After the departure of Gambit Gaming and SK Gaming at the end of 2015, Team Roccat became the second oldest organisation currently competing in the EU LCS, only behind Fnatic. Despite their veteran status, the name Roccat rarely raises an eyebrow in discussion. This is simply due to their seemingly uninspiring history as a middle of the pack team. However by analysing their history, looking at the five players that built Roccat up, and how the team rebuilt after the loss of its strongest players -- it’s evident that there is much more to Team Roccat than first thought.

A brief history

In early January, polish League of Legends team Kiedy? Mia?em Team were acquired by German based peripherals company ROCCAT. This team, consisting of Polish players Xaxus, Jankos, Overpow, Celaver and Vander had just previously beaten Ninjas in Pyjamas in the 2014 Spring Promotion tournament to gain qualification into the 2014 Spring LCS.

Jankos and Vander embrace after being promoted to the European LCS

Roccat achieved huge success in their LCS debut, where they sat in the top three for the majority of the season. A weak finish to the season saw them drop to 4th, but was still enough to reach playoffs. Roccat rounded off their debut season with a third place finish after wins against Gambit and Alliance and a 2-1 defeat at the hands of SK Gaming.

Due to their success in their opening season, as well as maintaining an unchanged roster, high expectations were set for Team Roccat going into Summer. These expectations were not fulfilled, with Roccat starting the season with seven losses and just a single win. A mid season surge saw Roccat brought up to 6th by the end of the split, and once again qualified for playoffs. Roccat’s momentum continued into playoffs, defeating SUPA HOT CREW in their first match. This then set up a worlds qualifier semifinal with Fnatic. The series went all the way to 5 games, but ultimately, Fnatic were victorious. Roccat had another chance at worlds in the 3rd place match against SK Gaming. Unfortunately for Roccat, they were swept 3-0 by an in-form SK.

2015 began, and Roccat had high hopes for the season. Xaxus and Celaver were removed from the roster, Overpow switched over the top lane and Woolite and Nukeduck were added to the team in AD Carry and Mid Lane positions respectively.

Well, last season we had the goal to stay in LCS get some experience, while for this year our goal is to actually fight to be one of the top teams. This means we had to make some changes in the lineup so we expand our skill ceiling.

          - Flyy, Roccat manager

Roccat’s finished 8th in a rough spring split and were forced into the Summer Promotion Tournament against Copenhagen Wolves Academy. At the promotion tournament, Jankos maintained a flawless KDA throughout the series, and led the team to an easy win, and a retained spot in the Summer split.

Overpow left the roster for Steve prior to the split start, but the roster change was not enough to change Roccat’s mediocre form. Mid way through the season, a struggling Woolite was replaced by MrRallez, who brought with him a late season surge to qualify for playoffs. Roccat’s playoff run was short lived, again they went down in a five game set, this time to the Unicorns of Love. Their playoff showing was enough to qualify them for the Regional finals, where they had to go through Giants, Origen, and the Unicorns of Love. A swift 3-0 proved Giants were no much for Roccat, which set up a series against Origen. Going all the way to five games once more, Origen were just too much for Roccat, taking the series 3-2, and ending Roccat’s 2015 season.

All five members of Roccat left the organisation in the start of 2016, so Team Roccat were left to field a completely new roster for the Spring Split. Their new roster consisted of fredy122, Airwaks, Betsy, Safir and EDward. After a horrendous start involving nine losses and just a single win, Roccat were in turmoil. Numerous roster changes plagued the team through the split, which saw Tabbz in for Safir, and Noxiak replacing extinkt, who had previously replaced Edward. They finished 9th that split, but bounced back into the LCS by defeating Huma in the promotion tournament.

Roccat knew changes were necessary going into Summer, so they brought in Korean players, Parang and Raise in top lane and support, as well as former Unicorns of Love AD Carry, Steeelback. Currently, Roccat sit bottom of the standings after five weeks, but in such a close European split, there is plenty of time for a surge up the standings..

