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2021 LCS Pre-Split Team Power Rankings

It’s that time of year again and I’m ready to continuously fail to accurately predict the success of each LCS team for the hundredth time.

Before we get into the real list, we must address the elephant in the room, the team existing in the supernatural void of the underworld, the team repeatedly screwed over by the gods of fate and destiny, CLG.

#?: CLG

CLG has been screwed by the American government and their imported Top laner and Jungler, Finn and Broxah respectively, are stuck in Europe as they await visa approvals. For me, this guarantees a 9th or 10th placing for the team until those two players make it overseas, and depending on how long it takes those players to make it over, they may not have time to make up for it. With Finn & Broxah, I think the team can realistically place as high as 5th, but until then I expect nothing at all. Griffin (Wiggily) has been so disappointing for so long I cannot foresee any success for this team with him at its helm.

#1. Team Liquid

This one is going to be a bit divisive, as a lot of people are extremely hyped for C9′s acquisition of Perkz and see them as the obvious #1 team in the region. However, I am more interested in TL’s offseason moves; picking up Santorin and Alphari is an absolute massive change for the org. Alphari is, in my opinion, on par with Perkz as far as how influential the pickup will be on LCS competition. The man is an absolute monster and I think a lot of people underrate him because of Origen’s poor performance last year, but I expect great things from him. Additionally, acquiring the best jungler in the region from last year, Santorin, should elevate TL to new heights. I think it is hard to argue that these are not strict upgrades over Impact and Broxah, and TL was damn close to being the best team in NA last year, so to me, TL is likely to be our LCS champions in 2021.

#2: Cloud9

If I wasn’t going to be putting Cloud9 in first, I had to put them in 2nd. This team is hyped up for a reason, and his name is Perkz. In my opinion, he is the best mid laner in North America currently and should raise the standard for mid lane performance in the region. Blaber, Zven, and Vulcan remain standout players in their respective roles so a high level of performance is expected from them as well. The big question mark for me with this team is Fudge, who gave an excellent performance in academy last year, but has big shoes to fill as he replaces Licorice on the starting roster. I don’t know whether or not he will stack up to the rest of the competition in the LCS yet, but I don’t think he will be worse than middle-of-the-pack. For me, he is a question mark that TL doesn’t have, which is why I gave TL the edge over C9 in this list. This team can definitely place 1st if they play their cards right and I would not be embarrassed to have been wrong about them, but until we see Fudge play I have to put them at #2 on the list.

#3: Team SoloMid

Positions 3-7 are honestly tossups, but I think some teams have edges that others don’t have. TSM made changes in every position except jungle, retaining only Spica, who was in my opinion their worst performing player last year. However, they acquired PowerOfEvil and SwordArt, who I think are absolutely massive acquisitions. PoE was vying for best mid laner in the region last year and is one of the few established players that could actually fill the shoes of Bjergsen off the bat, while SwordArt is the first imported support since CoreJJ that could revolutionize bot lane competition in NA. I’m really excited to see if SwordArt can be a leader for TSM the way he was for Suning, which gives this team a very high peak. Promoting Lost to starting ADC should be okay, in my opinion he is still not as good as Doublelift but he has a lot of potential and should at least be functional from the start. Finally, the biggest questionmark for this team, similar to Cloud9, is in the top lane with their signing of Huni. Unlike Cloud9 though, I think Huni can have a lower low or an even higher high for TSM. I could honestly see TSM placing as high as 1st or as low as 6th or maybe even worse. This is the most volatile team in the region and I’m super pumped to see how they end up performing.

