Pretty major shake-ups announced in the NA pro teams. Kind of a three way trade...
CLG: Trades Saintvicious for Voyboy
Dignitas: Trades Voyboy from Crumbzz
Curse: Trades Crumbzz for Saintvicious
Plenty of info on why available (Crumbzz needed to leave Curse for a team without a gaming house so he could stay near campus for college, Saint/CLG not meshing), but mostly interested in looking at this from a competitive perspective. Kind of feel like all three teams got worse in the short term.
CLG gains imo easily the best top laner in NA and maybe in the world to upgrade over Hotshotgg, who is probably the weakest top laner in NA, but in doing so they move Hotshot, already one of the weaker pro players, to a position he has very little experience in and where most of his champions can't be played effectively and move their problem do a different slot. I definitely think CLG will improve by not having Saint on the roster because it'll make it a lot easier for this to become Chauster's team from a leadership standpoint, and with Jiji picking it back up the past couple of months, their bot improving, and the addition of Voy I think they might have the best lanes in the world, but at what cost? I kind of wonder if they won't make a second move here: specifically, that they'll let Hotshot audition in the jungle and if it doesn't work just let him step back and manage CLG(which will have 3 teams to worry about shortly) like Dan Dinh has for solomid/EG and replace him with a more capable jungler. I think if you have even an above average pro jungler with those lanes and everyone listening to Chauster it's an awfully intimidating team.
I thought Curse had been falling behind a bit prior to this move -- with EG looking much, much better with the Salce/Nhat/Wings/Aphromoo/Unstoppable roster than they had since the end of season 1 and some of the newer teams rising, I felt like Curse was dropping a bit -- but this change, if nothing else, gives them a lot more star power(something I suspect their sponsor was pretty keen on). Now with two very influential former CLG members on their roster, Curse is, if nothing else, a team everyone should have an opinion on. Crumbzz is coming off a couple weak events where he was a big part of the team losing, so Saint could be seen as a big upgrade, but I think Crumbzz is a lot better than he's looked recently and that Saint maybe isn't as good as his attitude. Kind of view this move as a push for Curse, but they'll get notoriety from it and they've always seemed to me like a team that's lacked a real leader so Saint getting his own team might be good for him and Curse in a similar way to how Saint leaving to make room for Chauster to take over in CLG could be good for them.
I think the big loser here is obviously Dignitas. They lose the best top laner in NA and like CLG have the issue of having someone play out of position. Crumbzz is a stronger player than Hotshot and has much greater, more top-lane appropriate champion variety, so he'll probably adjust fine, but I don't think many people would disagree with the assertion that I Will Dominate is no longer the best jungler on his own team and I have to feel like that's going to be a problem at some point. Unless Crumbzz winds up being absolutely lights out top this is a pretty major downgrade for Dignitas, who I expect to fade a lot after this. Losing Jatt hurt them badly -- I think with him, they probably beat M5 at Hanover, and without Voyboy they wouldn't have even gotten close to getting there -- and this is probably a bigger downgrade than they can afford to take. I would not at all be surprised to see Dignitas drop Dominate, move Crumbzz to jungle, and grab a strong top laner if one becomes available in the near future because I don't think they're going to be competitive at the S2 championships with this roster.
Think they'll all be worse in the short term as they adjust, but Curse should improve a little longer term and CLG may as well, with Dignitas really getting hit hard here. I kinda think the two TSM teams are the teams to beat in the next NA event until these other guys prove they can get it done with their adjusted rosters, but if CLG has a jungle solution by the end of season 2 -- be it Hotshot or someone else -- they'll be NA's team to beat there. Curse probably gains just by Dignitas getting worse. EG, TSM, and CLG are probably the most threatening teams right now, but Dignitas falling down a bit opens up that next slot for them.
