I am an avid viewer of the League of Legends Championship Series and have been since early last year. It has made me come to the conclusion that I generally prefer watching the game being played to actually playing it myself. Although I have thousands of games played, I haven't played very frequently over the past year or so. The LCS split for the first half of season 4 has just started. The first week of the European LCS has already concluded, and the NA LCS is now on day 2. I'm watching the VODs to catch up.
There have been a ton of surprising picks across both regions already. Darien of Gambit Gaming shocked everyone when he boldly locked in Warwick for the top lane and not only did his job, but excelled. After a couple of successful games, he actually started to attract bans. Personally I feel that's a bit reactionary since there is some pretty reliable counterplay to that champion--but it appears that no has practiced for it, which should strike no one as a surprise.
Another surprise pick was support Galio from SK's Nrated. Even though the choice was counterpicked by SHC's Xin Zhao, Nrated was able to successfully engage a lot of great fights, although his laning phase was somewhat weak.
Another highlight was CLG's game against Dignitas. Their new jungler Dexter is unable to make it to the States for the first week of the NA LCS due to Visa issues so it was announced just an hour before the NA LCS started that retired pro HotshotGG would be temporarily rejoining the roster--in the mid lane! Hotshot has been spamming mid lane games in solo queue pretty much since he retired, so it's no surprise he didn't decide to take up the top lane instead. Their regular mid laner Link takes up the jungle role in Dexter's absence.
Despite six mid lane bans in CLG vs Dignitas, HotshotGG was able to play his main champion Nidalee against another surprise pick from Scarra: Katarina. Though Scarra's Katarina mechanics were stellar and he racked up quite a few kills during the game, CLG was able to play methodically with zoning from Nidalee's spears and Jinx's long range and pull out the win. Oh, and of course Dignitas lost an important Baron fight as they always seem to do.
The most exciting game to watch so far, however, was definitely Curse vs. XDG and it was the first game of day 2 of the NA LCS. XDG surprised everyone when their roster swap (Zuna to jungle, Xmithie to AD carry) paid dividends in their first game of the season. Zuna's Olaf was instrumental in securing them victory and quite impressive. However, his two games since then have been less convincing--including Curse's insane team comp against them in day 2's game 1.
Curse's team comp sounds like something out of a bronze solo queue game: Karthus, Akali, Pantheon, Caitlyn, and Annie. They didn't have a single tanky champion--in fact, the most durable champion in the lineup ended up being IWillDominate on his jungle Pantheon, who built a Randuin's Armor after his initial Brutalizer/Elder Lizard rush. Voyboy helmed Akali at the mid lane while Quas took Karthus to the top lane against a Shyvana. This seemed like a recipe for disaster, but because they made a lot of plays early, the game snowballed incredibly in their favor.
Voyboy's Akali dominated Mancloud's Yasuo in the mid lane. There's a good chance this is a matchup he's familiar with as he very frequently plays assassins in solo queue. I don't know if it's a skill matchup or not, but it seemed like Mancloud has no recourse to defend himself against Akali's onslaught. Voyboy had the audacity to take Exhaust/Ignite in the matchup on a champion with few options for escaping. It was a bold move, but it secured Curse first blood against Yasuo with an early Pantheon gank.
After they took off, the comp was amazing to watch in action. Each champion in the lineup had the potential to start an initiation. Caitlyn had Ace in the Hole, Karthus had Requiem, Pantheon had Grand Skyfall, and Annie of course had her much feared Flash Tibbers combo. Voyboy on Akali had the potential to follow up on any of these long range initiates with Shadow Dance. Although the comp was incredibly risky, it worked beautifully once they got slightly ahead. Mancloud's Yasuo was absolutely shut down.
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