#4: 100 Thieves

100T and EG are very close for me, but I think 100T edges them out a bit. PapaSmithy and the rest of 100T’s management pulled an epic gamer move by acquiring literally all of 2020 Golden Guardians except for Hauntzer, while retaining their franchise player Ssumday, who is pretty definitely a strict upgrade over Hauntzer. GGS impressed me a lot last year, as players like FBI and Huhi developed into standout players in the region where they previously looked quite lackluster. FBI might honestly be the best ADC in the region, and his synergy with Huhi is off the charts. Closer competed with Santorin for best jungler in the region last summer and I expect a continued high level of performance from him this year. Damonte is a player who some may find disappointing, but he fulfills his role on 100T very well. With players like FBI, Ssumday, and Closer, his diverse champion pool and supportive playstyle enables his teammates to be carries where he may not be able to. I could see this team placing as high as 2nd under the right circumstances, every player has an absurd amount of potential and I’m glad Ssumday finally has a strong team around him.

#5: Evil Geniuses

EG is a pretty coinflip team for me. I don’t think their peak is as high as 100T’s, in fact I have trouble imagining them placing any higher than 4th, but this team has the potential to take games off of the top players and should dominate teams below them. They replaced their top laner, adc, and support from last year with Impact, Deftly, and IgNar respectively. Impact and IgNar are great pickups, both are top players in their roles, and although they have pretty choreographed playstyles, they should be able to contest the best teams in the region. Deftly is a relatively poor pickup - it wouldn’t be controversial to say that they were expecting to get Lost from TSM before Doublelift announced his retirement, but Deftly should still be functional. I don’t think it will be too big of a problem, as IgNar likes to leave his ADC to support his mid laner and jungler anyway. That brings me to EG’s mid/jg duo, Jiizuke and Svenskeren. Sven is still one of the best junglers in NA, so teaming up with IgNar to enable him could unlock a playstyle for EG they lacked last year. Jiizuke underperformed in spring leading to his replacement by GoldenGlue, but I think he still has the potential to be a top mid laner in NA. He will have trouble competing with the likes of Perkz, PoE, and Jensen, but he is an explosive and chaotic player, so I look forward to seeing what he brings to the table alongside IgNar this year.

#6: FlyQuest

I will probably get a lot of hate for this, and don’t get me wrong, I really like this team. Putting faith into the NA Academy scene by picking up Diamond and Palafox from C9A, giving Latin American star Josedeodo a chance in a major league, giving Johnsun a real team, and acquiring the best native top laner in Licorice makes this an extremely likeable team. However, it is even more coinflip than EG for me. Licorice should be solid no matter what, but outside of that, every player could pop off or flop completely. I’m unsure of Josedeodo’s english skills but especially for a jungler communication is very important. He’s a skilled player but there is literally no competition in Latin America, so we’ll have to see how he stacks up against the likes of Santorin, Blaber, Closer, and others. NA mids have historically struggled against the top imported talent, so expectations for Palafox are relatively low. I can only hope he surprises us and ends up a player like the Pobelter of days past or Damonte, where even if he can’t directly compete as a carry threat, he can enable his team in other ways. Diamond is a player I’m not too familiar with, he looked solid in the few academy games I caught, but will he be better than players like SwordArt, Vulcan, IgNar, Huhi, and CoreJJ? I can’t really see that happening, at least not at the start, but that remains to be seen. Johnsun is probably the second most stable player on this team after Licorice, but without a veteran support like Aphromoo in lane with him, we will have to see how he performs. This team could place as high as 4th in my eyes, anything higher would be a pretty big upset, and could honestly place as low as 9th if things go really wrong. They’re certainly a team to watch and it will be exciting to see how this team comes together (or doesn’t).

