Congrats to Xpeke on making it back to the LCS with his own org - not many who have left have ever returned to top (domestic) level LoL so quickly, as the likes of Mithy know all too well.
Time for some actual new blood - tonight either Enemy eSports ("NME") or Team Dragon Knights ("TDK"), whoever wins what promises to be a gruelling best of 5, will enter the NA LCS, replacing Team Coast. NME's roster, top to support, reads Flarez (American), Trashy (Danish), InnoX (Canadian), otter (American) and Bodydrop (Canadian). InnoX was of course formerly EG's top laner throughout 2014 and Trashy was a successful jungler in the EU Challenger scene throughout the same year. They are reasonably strong favourites, having displayed strong drafts, strategic variety and consistency throughout the NA CS and their semi-final against Final Five. Trashy is their player most likely to do something a little special, and their bot lane the most likely to make a costly error. Flarez' Rumble and bodydrop's Morgana are likely bans against them.
TDK's roster runs Seraph (Korean), Kez (American), Kyle (Korean), LouisXGeeGee (Korean), Smoothie (Canadian). The team plays in Korean, with Smoothie only able to communicate in English via Kez (who speaks both languages). They've shown impressive strategic variety themselves in qualifying for the Challenger Series playoffs, but had to rely on Seraph to provide what most go down as one of the most heroic individual carries of the 2015 professional LoL season so far to pull back their semi-final against Team Fusion. Although Seraph earned a poor reputation with his weak displays for CLG during last year's Summer Split, apparently racked by nerves in a foreign country playing LANs for the first time in his life, he has consistently delivered dominant top laning performances for TDK, on champions as different as Mundo, Irelia and Kennen, and has been crucial to their success so far. Their bot lane, and particularly their AD carry, has been prone to overaggression and silly deaths, and against Gate in the semi-final Kyle struggled to hold his lane too. I expect Nidalee to be banned against them since both Seraph and Kez play it in different ways.
I'm cheering on TDK tonight, but I'd like to see both of these teams make it to the LCS in time for next split. Two good sets of players who seem like they have strong support from their organisations.
The programme, presumably presented by Phreak and Zirene, will start 50 minutes from this post.