Last split’s third place NACL roster is no more. Conviction is a team that found their way into NACL this year after acquiring the newly-qualified Tempest Gaming’s roster and spot. That roster, filled with Tier 2 and collegiate LoL talent, fought their way through the league to place an impressive third. Now, as announced by Conviction on social media, all five positions will be filled by different players, ahead of the next NACL split.
CNV’s new roster is of a very different makeup than their last:
All five of the players were, until recently, streamers. Last split, Ashkan “
TF Blade” Homayouni and Jackson “
KatEvolved” Dohan did both compete in Tier 2, but that was TF Blade’s pro debut after years as a famous streaming personality, and KatEvolved’s first split after
five years of absence from pro play. That five-year absence is shared by support William “
Stunt” Chen, who played in the LCS back in 2020. Omran “
Viper” Shoura, the team’s new botlaner, had also spent three years away from pro play, where he’d thus far only played toplane. Only jungler Perry “
Perry” Norman has a lot of recent pro experience, having played for teams like FEAR and DSG. However,
Perry announced his retirement in 2024, citing an intention to seek higher education, and focus on coaching and streaming instead. Perry, and the rest of his new team, seem to be
retiring from their retirements.These kinds of rosters, packed with veterans who’d already moved to streaming, are a recent trend in
LoL Tier 2. They’ve been in vogue since the debut of Marc “
Caedrel” Lamont’s
Los Ratones at the start of the year, a team that found both super-popularity and competitive success by mixing pro experience and unproven streamer talent. With Los Ratones’ victories in the NLC and EMEA Masters, an “NA version” popped up in Yiliang “
Doublelift” Peng’s Near Airport, aiming to repeat that success in the NACL. But Near Airport suffered a very different fate,
disbanding after only three short months following a tough defeat in the playoffs to Conviction.
Now, Conviction’s taking a look at the very same playbook of the team they trounced. TF Blade, for one, debuted on Near Airport, where he was eliminated by Conviction’s NACL rookie top, Chris “
Horder” Feng, who was a standout player in that series.
The rest of Conviction’s former roster, too, showed immense promise.
Their midlaner Isaac “DARKWINGS” Chou, for one, is moving on to the big leagues, where he’s set to play for Disguised in the LTA North. However, the move leaves the fate of the rest of the roster, including talented players like Horder, jungler James “
Kisno” Woo, and botlaner Aaron “
Chrome” Li, uncertain. Support Mingshui “
Minui” Zhang, for one,
suggested in a social media post that offseason difficulties would prevent his return to NACL next split. A similar post came out of Conviction’s CEO and coach Albert “
Nano” Wuelleh, who stated that Conviction “
did not remove or kick any players,” and warned that “
not everything is what meets the eye.” With only these comments to go off of, it's possible that the process that led Conviction to field an entirely new roster, after such a breakout success split, may have been a rocky one.
Header photo credit: Conviction, NACL, Riot Games, Leaguepedia