#7: Dignitas

The bottom 3 teams I’m pretty confident will come bottom 3, and are all very close and could all come 8th-10th (note that in this list its 7th-9th, since CLG got absorbed into the void). In my opinion, Dignitas is the best of the bottom tier teams. Dardoch is still an excellent player who had semifrequent carry performances in 2020, and Aphromoo has been looking back on form. What held them back in 2020 the most was their solo lanes, Fenix seemed to never play the meta and Viper consistently disappointed. They replaced them with Soligo and Fakegod, who I can’t see being much better. I’m glad they’re giving some NA talent a chance to get more professional experience, and who knows, maybe they will click well, but until we see that happen I don’t expect much from this team. They also promoted Neo, formerly Asta, to be their starting ADC. He looked solid in his stint subbing for Arrow on Optic, and maybe he can compete with some mid tier ADCs like Deftly, Johnsun, and Lost, but unless we see a transformation the likes of FBI he should sit around the top of bottom tier ADs. DIG made a budget roster this year that is overall acceptable but shouldn’t take the team to great heights.

#8: Immortals

Immortals might have had the strangest offseason I could have imagined. They started off with a bang, picking up Xerxe from the corpse of Origen. Despite Origen’s 2020 failure, much like Alphari, I think Xerxe is still an excellent and underrated player. However, much like 2020, IMT’s jungler is their one standout position. They retained Insanity from last year, who was admittedly a functional mid laner, but that shouldn’t really change the grim place IMT is currently in. In the bot lane they picked up OCE players Raes and Destiny. I think these players are about on par with Insanity as far as being “functional”, and they shouldn’t look like absolute clowns, but they will have a hard time garnering any wins. The biggest surprise was promoting Revenge from the academy leagues to a starting position. He looked terrible even in academy and I expect him to lose literally every single matchup he plays. I could probably list several academy players that would have been better pickups. Hauntzer ended up on an academy team, and Revenge gets a starting position? I’m sure he came dirt cheap, though, so if IMT is having money problems, it makes some iota of sense. Still, this team looks really bad, and only Xerxe and the known quantity of Insanity gives them an edge over the last place team for me.

#9: Golden Guardians

Don’t get me wrong, I actually really like what GGS did with their roster this year. They’re giving a lot of rookies opportunities to prove themselves in the major league and I truly respect that. However, to me, this team looks like an experiment. I doubt that all 4 rookies on the team will be LCS caliber, but maybe 1 or 2 will prove their worth and deserve to keep a spot in the LCS. Niles, a collegiate superstar, is a player I’m really excited to see in the LCS. He has a lot of potential and should top the bottom tier top laners, but will likely struggle against mid and top tier top laners. Iconic is a player I’m not very knowledgeable of, so my expectations of him are low but I won’t say too much since I simply lack the knowledge to make a good judgement of him. AblazeOlive getting his chance as a starter is exciting, but I don’t see him ending up much better than Insanity, so we’ll have to see how he ends up. The team’s single import is their support, Newbie, from Latin America. Unlike Josedeodo, Newbie is not a superstar player who dominated every other player and made them look like he was in a different league. I also have the same worries about the language barrier that I had with Jose. He just doesn’t seem like he will have as high of a return on investment as Flyquest will get from Josedeodo. Finally, their veteran leader is Stixxay. I really question this decision, there are better veteran players like Cody Sun that didn’t get starting spots, but they went with Stixxay. Perhaps he has leadership qualities that we can’t see, but Stixxay has been regularly underperforming for years and I’m pretty bummed to see that he retained a spot in the LCS over other players. GGS should come 9th-10th place pretty much no matter what, unless a player with a lot of potential like Niles can somehow carry the team to a stupendous 8th or 7th place finish, but I expect little from this experimental roster, at least initially.

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Believing in CLG Round 2

They’re gonna bring it back for 2021. Mark my words.

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Everything I said about CLG

I take it back. I got what I deserve for believing in CLG

[virtuoso-lol]

2020 LCS Pre-Split Team Power Rankings

Hello again! It’s time to once again waste my time trying to predict how these teams are going to do. This time we’re looking at NA’s League of Legends Championship Series, and placing all 10 teams in order from best to worst. I do have to put a disclaimer that I think most likely one of the teams in the top 6 are going to boom and completely flop to bottom 3. It could be any of them. Well, any of them besides TL - which perfectly leads into the number one position...

