4 Teams to Watch In 2022
4 January 2022 — by League Analyst
We have entered a new year and the professional league season is about to start once again. Around the world teams have been puzzling together their rosters to compete in their respective leagues, and possibly for the Summoner’s Cup at Worlds later this year. So today I’ll share four teams that you should keep an extra eye on as the 2022 competitions begin.
Kwangdong Freecs
Built around their own superstar toplaner Kiin, the Freecs are making a push for the top of the LCK in 2022. The team has added four new players to the active roster, three of which come from the T1 organisation. This package of T1 players are sure to come with some level of built in synergy, which could be crucial in getting this team rolling in spring.
Looking at this new roster you could argue that Kwangdong has both the strongest bot and top side in the LCK. Depending on how the rest of the roster holds up against the giants in the league, we could be looking at a title contending team for sure. If Fate can keep a stable performance as the centerpiece of the roster, I’m convinced that this squad could do damage to the best teams out there.
Cloud9
Corea9 has made a complete roster revamp and is coming into 2022 with 3 additions from different tiers in the Korean scene; Summit from Liiv SANDBOX (LCK), Beserker from T1 (Challengers) and Winsome from Shadow Battlica (Amateur). In addition to that, LS was picked up from T1 as the new head coach for the team.
LS is well known for his opinions about the game and how it should be played. Now he has built a team to make his visions about the game come true. For many people, this roster is more about the strategic philosophy and ideals rather than individual players. It’s a new approach to the game as a whole and the head coach has already come out saying that the goal for this roster is to win the LCS and to challenge the top eastern teams at worlds in 2022.
Team Vitality
The European super-team is here. Perkz and Alphari has returned from NA and is teaming up with some of the best players that the LEC has to offer. On paper this is one of the most stacked rosters that we’ve seen in the past years. Now the only question left is: will it work?
European super teams hasn’t had the best results historically. Alliance (2014), Elements (2015) and G2 Esports (2021) are some of the previous teams with hyped up rosters that didn’t manage to live up to expectations. Vitality is looking to break that trend and has fielded a roster that looks incredibly competitive for 2022.
Top Esports
There are many teams making exiting moves in preparation for the 2022 LPL season. Top Esports is one of those teams, signing former JDG toplaner Zoom and FPX jungler Tian. With the new topside the team is looking to bounce back after a rather disappointing exit from the 2021 Summer playoffs.
The team has already shown some promising qualities and won the 2021 Demacia Cup. Their performances point to the fact that this roster has the possibility to fight at the top next split. Speaking of which, the Spring split is just around the corner. Here are the starting dates for the 4 major regions:
LPL: January 10th
LCK: January 12th
LEC: January 14th
LCS (Lock-In): January 14th
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