Worlds 2021: The Curious Case of Rogue

After dominant regular seasons but rather disappointing playoff runs, Rogue seeks to prove itself as one of Europe’s top teams going into the World Championship.

Rogue’s journey in the LEC has been an uphill one. They were brought into the LEC following its adoption of franchising, and their first split was nothing short of an embarrassment– they finished last with a 2-16 record. The following split, they started integrating their rookies into the main roster, and they finished fourth in the playoffs, just one spot shy of qualifying into the World Championship. In 2020, Rogue finally made it as the European third seed, but they were put into one of the most difficult groups in the tournament– they were with Damwon Gaming, JD Gaming, and PSG Talon. They did not exactly have a great showing in the tournament, and went home with a 1-5 score line in the group stage. 

Coming into 2021, Finn “Finn” Wiestål was replaced by veteran top laner Andre “Odoamne” Pascu, and veteran support Oskar “Vander” Bogdan was replaced by rookie Adrian “Trymbi” Trybus. Most analysts expressed the opinion that this would finally be a championship contender, as the acquisition of Odoamne would address one of Rogue’s weaknesses from when they still had Finn. Trymbi and Steven “Hans Sama” Liv were a top bottom lane in the league, getting 2v2 kills in the laning phase. Emil “Larssen” Larsson was still the reliable mid laner that people have known him to be. They placed second in the regular season with a 14-4 record, the same as G2 Esports, but they lost control of first place due to their head-to-head record.  

In that split’s playoffs, Rogue immediately got sent into the lower bracket by MAD Lions, and then fought their way through the lower bracket against FC Schalke 04 and G2 Esports, before having their rematch against MAD in the finals. Rogue started the series with a dominating 2-0, but ended up getting reverse swept. They even had leads in all of the early games. 

In the summer, things were more or less the same. Rogue still had a strong regular season, finishing first, but once again began to struggle in best of fives. They had a shaky five-game series against Misfits Gaming, where they were the clear favorites and it was expected that they would dominate. They then got cleanly swept by MAD Lions, where it looked like they were behind during every early game. In the lower bracket, the same happened with Fnatic. Their usual strength in the early game vanished, much to the surprise of analysts and commentators. 

With the caliber of players that they have, it is not shocking to discover that Rogue was well-known for their early game prowess. What is shocking is the fact that they make so many mistakes in the mid to later stages of the game even when they have veteran talent in their roster, and have thrown many games from these mistakes. In addition, the fact that they lost their ability to consistently get leads in the early game means that they no longer have any way to be competitive in their games. 

Things do not look very good for Rogue at the moment, but there is the hope that the time between the summer playoffs and the start of Worlds could be enough for Rogue to shape up.   Given how talented their players are, they might just deliver a pleasant surprise to those who underestimate this squad.

 

(Header image via Riot Games)