#1: TEAM LIQUID

Team Liquid have established themselves as the kings of NA, winning an unprecedented 4 splits in a row over the last 2 years. With very few and very calculated roster swaps being made, TL has made conscious controlled efforts to continue to improve the quality of their team despite being on top of the competition. Bringing back 4/5 of their championship winning roster from last year is no surprise to see, and should essentially guarantee them a top 3 finish. The introduction of Broxah to the team to replace Xmithie is a bit of a risk - Xmithie is known as an exceptionally smart player that can completely alter a team’s performance. However, Broxah is no slouch, and the long successful European jungler will surely will serve as a worthy replacement. Anything less than top 3 would be an absolute shock, and I don’t really see a world where they don’t finish top 2.

#2: TEAM SOLOMID

It’s finally time for TSM’s return to the top of the table. TSM fans caught a glimpse of what a successful TSM could look like in 2019 spring, but it all fell apart by summer, where they flopped early in playoffs to Clutch and once again in the worlds qualifier gauntlet. Much of TSM’s issues stemmed from two issues: Zven’s underperformance, and a lack of certainty in the jungle position. TSM found themselves in a scenario where they were rotating out 3 junglers that all gave similarly mediocre performances. Now that they’ve brought Dardoch back to the main stage in the jungle position, I feel much more confident in this team. TSM has never had a player quite as vocal and confident as Dardoch and I think this will benefit the team greatly. Additionally, replacing Zven and Smoothie with Kobbe and Biofrost seems like an upgrade overall. I would consider Biofrost a sidegrade to Smoothie in terms of individual skill, but because Smoothie didn’t synergize that well with Zven, it should be an upgrade. Kobbe just returned from a phenomenal European performance and worlds quarterfinals run, and looks to still be on top of his game. Of course, retaining Bjergsen and Brokenblade is a plus as well, as both of them looked quite good throughout all of 2019. I expect great things from this roster - let’s hope that it’s not another year of disappointment.

#3: COUNTER LOGIC GAMING

Right around here is where things start to get spicy. Places 3-6 are essentially guesses that depend on team synergy, because all of these teams have made several roster changes and have a lot of individual talent. In my opinion, CLG simply has the most individual talent out of these middle of the pack teams. Acquiring Crown is a phenomenal pickup for them, as he opens up more playstyles for the team than PoE did. Losing Biofrost is a shame, as he looked like the team’s star player last split, but getting Smoothie should be a more than suitable replacement, provided he can synergize well with Stixxay. Stixxay looked pretty good last split, although he had an unfortunate habit of choking at poor times, I still think he’s more than sufficient to compete on a top 3 team. Ruin looked fantastic for most of the split, but was often exposed by Huni in their gauntlet series against Clutch. Still, this doesn’t take away from the fact that Ruin has been performing far past expectations. To top it all off, I actually think that retaining Wiggily is the best thing CLG did over the off-season. He looks to be the next great NA jungler, and now that he has a year of experience under his belt, I expect him to do great things for CLG. I have, god forbid, a lot of faith in this roster to succeed and I expect them to finish 3rd.

#4: EVIL GENIUSES

I’m probably going to get a lot of flack for placing them so far up, but Evil Geniuses looks to have one of the best rosters with less question marks than other teams. Filling the slot left by Echo Fox after their organization collapsed, Evil Geniuses completely did away with the remains of that team and built a team from scratch. Acquiring Bang and Zeyzal gives them one of the most solid bot lanes in the league. Despite 100 Thieve’s struggle early in 2019, Bang looked consistently good. Zeyzal is also looking quite good, after making worlds semifinals in his rookie year, last year was not as impressive, but looked solid domestically. I expect more of the same from him this year. Jiizuke is also an interesting pickup, and I think he’s more than capable of handling most of the competition in NA. Of course, we can’t forget Svenskeren, who is probably the best individual jungler in NA. He absolutely dominated on C9 and I hope to see more of that from him on EG, however, he no longer has a player of LIcorice’s caliber in the top lane. EG elected to promote Kumo from academy to the main stage, which I see as a big risk. Maybe it will work out, but It’s difficult to tell whether or not he’s ready to compete with the likes of Impact, BrokenBlade, Huni, Licorice, and a lot of the stacked top lane talent in NA. This question mark in the top lane is what brings doubt to my mind for Evil Geniuses.

