With the departure of Ignar and Powerofevil Misfits was left with a void in the roster. Despite Misfits being a strong team fight oriented team, the team that once lead SKT to a fifth game are struggling without their leader and their voice on one of the things they were once considered one of the best in Europe before, decision making.

A good coach not only recognizes his team's strengths but knows how to make them overcome their weaknesses. Playing the easy call “I initiate, you follow composition” in Week 5 against the Unicorns. Basically, Misfits played the tutorial composition on how to solve any kind of decision-making problem. With a malphite or a Jarvan to engage and with the follow-ups of a Braum and Galio and if one player gets into the position to initiate another will be able to follow up right away. A simple “go” scream could explode the enemies carry before they even can react.

Misfits need simplicity. They need fighting and mostly fighting control. That leads to a certain stylistic that they showed in that specific match against the Unicorns of Love. They showed  how much they actually are aware of their problems.

Misfits have two main carries on their team, Maxlore, and Hans Sama. The team worked so well in 2017 because it was well rounded. Having your two main carries in the jungle and your ad carry is really good for a healthy scaling curve. While the Jungle gets the team going or is able to snowball through aggressive counter jungling, the ad carry has time to scale and take it over in the mid to late game. In order for the team to succeed that way, you need flexible solo lanes that can adapt quickly to different situations and mainly play engage type of champions on top lane and the support positions. Otherwise, you might lack the essential drive to close out the games after the mid-game, which has been the main problem for Misfits during this split. Also there was another reliable constant late game carry, specially in teamfights the mid laner PowerofEvil.

Despite having overall a great early game due to Maxlore’s stellar pathing and the individual skills of all the laners set up Misfits for great start each game. However as soon as they have to abuse their lead and exploit their advantages it is where their problems become exploitable.

Mikyx is known as a passive support player, not the driving engage. He is the guy that will be there providing good peel, follows maxlore to provide vision, but he isn’t known to be the most vocal and active support player, forcing Misfits to put those tools somewhere else. Picks like Zac and Jarvan are really valuable for a start in the jungle or making any aggressive engaging pick for top or mid more valuable for them in the draft, for example, the Galio.

Galio should be one of the highest priorities for Misfits due to its ease to play, flexibility and most important it fits in Sencux champion pool. Which has been a major problem for them this split, finding the right picks for Sencux. Sadly the other teams have already recognised this necessity and Galio has been constantly banned against Misfits.

Any kind of siege strategies isn’t really working for them just as well as the Ryze doesn’t fit well their playstyle due to the pick being a short ranged mage. They would need him on a scaling utility oriented pick or simply those champions that could also make more room for Maxlore and Hans to shine. Something they already have figured out for top lane as they ended up putting Alphari on picks like Gnar or even Sion that enables clear initiation in team fights.

Which leads back to the match in week 5 against the Unicorns. Keeping Hans Sama in the backline and putting everyone else except for MickyX as his frontline or giving him an utility or mobility based ADC which enables Maxlore to play more aggressive picks. The only problem is the champion pool for mid. Although with this week's changes to patch 8.4 and the changes to lost chapter and it making ludens echo a viable first item option Syndra and Talliyah could become options for Sencux to pick. Or the new archangel staff could bring Viktor back to meta providing Sencux with what the Misfit mid needs, are control.

If they want to abuse their strengths they have to have a mid laner that creates the space for Hans Sama in fights. Either through zoning opponents of him in various ways or being that other frontline tool. Sencux is a talented individual, who still struggles at the macro area. Maybe shorting his options macrowise could be the key for him to show his qualities as a mechanically strong player. His qualities can come in form of playing that Cassiopeia, Leblanc or Galio. The form is not the matter, but the team might really shine better when focusing on the foundations of the team. Misfits clearly have it already figured it out. They are rather trying to expand their playbook until playoffs and not running only on the success formula. If they have an ace prepared for Fnatic this week, it will show. What is clear is that they are already on the edge of solving their problems one way or another. It will be fun to see if they grab an off meta champion out of the toolbox or find a way to fix their issues in time for playoffs. Or if in the remaining three weeks before the playoffs Sencux will become more reliable. Filling the role the team needs him to play more than anything else.

Longing for the climb to the playoffs spot, Misfits will face this week Fnatic and this should be the opportunity for Misfits to test if they were able to find themselves as a team by now. Despite the middle of the table standing, it is still not set in stone if Misfits will make it to the playoffs. The playtime is over and if Misfits aspires to build on their last season's success they better make it count now. Otherwise, they will be stuck in the team building phase until the summer split. This team glances over experience and creative strategies, the playoff stage should be their game. Would be a bummer to not have the herd in the playoffs.

(Photo Credit : lolesports Flickr)

Disclaimer: The following article was written freely based on the author's opinion, and it may not necessarily represent Inven Global's editorial stance. 

About the Author: 
Hello guys, Alexandre Weber also known under the ID: DrPuppet. I'm a Brazilian professional Coach and content creator since 2015, mostly focused on League of Legends. I worked with many teams throughout the years in major and minor regions, but my most known work was with Kaos Latin Gamers from Chile in 2015, where we played the International Wildcard Finals against Pain Gaming. Since then I have been studying Cinema in Hamburg and creating content on youtube and twitch, besides writing for respected sites in Esports. You can find me on the social networks under @drpuppetlp and on Twitch under DrPuppet.
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