You’ve asked for it, you’ve waited, but now it’s finally arrived: our LJL coverage has now officially begun with our first LJL Recap! One of the most mysterious eastern regions for western fans, the LJL is the pinnacle of Japanese League of Legends, and you’ve all been dying to see us bring some much-needed coverage here, so that’s exactly what we’ve done. Check out below for our coverage of the first two weeks (weeks 1-3), and look out for more content in the weeks ahead!

DetonatioN FocusMe

The winningest team in the LJL’s history and the only one of the three teams that’s won the league still around, DetonatioN FocusMe is already off to a great start to the split with a 6-0 record under their belt. Outside of a brief point in their game against Burning Core where their foes took the lead, DFM has been dominating teams, having yet to win a match by less than a 10,000 gold lead.

Yutapon has been an absolute monster on ADC, but the real shining heroes right now have got to be Steal and Gaeng have been the massive pieces in the success of this team with some insane engages, including in the season opener wit their J4-Galio combo to wipe out V3. Gaeng, in particular, has shown an incredibly deep champion pool with a new support every single game so far this split, and he and Yutapon’s synergy should run circles around every other team in the league’s bottom lane.

With the entire line-up that’s won the past three splits returning yet again, chances are high the team barrels over everyone yet again on their way to a fourth consecutive title, and this weekend doesn’t look like it will be any different. While they do have two back to back matches to play, with the first against the current number two team, I’m confident DFM will take the matches in stride for a nice 2-0.

Crest Gaming Act

Crest Gaming Act has only been in the LJL for a year now, but the team is already making waves with its strong performances. Having take second in both regular splits now, and third in their following playoffs, the team entered the 2020 season looking to continue their push to be a top team in the league, and are already off to a good start with their 4-2 record. Newcomers Aria and Gango from Korea have been monumental in carrying the team through some close matches already, and even in their two losses have looked good, especially Aria.

Still, the team does have some noticeable weaknesses in their squad, particularly their support Grendel whose in the bottom three in the league for KDA and leads the league in average numbers of deaths per game. He is playing a lot of engage champions, to be fair, but those deaths can sometimes come at the cost of his team’s position around an objective or in lane, which can serve as a major detriment to their overall strategy. If he can clean up his play a bit and slow down the deaths, Crest will for sure be a lock for the second slot in the league’s regular-season again, though the real test will come in the playoffs where they’ll be trying to finally make the Grand Final for the first time.

Yet despite their skill, they’ve got a rough week ahead of themselves this week, with a match against number three Burning Core immediately followed by a battle against number one DetonatioN FocusMe. With two heavy hitters to take on, there’s a good chance the team could go 0-2 this week, especially if they spent more time preparing for DFM than BC. With the back-to-back matches, I’m not sure they’re going to have enough rest to be to execute their strategy against DFM properly. The LJL’s scheduling system is very strange, but not much you can really do about it; hopefully CGA can find one win out of this weekend and bounce back in Week 5.

Burning Core

Burning Core has had a rough time in the LJL. Constantly placing between 6th and 4th in the league, the team has already faced relegations once before buying their way back in for the 2018 Summer Split. While it’s still early in the split, the team is looking in a good spot right now tied for third and on a two-game win streak heading into Week 4, with the return of their 2019 line-up giving them a nice edge over other teams working to integrate their newer players.

While the team’s mid Roki and ADC Yuhi have been popping up in their wins, the big surprise has been support player Proud, who currently sits 5th overall in the league for KDAs, not something you’d expect from a support player. While he has one of the three lowest kills per game scores in the league, he inversely has one of the lowest death counts and highest assists per game, signifying his importance in making plays for the team. And playmaking is especially important with this squad as they’re all about the fights in determining whether they succeed or fail, as the team puts up high kills in wins and high deaths in losses, more so than almost any other squad as they fight for every inch of the map.

With matches against Crest Gaming Act, who beat them back in Week 2, and their first match of the split against Rascal Jester, it’s looking like it’s going to be a 1-1 week for Burning Core. While I see them sitting in third place right now, I think they’re going to start slipping in the rankings as the split goes on given this squad’s history. They need to put together some wins against top teams before we can say they’re improving, and with the only top three wins for the team being against new squad FSH, I’m still not sold on them.

Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks

The team with the longest name in the league, and possibly the world, Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks come into the split as the league’s newest team after replacing Unsold Stuff Gaming when the latter failed to meet the league’s requirements to participate. With the team unexpectedly thrown into the fire of the LJL, they’ve performed admirably so far with a solid 3-3 record, though things have been a bit rough since their 3-1 start to the split.

The team is a solid middle of the pack team, with several pieces of the old Unsold Stuff line-up, DFM’s old substitute Ramune and rookie ADC Honey, but they’ve got a lot of potential to grow. They’ve had some very wildly varying drafts in their matches, but have looked pretty good when they pick meta, so we’ll have to wait and see how they develop as the split progresses.

With all three of their losses coming from the top three teams in the league, this weekend should be pretty good for SHG as they take on the league’s worst squad in AXIZ and fellow third-place squad V3 Esports. I think they can secure a nice 2-0 weekend given their opponents, but a 1-1 wouldn’t be a surprise either if V3 manages to pop off against them.

V3 Esports

V3 Esports entered 2020 of a hot 2019 Summer Split that saw the team finally get out of the slump it had found itself in for the last year and a half to take third place in the regular season and second in the playoffs, losing to DFM in the Grand Finals 1-3.