#5: 100 THIEVES

100 Thieves had by far the most fascinating off-season to me. Not only did they bring back 3 players from their worlds-qualifying lineup, but they also brought in Ryoma from OCE. Bringing back Ssumday, Meteos, and Cody Sun is a fantastic move for the org, as they are all top tier in their respective roles. Cody Sun is coming off a fantastic run to worlds, Meteos led Optic into playoffs almost singlehandedly (with some help from Crown) after earning a permanent starting position, and Ssumday is finally free from his academy prison where he looked far better than his competition. Ultimately, I have 2 concerns for 100 Thieves. One, Ryoma is a bit of a risk, as its near impossible to tell for sure how he will fare against the mid lane competition in NA, which is fairly stacked with prestigious imports. Using their import slot on an OCE player is a risk, but they clearly feel confident in his play and I look forward to his debut. The other issue is Stunt. He’s seen main stage play before, but has been playing in academy for most of his career and he’s never looked particularly exceptional, but maybe being paired with Cody Sun will unlock the potential that has kept him around for so long. I could see this team finishing anywhere from 6th to 3rd, but the unpredictability of Ryoma and Stunt lands them at 5th on my list.

#6: CLOUD9

I’m probably going to get some hate for this one, and it’s always a meme that C9 lost the offseason and then they always do super well, but I just don’t really feel the off-season changes. It would be a stretch to put them out of playoffs, but it’s certainly possible if one of the lower listed teams click very well. Licorice is still an absolute beast and by far the best native NA top laner, and Nisqy looks quite good but not quite on the level of competitors like Jensen, Bjergsen, Crown, and others. I do think that picking up Vulcan is one of the best roster moves made in the off-season, as he looked incredible on Clutch last year and was largely responsible for their worlds qualification. However, this is countered by losing Sven and promoting Blaber, and acquiring Zven from TSM. Svenskeren was the best jungler in the league last split and losing him is a big gut-punch for C9. Blaber is a good player, but I don’t think he’s good enough to outjungle players like Dardoch, Wiggily, Meteos, Sven, Xmithie, and Broxah. This puts him in the bottom half of NA junglers which worries me for the success of C9. Zven looked pretty terrible towards the end of TSM’s run last year which leads me to believe that he will continue to underperform, but if anyone is good at turning broken TSM players back into top tier competitors, it’s C9, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see them place as high as 3rd, but I think 6th-4th is more likely with how stacked NA is this year.

#7: DIGNITAS

Dignitas is filled with talent on its main and academy rosters. Keeping Huni is big - I would argue that 1.15 mil a year big. He’s capable of besting any top laner in NA and can net wins by himself sometimes - but, he can also lose them by himself at times. However, that coinflip usually lands in Huni’s favor. Having the Grig/Akaadian situation in the jungle is probably good for a mid tier team like Dignitas, and hopefully they figure out who they want to run early and commit to them for the year. Alternatively, with the amount of other talent on their academy teams, they have a lot of unique strategic possibilities. Froggen is always a great addition to a team, although his playstyle often feels one-dimensional. Having Damonte as a sub is great for DIG and opens up more playstyles if they want to utilize him as a sub. One of the more criticizable moves DIG made was picking up Aphromoo after his abysmal year on 100 Thieves. Aphro has looked completely lost for the last year, but if he can get back into form, it could be a big pickup. It’s also possible for DIG to promote Olleh and Damonte from academy to the main stage if Aphro/Froggen isn’t working out. To top it all off, they are fielding the ONLY rookie on a main LCS team in Johnsun as ADC. Johnsun has been hyped since he got scouted by TSM and I’m excited to see how he does, and I think pairing him with a veteran like Aphromoo is a good way to mature him into a top tier competitor. This team is honestly a giant coinflip and I could see it placing anywhere from 9th to 2nd, depending on different scenarios.

