For most of 2015, EDG was labelled as the best team in the world. Their win during the mid season invitational cemented their status as THE team to beat in the upcoming LPL split and eventually worlds. However... Not all is as smooth for this squad. Having initial troubles with keeping Koro1 under control and PawN with noted health issues regarding his back, EDG used 2 substitute players in AmazingJ and Baeme. During this time EDG didn't look as crisp as they used to, even though they still finished the regular season of the LPL in first place. Top - Tong “Koro1” Yang

Being much more of a conservative laner, Koro was never famed for being one of the “carry” top laners prior to this season. His play revolved mostly around his decision making and playing around his team’s strength. He’s had crazy win ratios on Gnar and Maokai during spring, losing a collective 3 games across both regular season and playoffs. Upon winning The Mid-Season Invitational, Koro was labelled as the best top laner in the world by most experts and casters alike. His intelligent use of teleport and recall timings would net him subtle advantages over his opponents. Regardless of how good of a player Koro is, there is a high chance EDG will choose to play their substitute top laner Shek “AmazingJ” Wai Ho. The reason behind it is because AmazingJ is a much more eccentric player and plays better individually for himself than for them team, which in the current world’s patch which would involve a lot of focus on split push oriented top laners, might just be a better fit overall. Jungle - Ming "ClearLove" Kai

This man is a mystery to many. For most of his career, ClearLove has been known as a farm heavy mid to late game teamfighting jungler. and a pretty damn good one at that. ClearLove usually comes out of the jungle with much more power and items than the jungle opposition... but it's not always like that. For most of 2015, ClearLove has been a gank heavy pressure inducing jungler, forcing his opponents to risk warding deep just to get tabs on where CL was moving to next. His early game movements were surprisingly effective and turned this farm heavy late game fighter into a complete early game monster capable of snowballing several lanes at once. All that remains to be seen is which of the two versions of ClearLove we'll get at the World Championship.  Mid - Heo "PawN" Won-seok

Much like ClearLove, PawN is a unique player, but not for similar reasons. The Korean mid laner of EDG has a tendency to go as ham as his champion allows him to. He is relentless, often choosing to take much more aggressive build paths in order to snowball the lane for himself. The catch is that PawN isn't exactly polished when it comes to creating snowball opportunities. When it works, PawN looks like a mechanical genius capable of rivaling the best of the best and carry games by himself. When it doesn't work, PawN loses any and all revelancy to the game in question. Thankfully for the Korean midlaner, the majority of the carrying pressure does not rest upon his shoulder. If his attempts to snowball were to fail, his team always has both Deft and Koro to fall back to when PawN doesn’t get his way. Do not be mistaken, PawN is not the primary carry of Edward Gaming. AD Carry - Kim "Deft" Hyuk-Kyu 

Now a legend amongst Marksmen, Deft had a surprising transformation a few weeks after starting to play in the LPL. Known prior as simply one of the best positioning and teamfighting AD Carries in the world, Deft was never known for having a strong laning phase. In fact, one of Deft's most impressive traits was the ability to remain relevant even when starved of farm and gold. Once Deft started to feel comfortable in the EDG roster, he worked hard in learning every intricate detail about laning and fighting every cs. As time progressed, Deft not only became good at it, he almost mastered the early laning phases of most ADC champions in addition to being an absolute monster in teamfights. Over the course of this season,  Deft and Imp have been neck and neck, continuously trying to one up the other to solidify themselves as the best ADC in the world. Support - Tian “Meiko” Ye

"From sub to dominant" can be the title of Meiko’s biography once he decides to make one. Initially joining EDG as a substitute during the spring split, Meiko was not going to originally become a part of the starting line-up.  EDG were planning to pair Deft up with Mouse who was transitioning to support from the mid lane. After the initial 2 weeks, Mouse wasn’t capable of making such a transition, especially when it came to controlling vision. Meiko was placed as the starting support player in week 3 of spring and hasn’t looked back since. Both lane dominant and roam heavy, Meiko has it all to compliment EDG as a team.

The fun part about Meiko is that he is by no means the best support in China, but he has it all to one day overcome his peers. His career is still very young, having only started to compete in summer of 2014 straight out of solo queue. Meiko’s vision control allows Deft the freedom to play at his own pace, plus Meiko is a versatile support capable of being the primary engage as well as the one in charge of peeling for Deft and disengaging fights.

Player to look out for: ClearLove

The talent pool for the jungle role is relatively week in 2015 compared to previous seasons. Many of the most talented junglers currently in China or Korea were not able to qualify for Worlds, which leaves an open door for ClearLove to run rampage over his opponents, provided he performs similarly to how he has during most of the summer split. ClearLove has been very active, searching for creative ways to gank opposing lanes or starting tower dives. No team is safe when ClearLove runs wild on you….

Conclusion:

Even though LGD was capable of beating EDG in a best of 5, that doesn’t take away from EDG being one of the favourites to win Worlds 2015. Under the guidance of their coach, Aaron, EDG has been able to dismantle teams just in champion select alone. They’re very strong as a teamfighting unit and play around Koro’s teleport extremely well. Their vision has been improved immensely ever since Meiko joined and has been one of the pillars to EDG’s success in 2015.

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Images courtesy of thescoreesports.com, wangyou.pcgames.com.cn, riot games' flickr, akihabrablues.com