Origen’s Point Of No Return ?

Times are dark for Origen as they are about to begin their second week of the EULCS with Enrique “xPeke” Martinez as their AD carry. From the depths of the amateur scene to the semi-finals of the World Championship within the same year; their course has been spectacular, partly because they had a powerful roster with multiple veteran players. This split however they lost Alfonso “Mithy” Rodriguez and Jesper “Zven” Svenningsen; the greatest western bot lane responsible for holding their team together. While, at first, some were slightly faithful that Glenn “Hybrid” Doornenbal and Konstantinos “Forg1ven” Tzortziou will be fitting substitutes, the first week of LCS didn’t seem like this at all. In fact, Forg1ven is already unmotivated to the point of stepping-down from the starting lineup.

Mithy and Zven left Origen because they saw the potential in a rising G2 roster; fuelled by two exceptional carries, Luka “PerkZ” Perkvoic and Kim “Trick” Gang-yun. That team won the last LCS playoffs with a weaker bot lane, so logically they will reach further with a better one. Some shotcalling and game knowledge from Mithy himself is also much needed for a “chaos style” G2. Indeed, the team was successful due to their aggressive and competent skirmishing and teamfighting, which covered their poor macro game. If they left however, it is also because they didn’t believe in Origen. The team failed to make Tristan “PowerOfEvil” Schrage the same carry as he was on Unicorns of Love. Paul “sOAZ” Boyer and Maurice “Amazing” Stuckenschneider had troubles in many of their games and the coaching staff for the team was questionable to say the least. For all these reasons and maybe more, it is a very coherent move, yet a sad reality for Origen fans.

Now that these key players are gone from Origen, what can really redeem their roster? Even if Forg1ven can mechanically match Zven, other aspects of his persona make him less desirable. Hybrid, for his part, is not even close to Mithy, although he will surely have time to refine his gameplay. Origen did not only lose their bot lane, they lost their team identity. Even eventually replacing PowerOfEvil, Amazing or Soaz might not save them anymore. They will have a difficult task of rebuilding a strong roster, maybe the hardest goal of any teams this split.

Multiple serious decisions will have to be taken, if the team keeps sinking. The organisation is young and ambitious, so I have no doubts about their ability of recovering, but the stakes will be high and it won’t be achieved anytime soon. Origen are left without their strongest players a few months before Worlds. They tried their best to have the most significant roster possible, but came short to maintain their dominance in a growing league in terms of new competitors. Swarms of new players are replacing some of the weakest players while older rosters like ROCCAT and Fnatic are also improving their team. Since Origen finished in the 4^th place during the previous regular season, I unfortunately expect them to be even lower this time around.