Echo Fox is trying to seriously shake up its roster before the start of LCS week 6. ESPN has confirmed that Echo Fox has terminated the contracts of mid laner Kim “Fenix” Jae-hun, AD carry Johhny “Altec” Ru and support Adrian “Adrian” Ma. The roster changes are not too surprising since Adrian hasn’t played for the team since he was picked up and Fenix only played for the first 5 weeks of the spring split. Releasing Altec is slightly more unexpected as he has always played for the team up until now but Echo Fox will replace him with their academy AD carry player called Lawrence “Lost” Hui.
Echo Fox is also in talks with Cloud 9 in order to acquire their support player Andy “Smoothie” Ta. Smoothie was benched at the beginning of the summer split due to a supposed lack of motivation. Smoothie swapping over to Echo Fox is not too farfetched to rule out, considering that he isn’t seeing any play on C9. It would be interesting to see if he would regain his desire to play when on a different team.
Echo Fox desperately needs some changes within their roster. They are by no means a weak team but have glaring weaknesses. They have a very weak bot lane when compared to other teams in the League which means that a lot of resources have to be spent to keep the bot lane alive. This is holding back the carries in the team from acquiring the lead they need to take over the game.
Another huge issue for Echo Fox is their extreme overaggression which often puts them in bad situations. Huni and Dardoch are the main carries of the team but both of them have a very aggressive playstyle. This could put them ahead if it’s executed well but often leads to games where one of the two ends up dying a lot.
By having Lost and Smoothie in the bot lane, Echo Fox might be looking for a way to get rid of these weaknesses. By no means will they be the strongest bot lane in NA but they might be able to hold their own against other bot lanes. A player like Smoothie might also be a voice of reason within the voice comps when Huni and Dardoch get overexcited.
All teams have to lock in their rosters by the end of today so we might see some spicy drama as we wait for teams to release their roster changes and statements.
