Esports

Dardoch joins OpTic Gaming for the 2019 season

12/05/2018

Another pretty big surprise is hitting the League of Legends community today. OpTic Gaming is acquiring star jungler Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnett for the next season.

The jungle is a dangerous place, even more so now that the former Rookie of the Split and 2nd NA LCS All-Pro Team Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnett has joined our roster.#GREENWALL pic.twitter.com/H1RP4Vyi4H

— OpTicLoL (@OpTicLoL) December 5, 2018

This news comes a week after OpTic Gaming would announce the addition of another jungler. At the end of November, the team would add William “Meteos” Hartman to the roster. This now presents an interesting situation for the Green Wall, as they have two starting caliber junglers but no AD Carry. Where will the two players end up landing by the time the next NA LCS year swings around?

Meteos and a Turbulent 2018

For Meteos, this decision may only bring confusion and anger, especially with how his last team dealt with him. In 2018, Meteos would start the year with 100 Thieves as their starting jungler. However, the team would also pick up talented Vietnamese jungler, Đỗ “Levi” Duy Khánh. There was plenty of signs pointing to 100 Thieves eventually starting Levi, but Meteos was playing pretty well during his stint.

Unfortunately, some drama would start between the team around the 2018 Rift Rivals tournament. 100 Thieves would end up fielding Levi and Brandon “Brandini” Chen for Rift Rivals, instead of Ssumday and Meteos. It was looking like the management was testing to see how Levi would play alongside the rest of the team. Of course, with his starting spot clearly in jeopardy, Meteos would ask to see if there was any interest across the league for him. However, he did not ask for a trade.

In the end, 100 Thieves would end up trading Meteos to FlyQuest in exchange for Andy “AnDa” Hoang. However, due to the team being content with their current jungler, Meteos would ride the Academy scene for the rest of 2018.

A Dardoch-Meteos duo?

There are a few possible situations that could happen now that both Meteos and Dardoch are signed. Both players are definitely starting roster quality, and will not accept playing for the Academy team. However, OpTic Gaming could be making moves similar to Cloud9 in 2018. Cloud9 would end up fielding a seven-man roster, with two mid laners and two junglers. This would prove valuable in their Summer Split, going into the playoffs. The flexibility of having options in the jungle is very beneficial for a team, and could help OpTic push for a high spot in the league.

The only problem that the team could run into is willingness to participate in such a system. In Cloud9’s case, they had a rookie jungler in Robert “Blaber” Huang and a veteran jungler looking for redemption in Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen. This is a completely different situation with Meteos and Dardoch. Meteos is coming off a horrible situation with 100 Thieves, where he was practically forced into the FlyQuest Academy team. He will not want to play on the Academy again, or share time for that matter.

As for Dardoch, he may try to adapt to the new system at first. However, everyone knows that he has been one of the best junglers in the league for some time. He is not going to be happy about sharing time with another jungler, especially when he could have been starting full-time for another team.

What are your thoughts on Dardoch joining OpTic Gaming? Let us know what you think in the comments below! If you want more NA LCS coverage, check us out here!