January 16 and 17 marked the first week of the spring split for the North American League of Legends Championship Series. Many new things were seen at these games due to numerous roster changes, new teams, and all of the new season six changes. These games were played on patch 6.1, which means there were many new items, champion updates and even a new epic monster, The Rift Herald. New items and champion reworks resulted in a very different meta than last season. There were also many new rookies and returning players that have moved from other professional League of Legends regions. Although there were many new players, there were many old faces from previous seasons as well.

There were many notable games over the weekend. The first game on Saturday the 16th, was probably the most anticipated, a rematch of the season five North American championship game. Counter Logic Gaming, the reigning North American champions, played against their rivals, Team Solo Mid. Both teams had many new players, TSM only having one player from last season and CLG having three. Through the first twenty minutes, the game was quite even, but at twenty-two minutes CLG won the first team fight, took baron and snowballed from there. CLG won the game with an 11k gold and 9 kill lead.

In the game following CLG’s win, Cloud 9 played the brand new Team Immortals. Immortals was a new team put together with some of the most skilled players from around the world. Both Seung-hoon “Huni” Heo and Yeu-jin “Reignover” Kim played in the EU LCS on team Fnatic, who went 18-0 last season, winning every game in the summer split. With the addition of three top tier NA players, immortals had  been predicted to dominate this season. As expected, IMT Destroyed C9, never giving up their gold lead with an almost 18k lead at the end of the game.

The biggest game of the weekend was Team Impulse against Immortals. This game was the shortest game in NA LCS history with IMT winning in 18 minutes and 20 seconds. If that isn’t impressive enough, it was a perfect game for IMT. TIP had no towers and no dragons and IMT had no deaths. One of the things that made IMT’s perfect game was Huni’s perfect performance as Fiora. One of the things that makes Huni such a great top laner is that he doesn’t learn to play meta picks, he learns counters to meta picks, and because of this could win easily against a Feng playing Dr. Mundo.

With the new season came many new meta champions and items. Lots of new and strong attack damage items have shifted the meta away from full tanks, to juggernauts and strong AD carries. One of the strongest new items was Dead Man’s Plate. This item is an armor and health item with a powerful passive. As the user moves they slowly gain stacks, and once they have one hundred stacks they gain a considerable movement speed boost. This movement speed gives slower champions like Tahm Kench, Darius, and even champions like Poppy who already have gap closers the speed to catch up to or escape anyone who doesn’t have the item themselves.
Another item that was shown to be very strong was Frost  Queen’s Claim. This support item has been exploding both bot and mid lane due to the high mana regen and active. The active can be used to slow down enemies in a chase or escape, scout out the area, or even slow down someone to hit skillshots. Almost all supports have been taking this item and most AP mid laners, too. When multiple people on your team build this, it makes it near impossible for the enemy to stay out of sight and in safe positions.

Guinsoo’s Rageblade is an item that was not very popular, but was reworked, and now it is all over the rift. This item was showcased on champions such as Jax and Xin Zhao because the mixed damage gives damage to all abilities and the passive gives an extremely strong area of effect damage on basic attacks. If this item is built alongside attack speed and a Hextech Gunblade, it is almost unstoppable. The key to this item is getting the required autos that are necessary to proc the passive, which makes champions with high attack speed, like jax, the power necessary to use this item effectively.

Currently there are many strong champions, most being attack damage based. Over the ten games played, Gangplank was banned every single game. Gangplank’s high damage crits, strong, armor-reducing slows and global ult make him a highly contested pick right now. The new ad items also make him a lot stronger, mostly due to the mana gained back and cooldown reduction on Essence Reaver.

One champion who had a very high pick rate was Lucian. Right now, the average game time is lower than it used to be and usually ends in the mid game. Because of this, champions with very high early damage are very impactful on games. Lucian can easily win laning phase, and also has great team fight presence. By winning lane, Lucian goes into teamfights with high damage output and great mobility. Another thing that tremendously adds strength to Lucian’s kit is his power to push towers with his passive.

A champion that was recently reworked was shown off to be quite strong. Poppy was reworked during preseason and has exploded. Poppy is being played everywhere simply because she is easy to play, and has extreme power to engage, as well as disengage. When built correctly, she is very tanky and has a lot of raw damage. This, along with her unrivaled gap closing power makes Poppy the monster she is.

Week one of the NA LCS was very exciting and has fans wondering what future weeks bring and how the season will roll out. There are clearly some items and champions that Riot is going to change. The only thing that is known right now is that this is going to be a great year for professional League of Legends and with all of the new changes, more exciting changes are sure to come.