The Golden Guardians(GGS), an esport affiliate team of the Golden State Warriors, issued a press release announcing the latest acquisition going into the 2020 season.
The roster will consist of Top: Kevin ‘Hauntzer” Yarnell Jungle: Can ‘Closer” Çelik Mid: Greyson ‘Goldenglue” Gilmer AD Carry: Victor ‘FBI” Huang Support: Yuri ‘Keith” Jew.
https://twitter.com/GoldenGuardians/status/1199024962784227330
Golden Guardians are one of the four new teams awarded a spot into the franchised LCS in 2018. The roster for the first split consisted of Lourlo, Contractz, Hai, Deftly, and Matt. They were the only team without imports. For this reason, they were expected to end at the bottom of the standings.
Their first season was a disaster, ending tenth in the regular season with a score of 4 wins and 14 losses. For the Summer 2018 Split, the organization made some roster changes, but were wildly unsuccessful, ending tenth in regular-season again with a score of 5 wins and 13 losses.
Coming into 2019, the organization made radical changes; they released the top lane, mid lane, support, and coach. As a result of this, the free spots were filled with veterans such as ‘Hauntzer,’ ‘Froggen,’ ‘Olleh,’ and ‘Inero.’ The changes were quite positive, improving the standings significantly in the 2019 Spring Split. The team looked to regain a footing into the LCS. In playoffs, their dreams were crushed by Flyquest in the best-of-five, though, and they went to take a break until the Summer Split.
Golden Guardians came into Summer Split without significant changes, they started fielding their Academy bot lane in some matches with the scope to improve some mistakes, but they didn’t impact the games that much. The team had many issues, but bot lane was not one of them. As a result of this, the team kept losing games due to lack of synergy between the squad and ended seventh in the regular split, not being able even to reach the Playoffs.
The disappointing results of the previous split made some players reconsider their position in the team and look for new opportunities. The team retained the top laner and the bot laner while adding three new players to the squad.
Hauntzer is a solid top laner, but his recent results have not been that impressive. Closer is a prodigy from the Turkish League, who dominated the local scene. Goldenglue is the infamous mid-laner who is too good for the academy and too bad for LCS. FBI is a stable ADC, but coupled with a role-swapped Keith might not be able to shine.
Overall, this roster looks like a downgrade compared to the previous split, especially if you take into consideration the fact that Froggen, their former mid laner, was leading all stats for mid laners: cs difference, gold per minute, damage per minute, etc.
It is hard to predict how this roster will perform, but on paper, it looks to retain the middle-of-the-pack standings in the LCS, just like the previous Splits.