The Original Five

Kiedy? Mia?em Team roster for the 2014 European Promotion Tournament

The roster of Xaxus, Jankos, Overpow, Celaver and Vander is one of the most famed Polish rosters in League of Legends esports. Their individual history is long, Xaxus and Overpow first played together back in May 2012 and Celaver joined the two in July 2012. Jankos and Vander joined much later in September and August 2013. This roster then stayed together in LCS for two full splits before Xaxus and Celaver were released. Together, the team finished third and fourth in back to back EU LCS splits, just after coming in from the promotion tournament. This feat of such unknown players performing so well in LCS can only be rivalled by the likes of Lemondogs and Cloud 9.

The Roccat “dynasty” dates all the way back to May 2012 when Xaxus and Overpow started their careers at Time-Out, a squad which was quickly being acquired by Team Acer Poland. They then spent many months playing together, dancing in and out of teams such as Kiedy? Mia?em Team and Elohell, before being united with Celaver in a second iteration of Kiedy? Mia?em Team in December 2012.

At this stage, Vander had been playing under the IDs Van Der Fckk or VandeRnoob in teams Elohell and Mousesports. After Xaxus, Overpow and Celaver had been playing together for eight months with Kiedy? Mia?em Team, Vander was introduced to the roster in August 2013.

Jankos is the youngest member of the five, and as such debuted in competitive league significantly later than the other four. He joined Xaxus, Overpow, Celaver and Vander in September 2013, when the roster was signed by H2k Gaming.

Once again, the team was reacquired by Kiedy? Mia?em Team, the name they would play under in the Season 4 Spring Promotion Tournament.  At the tournament they swiftly took down the struggling Ninjas in Pyjamas and qualified for the Season 4 EU LCS Spring Split. They were then acquired by peripherals organisation Roccat, and commenced their stellar EU LCS history.

All we wanted, and what is still our plan, is staying in LCS. besides that we obviously aim for 1st place although that may be really hard to achieve even after few successful weeks. The world finals? It still sounds like a dream but we shall see in a few months.

         - Xaxus, February 2014

Initially, Roccat had low expectations both from the community and individuals within the team, as Xaxus stated they simply wanted to stay in LCS. However their 2014 season saw them shoot past this initial goal, as every player on Roccat found their role on the team, and they worked around this team identity to achieve their strong results.

Xaxus was always the bruiser top laner, with the occasional Lulu. He found the most success on champions like Aatrox, Trundle and Renekton. He was often left to himself, and would rarely dominate the lane, simply holding his own and becoming a late game split push threat. He was the 4th lowest top laner with regards to kill participation and lowest in kill share amongst top laners.

Jankos was, and still is, one of the strongest early game junglers in Europe. Known as the “first blood king,” he found most success on champions that were dominant early, such as Lee Sin and Elise, and often snowballed an early game lead into mid game dominance through strong map control.

Jankos in the 2014 European Spring Split, Week 5

Overpow could play just about anything. In the 2014 Summer Season he had a champion pool of 15 champions, with a preference for farm-heavy control mages, apart from the Summer playoffs, where he found a love for Fizz. Roccat’s strong CS differential across 2014 can be heavily attributed to Overpow, who would rarely pressure his opponent out of lane, but always remained a consistent source of damage.

Celaver started the split as a liability. His small champion pool often left his teammates giving up power picks so he could play Lucian or Caitlyn, the two champions he played in 74% of games in the Spring split. However, by the end of the year, Celaver was a clear cut carry. His final LCS match was his strongest by far, a set against Fnatic with a Worlds spot on the line. He held even with Rekkles the entire set, and hyper carried his team late game on picks like Tristana and Kog’Maw.

Vander found his niche in his strong pick play, favouring Morgana and Thresh. He was dubbed Vanderlife, with reference to Madlife, after consistently strong performances on Thresh in particular. On top of his pick prowess, his map control was always top notch, regularly topping the statistics with regards to wards placed and cleared.

Together, this Roccat team was a living example of how a champion team can trump a team of champions. Individually they were weak, but their synergy and cohesion together was outstanding, and can be attributed as the number one factor for their top four finishes.

It was disappointing to see the team split up, and begs the ever-familiar question of “what if?” Could this Polish bunch of rag tags have continued their dominance in the ever-improving European region, or would they suffer similar fates to that of the actual Team Roccat that fought through 2015?