With a roster seemingly coming together and only getting better as time went on, you’d think they’d stick it out together going into 2020 and push for another go at DFM to win a split finally. Instead, however, the team decided the second-place finish wasn’t good enough for the squad they’d made, and went about this offseason replacing three of the five members on the squad, dropping Neo, Recap, and Yutorimoyashi for Bugi, Archer, and Raina.

The roster moves have honestly not been that great for the team so far, as they currently sit in a three-way tie for third. While the other two teams there have either shown improvement from previous splits or a good first showing as an org, V3 has fallen from where it was last year, with losses to two of the bottom three teams in Rascal Jester and Sengoku Gaming pairing with its wins over Burning Core and Crest Gaming Act. It’s hard to rate where this team is at given they’ve beat most of the teams above them, but lost to most of the ones below, and screams of an issue of lacking consistency that they’ll need to figure out if they want to be successful as the split goes on.

Playing around the core of Ace and Paz would probably be a good start for the team give the only two returning members have also been the most consistent, putting up solid performances even in their losses this split. That’s not to say their new recruits have looked bad, they’ve been okay besides the loss to DFM and SG for the most part. The big problem is shot-calling and a lack of coordination if they don’t get a big early fight to open up the game, as the team can’t seem to gain or push a lead if they don’t find some big fight to snowball off of, suggesting they’ve got some major macro issues to solve.

With games this week against SG again and SHG for the first time, and while the latter has shown a lot of potential, I think V3 should be able to pick up a nice 2-0 weekend here finally if they’ve gotten some work done on their macro. If it’s more the same, though, expect a 1-1 weekend to be coming their way.

Rascal Jester

One of the two oldest orgs still in the LJL, along with DFM, Rascal Jester has fallen on hard times as of late. Since they dominated the league back in 2014, the team has fallen on hard times with constant bottom-half performances and several stints in the Challenger league for the team, with the team garnering a rather pathetic 11-31 record over the last year in the LJL.

With such poor results, the team dumped everyone but mid-laner Ninja in the offseason, picking up some new talent in jungler Hachamecha, ADC Art, and support ViviD, as well as convincing top-laner Cogcog to return for another go. With a mostly new squad and new coaches, it looked like Rascal Jester would finally be able to lift themselves out of the gutter again and possibly make the playoffs for the first time since 2014 LJL Grand Finals.

Unfortunately, the team has once again continued to underperform and sits in a two-way tie for sixth place heading into Week 4 with a 2-4 record. While losses teams like DFM and SHG aren’t too surprising, and their wins over CGA and V3 show they can play with top teams, it isn’t good to see them losing to the other two worst teams in the league in Sengoku and AXIZ, with the latter getting their first win of the split-off of the Jesters.

Outside of a bit of a fight they put up against DFM, the team has been mostly blown out of the water in their losses. While they had a strong win against CGA, it took a beautiful play by Ninja at a Baron throw for the team to overcome V3, and they currently look like where they stand as one of the weakest teams in the league, possibly more so than AXIZ. While their early game has looked alright, they’ve looked lost the longer games go on, suggesting major macro problems and a lack of coordinated experience in later game situations.

With matches this week against DFM and BC back to back, I think it’s safe to say it’s going to be a 0-2 weekend for Rascal Jester, and if they continue to play as they have it might be a couple of weeks until they finally manage to pick up another win.

Sengoku Gaming

Sengoku Gaming has only been in the LJL for three splits now, yet they may not last much longer at the trajectory they’ve been going as a team. While they had a solid fourth-place finish in their first split back in Spring of last year, a sixth-place finish in Summer had a current spot in sixth-place with a 2-4 record doesn’t speak well of the team’s fortunes ahead.

That’s not to say they’re as bad as Rascal Jester or AXIZ is, this team puts up a good fight even in most of its losses, but with only a couple of weeks to go in the split they could find themselves sitting outside of the playoffs if they don’t start converting these close matches into wins. With the likes of Pirean and former SKT jungler Blank on their side, the team is set up to actually be a dark horse if they can figure everything out and come together as a squad. The problem is whether or not there’s truly enough time for them to get everything all sorted out before it’s too late. The late game is the weakness for this squad right now, and they’ll want to work on their macro past the 20-minute mark if they want to start pushing up the standings heading into Week 4, and boy is there no better time to do so.

The team has games against the struggling V3 and bottom of the league AXIZ this weekend, and should off skill alone be able to take a nice 2-0 as long as they can hold it together past 20 minutes. I think this team has a lot of future potential to build into, and while Spring might not be a great split for this squad, I’m predicting they may punch into the top three by the time the end of Summer Split arrives.

AXIZ

AXIZ is not a good team. That may sound harsh to say about this squad only three weeks in, but it is the truth. This same squad, save for new jungler Hoglet, put up an embarrassing 6-36 record in the 2019 season, and with only one changed member looks to be set to continue, if not beat that trend heading into 2020.

The team has looked better since the demolishing they got in the first two weeks, but a close game against CGA isn’t quite as great feat when you realize the team threw away what should’ve been a win in the first place to lose that and Rascal Jester has looked like an almost equally weak team this year.

I don’t think there’s much to say about this team beyond that, and I think they’re honestly going to go 0-2 this week with games to play against SHG and Sengoku.

That’s all we have for this week’s LJL Recap, thanks for tuning in. We’ll be back next week with a recap of Week 4 and some more predictions ahead of Week 5, so stay tuned!