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Rogue is considered by everyone as one of the best League of Legends team in the EU.
This means that everyone expects the team to perform well both domestically as well as internationally. People expect Rogue to be one of the representatives that will uplift the name of the EU with a win at the World Championships.
However, Rogue as a team often fails to beat their competitors that reside within the EU. While it is believed that Rogue and MAD Lions are the new faces of rivalry, the issue is that Rogue often fails to show up at the party.
People have complained about the poor form of G2 and Fnatic. It is true that G2 has lost ground, however, Fnatic is still going strong. Fnatic managed to defeat a large number of teams to make it into the finals of LEC Summer Split. They had a decent showing during the Spring Split tournament as well.
This leads to the question whether Rogue is that good or do people overhype them too much.
Rogue’s way of playing League of Legends is something that can be easily figured out and countered
Before any further discussion on the topic, it is important to set some ground rules.
There is a massive difference between overhyped and overrated. Overrated is the state where a team lacks quality and people might hype them too much regardless. Overhyped is the state where the team has the quality and the potential, however, the performance of the team does not warrant the tags given to them.
Rogue, for instance, is such a team. Rogue being touted as the face of a new rivalry might be too much compared to the other teams in the same category. However, this is not just small talk as there are obvious reasons to make such a statement.
Rogue is a beast when it comes to best-of-one games. In fact, Rogue managed to outclass almost every team within the regular season of the summer split. It is obviously expected as players like Hans Sama, Odoamne and Inspired are probably some of the best individual players in the EU.
The issue, however, starts when Rogue reaches the playoffs. Rogue has a playstyle where they love putting massive early-game pressure within League of Legends. They would need a seven to ten thousand gold advantage by 25 minutes in order to win the game.
If the enemy team manages to hold them up for that long, Rogue ends up losing the match. In fact, the casters and the viewers have marked a time known as the “Rogue time”. It is approximately around 25 minutes where Rogue starts to falter and make mistakes.
Initially, teams found it hard to manage. However, most League of Legends teams have figured it out now and as a result, Rogue fails to make a mark against teams like MAD Lions, Fnatic or even G2 Esports. Rogue lost 3-0 to MAD and 3-0 to Fnatic in the playoffs.
Rogue looks shaky as soon as they are forced to play a different game style
Rogue's issue of faltering in games and losing matches, unless there is a gargantuan gold lead, can be seen against smaller teams as well.
Rogue, in the first match of the playoffs, went against Misfits. While Rogue should have won the match 3-0, they barely got a 3-2 victory. Such was the case that Inspired had to play some of the best League of Legends of his life in order to snatch victory away from the Misfits in the final match.
It was a pentakill with Viego, and Inspired himself agreed that the reason they won was 50% due to Viego being extremely broken within League of Legends. In all of these games, a general trend could be noticed where the game extended beyond 25 minutes and Rogue started to lose their grip.
In fact, when Rogue is forced to play a team that scales late-game instead of being early-game monsters, they fail to show up.
Rogue struggles when Hans Sama is given Aphelios instead of Ashe and when Larrson plays Azir, as they keep getting ganked over and over without any proper reply.
Eventually, they start getting caught off-position and the teams punish them hard. This is due to the fact that in team compositions that require late-game scaling, Rogue needs to play a different game style. This thing pushes them away from their comfort zone, leading to counter picks and ultimately ganked to oblivion.
The team ends up losing its mental fortitude which ultimately leads to those losses. In fact Rogue gave away a ten thousand gold lead against MAD Lions and ended up losing that match as well.
While many might disagree, these small instances often showcase the issue within Rogue. The general consensus within the League of Legends community is that Rogue is useless unless they have a massive gold lead. However, even then fans have seen them throw matches and this is definitely not the sign of a team that is expected to win the Worlds.
This shows that Rogue in League of Legends might be overhyped as of now and if they do not change their playstyle, eventually every other team will start beating them.
It is unclear why this happens. The thought process of Rogue that goes into a match of League of Legends could be a factor here. But it is for sure that if Rogue wants to grab the pedigree of Fnatic, G2 and MAD Lions, they need to bring massive changes to their playstyle and how they approach their games.
Note: The article solely reflects the views and opinions of the writer.
