Here we will look at some of the more recent 10 man rosters and looking at how they did in their respective regions. We will look at Longzhu Gaming, Team Liquid, and Apex Gaming.

Image courtesy of LongZhu Gaming

Longzhu Gaming

Longzhu Gaming is a Korean team that had a 10 man roster during the spring 2016 split. The roster consisted of Expression and Flame for top. Chaser and Crash in the jungle. Coco and Frozen in mid. Fury and Cpt Jack for ADC, and Pure and Zzus for support. When this roster was announced, it was supposed to be a Korean super team. This team consisted of superstar top laner Flame and superstar ADC Cpt Jack and was expected to do very well in LCK. What actually happened was the roster performed way worse than what was expected and ended up 7th in the LCK spring split. I think one of the reasons this team ended up doing so poorly was because of how hard it is to utilize a 10 man roster. It is very hard to get 10 players to perform on the same level or even be able to communicate well with each other. In the end, this team wasn't able to utilize the roster to its full potential and ended up in 7th place overall. Along with getting 7th place one of their ADCs Cpt Jack has retired from pro play and Flame and Frozen have also been benched. I think other orginizations can learn a lot from Longzhu and I think Longzhu themselves learned a lot from this attempt at running a 10 man roster.

Team Liquid

Team Liquid came into the 2016 NALCS spring split with high hopes of swapping in players from their challenger roster and main roster throughout the split. What actually happened was Team Liquid lost their starting top laner and jungler right at the start of the split so it went from a 10 man roster to an 8 man roster. Also, instead of fully utilizing all of their players they simply put the challenger top laner, jungler, and support on to the main roster. The final roster for Team Liquid was Lourlo, Dardoch, Fenix, Piglet, and Matt. That change ended up working out pretty well for Team Liquid as they ended up getting 4th with 3 rookies on the squad but they did not even attempt the 10 man roster. I think coming into the summer split with best of 3's Team Liquid may try using all of their players but it will still be a challenge.

Image courtesy of Apex Gaming

Apex Gaming

Apex is a new addition to the NALCS as they just qualified for the summer split. Apex's roster is currently Cris and Ray as top laners, Diamonprox and Shrimp as junglers, Keane and Shiphtur as mid laners, Apollo and Roar as ADCs, and KonKwon and Xpecial as supports. Apex's coach Saintvicious has stated multiple times that they will use all 10 players unlike other 10 man rosters, but the problem with 10 man rosters in general is that they almost always have players that are just plain better than others. Apex is no different from these past 2 teams in that regard but with NALCS switching to best of 3's I think they could use all ten of their players. Swapping players in and pulling others out in between games could really help this team get an edge over others as each of their players have certain strengths and weaknesses. A big question for Apex, though, is will they actually be able to successfully use their roster to its full potential?

Analysis

I think that while 10 man rosters have not had a high success rate, seeing how they play out is always interesting. Longzhu tried to utilize all of their players but it is hard when you have the pressure of being a super team. Team Liquid didn't even try to swap in players but in their defense it is extremely hard to build synergy and trust between 10 players when you only play Best of 1's. I hope that with the upcoming Best of 3's that Team Liquid will be able to fully utilize all 10 of their players. Apex also has a lot of pressure on them because of their roster. I think that Apex could do well when it comes to running their 10 man roster, but if an extremely hyped Korean super team could not successfully run a 10 man roster in a Best of 3 i do not know if a fresh from challenger NA team could.

Conclusion

Overall, I think that, while 10 man rosters are interesting to watch, they haven't had a high success rate. Longzhu placed 7th and lost 3 players and Liquid never even played all of their players. We have yet to see from Apex, but I am really excited to see another team attempt a 10 man roster.

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