scarra, Dignitas'
performance did not improve for the better, and their play looked less coordinated than usual.
Although the team made the playoffs, they did not look like they would get very far.

Finally, it was recently announced that Scarra would return to Dignitas as the mid-laner. In Riot's
featured video, Scarra said that his first thought was, "How badly could the scrims have gone?"
So here they are, back to square one. For all that the organization has tried to improve the team,
they have only reverted back to an earlier iteration that was marginally better. Dignitas fans can
only hope that their scrims this week have gotten better since Scarra's return. The team has a fair
chance of beating Curse in the quarterfinals; but what chance do they have at beating Cloud 9,
the powerhouse of North America?