Jankos and Vander’s departure

Jankos and Vander were Team Roccat. They were always the the identity and the core of the team. Roccat’s playstyle was simple. Get an early lead from the first blood king, and then snowball the mid game with Vander’s picks and map control. When these two players left the team at the end of 2015, Roccat lost their identity, and struggled to find their feet again. Airwaks filled Jankos’ position nicely, however needed time to develop. Vander was much harder to replace, and it took the team more than a split to find a suitable replacement.

Airwaks replaced Jankos at the start of 2016, and since then, he has proved to be a more than suitable replacement. This is due to them having very similar jungle playstyles. Both have a preference for high impact early game champions such as Elise and Lee Sin. Jankos remains the superior jungler when it comes to map control, having significantly higher wards placed and cleared per minute over Airwaks, as well as his signature high first blood rate. However, Airwaks shines over Jankos by proving to be one of the most economical junglers in Europe. So far in the 2016 Summer Split, when compared to other junglers, Airwaks has the highest damage per minute and second highest percentage share of his team’s damage to champions, all while having the lowest percentage share of his team’s total earned gold.

Airwaks in action in the 2016 European LCS, Week 4

While Airwaks has not had the same success with Roccat as Jankos did, this cannot be attributed to weak individual play -- instead, simply the standard growing pains that came with a brand new five man roster.

Since Vander left the team in December 2015, Roccat have gone through four supports and three AD Carries. Something that can be said about Vander’s career at Roccat is that he never played with an AD carry better than him. Vander can be considered superior to Celaver, MrRallez and Woolite, individually. His ability to lead the lane as the superior player allowed Roccat to play with stronger players in other positions, most notably Nukeduck in the mid lane.

Vander had ability to negate the downsides of a low economy AD carry in the laning phase, and then strengthen the team's mid and late game with reliable warding, shown by his wards per minute stat, the highest in the EU LCS regular season, among supports, throughout his last split with Roccat. This is what made him such a strong support, and can be attributed to why he was so hard to replace.

The first support Roccat brought in to replace Vander was Edward. Unfortunately for Roccat, he could only play the first two weeks with the team, before he was forced out due to visa issues. Substitute player extinkt stepped in for the weeks to follow, however was only able to secure a single win from his eight games with the team. When Noxiak joined the team towards the end of the split, it was simply too little too late. He was able to lock down two wins over Unicorns of Love and Vitality, which were enough to scrape Roccat off the bottom of the standings, up to ninth place over Giants. Noxiak stuck with the team and helped retain Roccat’s spot in the EU LCS in the promotion tournament, but was replaced by Raise prior to the Summer split.

While it is difficult to compare the supports due to a small sample size on multiple players, a trend becomes clear between Roccat’s success and wards per minute in the support role. The 2016 spring support with the highest win percentage, Noxiak had the most wards placed per minute, followed by Edward with the second highest win percentage and wards per minute and finally extinkt. This trend continued into 2016 with Raise, who has the highest wards placed per minute out of all them and of course, the highest win percentage, bar Vander.

The main reasoning for the success behind good map control lies in the jungle with Airwaks, a jungler who is the polar opposite of a farm jungler. He loves to get aggressive in ganks and in the opposition’s jungle. This is evidenced by the fact that Airwaks has the worst cs per minute out of everyone in the EU LCS, that is not a support, yet still has the highest damage per minute out of all junglers.

This is added onto Airwaks being the worst warding jungler with regards to wards per minute. This strong lack of wards coming from the jungle means the support has to drastically make up for their jungler’s flaws, and why a high warding support is necessary for Roccat’s success.

Stability in the jungle has been one of the few shining lights of Roccat throughout 2016, and that is where the majority of the team’s success currently comes from. For Roccat to once again surge up the rankings, it will be up to

Team Roccat may appear to be a standard middle of the pack team, but their history has shown they are of one of the strongest teams in Europe, coming within one set of worlds in 2014, and two sets in 2015. While their 2016 season still needs lots of improvement if they are repeat these successes, it’s impossible to rule them out just yet.