Team Observation - Dignitas

Preface: This series seeks to dig deeper beyond the obvious conclusions about a team from any given region in any given week of competitive League of Legends. The team I choose won’t always be the team that played the best game or the worst game nor the most entertaining games. This isn’t an award, it’s an observation. It’s an evaluation of a team’s games that serves to bring interesting questions to light-- important questions that aren’t always asked by the spectators.

After all, so few dare to ask the question.

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Throughout the history of the LCS, Dignitas has traditionally peaked early, despite being either the first or second placed team in NA. They’re also the team that most often faces the risk of relegation. Somehow, the team always finds it in themselves to fall from the top every split and season, but the so far, 2015 is a different story.

Dignitas ended week 8 of the NA LCS with a 9-7 (W-L) record. They are guaranteed a playoff spot as it’s impossible for them to be overtaken by the current 7th place team Team 8.

This split seemed no different to spectators as Dignitas took down teams like C9 and TSM early in the affair. They rose to second place in the NA LCS standings around the halfway point, in week 4 where they went 2-0, taking down both Team Impulse and Team Liquid, both of whom were expected to be tough opponents.

So, is Dignitas to be feared at the end of the summer split or will they disgrace themselves at the bottom of the ninth again?

In terms of standings alone, Dignitas looks like they’re slumping as they went from second to sixth, but it’s important to keep in mind the following going into the final week and playoffs.

First of all, it should be taken into account just what their wins meant in all the weeks up until now.

In the first few weeks of the LCS, they lost to a new CLG lineup that went to on dominate the first half of the LCS. Then they took easy wins off a crumbling C9, a half-substituted TDK roster and a Team8 that had to practice with two different AD Carries -Maplestreet and Nientonsoh- at the same time (remember, Nien was announced for T8 but they were not allowed to field him due to a late acquisition, forcing them to divide their practice between two different carries).

Their next big win was over TSM. This isn’t meant to discredit this win but TSM this split has shown to have incredibly weak teamfighting compared to how they played before MSI. Their weakness was especially obvious in last week's game against Team Impulse. They lost next to Gravity who is currently dominating the league on the back of the form of their jungler Move. The biggest case for any hype for Dignitas lies in week four where they took back to back victories against Team Impulse and Team Liquid. They may not be the best in the league but they hover near the top in terms of strength in the NA LCS, so normally you'd look at these two wins and come to the conclusion that Dignitas is near the top of the ladder. But the next half of the LCS tells a very different story.

In Week 5 Dignitas took the easy win over NME but then lost to TDK who were finally able to play with their full roster, utilizing their midlaner Ninja and AD Carry Emperor. This turned out to be TDK's first and only win of the LCS so far, so it's likely that Dignitas just didn't prepare at all for TDK. From then on, they took an easy win off Team8, and lost to Team Liquid, Team Impulse, Cloud9 and TSM, all of whom they had beaten in the first half of the split, which is not a good look overall. As impressive as the Gravity win is, last week Gravity should have lost both games, but their jungler kept them in with back to back baron steals due to Team8's lack of coordination around the baron pit the second time. From the context of these wins I'd make the argument that Dignitas hasn't even peaked yet in the season if they are to peak at all.

And that's good. They've clearly shown that they can take down top teams but honestly they have nowhere to go but up from here, and might take unsuspected wins against whoever they get matched up with in playoffs.

My hypothesis is as follows. From Season 2 to the end of Season 4, Dignitas always started really strong and crashed at the end for one reason or the other, but this year with this current lineup they had an abysmal spring split earlier and barely avoided being relegated. This split shows growth but not a huge amount since they have split 1-1 with every team with the exceptions of Team8. They went 2-0 against Team8 but have not yet played their week 9 opponents CLG and NME. Because they've split even against the top teams in NA it really makes perfect sense to put Dignitas on the same tier as them. I think that with proper preparation Dignitas can make a decent run because while they average a 171.9 gold deficit at 10 minutes across the NA LCS, teams rarely average out a commanding gold lead other than CLG's average 684.6 gold lead at 10 minutes. Most average from a gold lead from 200 to a gold deficit of 171.9. That spectrum isn't too massive and says a lot about how close a lot of NA teams are to each other, which is reflected in the threeway second place tie and the twoway fifth place tie. This means despite being middle of the pack, there is not too much to overcome with the necessary preparation.

In this sense, Dignitas can make a decent run through the gauntlet to get far in NA despite being the lowest current playoffs seed. After all, their "drop" from 2nd to 6th place doesn't seem to be anything horrifying, having lost to teams that were originally projected to perform better than them to begin with. Also to consider is that with how teams have fallen and risen to this heavy-middle standings in North America, it makes predicting best of five sets tricky, especially with the way the meta has changed in the last few patches to hit competitive. Dignitas may yet surprise us, and this week's games against CLG and NME will tell a lot about whether or not Dignitas has the mettle for the uphill battle.

Photo courtesy of Riot Games