#8: FLYQUEST

The offseason Flyquest had is a bit lackluster in comparison to most of the other teams in the LCS. They kept Viper, Santorin, and WildTurtle, which I think was smart. Viper is young, native to NA, and has looked great since Flyquest brought him to the main team. He struggles against some of the top lane powerhouses in the region, but he has the ability to beat any of them. Santorin was on fire in spring, bringing Flyquest to the semifinals where they fell to the unstoppable Team Liquid, but he seemed to lose his way a bit in summer. I think he has what it takes to bring it back this split, but it’s possible he will flop once again. WildTurtle is such a historic player and has always looked quite good, so it’s no surprise to see him returning this year, especially since he’s become the face of the team. The changes that FLY made over the off-season are more perplexing. Firstly, getting rid of Pobelter made a lot of sense. He had a pretty terrible summer split and dragged the team down severely. However, I’m not sure if picking up PoE was the answer. He’s very very good at what he does, but he really only plays one playstyle. I still think it’s an upgrade, but it brings its own share of problems. Finally, they brought in Ignar to replace JayJ/Wadid from last year. Again, a definite upgrade, but the support competition in NA is quite good. Ignar looked pretty good on Schalke last year, so maybe he has what it takes to help turn Flyquest back into a playoffs team, but I’m not totally confident. It does feel strange to put them all the way down at 8th, and I wouldn’t be shocked to see them make playoffs, but I think the other teams have more going for them.

#9: IMMORTALS

In contrast to Flyquest, Immortals may have had the most fascinating off-season of any team in NA. Firstly, they came out swinging by snatching up Xmithie after Team Liquid released him. Xmithie has been a top tier jungler in NA for years, and is an NA resident, so this pickup is huge. However, the team around him is a total coinflip. Soaz just came off of a disastrous two splits on the Misfits “superteam” that completely failed, but he has a longer history of success than almost any NA player, so it’s possible for him to perform well. They also acquired Hakuho in the support role after Echo Fox exploded, which is a very solid pickup, as he’s been a quite successful native NA support, and he even looked good on that dumpsterfire of an Echo Fox roster in 2019. The other 2 members of the new Immortals squad seem to be high risk low reward. Bringing Eika to the mid lane is the first time he’s seen main squad play since ELEMENTS in EU 2016. He’s been bouncing around amateur teams since then, and has received little hype in that time. The entire 2016 Elements squad struggled a lot, but players like Froggen and Rekkles found ways to still look good, so maybe Eika can too, but I don’t think it’s too likely. However, Immortals must have seen something in him to make him worth signing for the main squad, so maybe he will be better than expected. Finally, they signed Altec back onto the LCS mainstage after his hiatus where he grinded soloqueue in Korea. I’m personally a big Altec fan, but I’m not sure how his time away from the stage will affect him. I hope that his bootcamp pays off and he looks just as solid as he did before. This team just has too many risks for me to feel confident putting them outside of bottom 4.

#10: GOLDEN GUARDIANS

The decisions Golden Guardians made over the off-season simply left me confused from start to finish. The only part I feel good about is keeping Hauntzer, who has continued to look pretty good even while GGS struggled. They also retained FBI, who takes up an import slot and really failed to impress me in his time on GGS last year, and is a big reason why I worry for other OCE imports. He simply couldn’t stack up against the bot lane competition in NA, which is one of the few roles that native NA players are good at. Golden Guardians’ roster moves only continue to get weirder. They signed GoldenGlue for the mid lane, which I’m convinced is only to great GG Greyson Gregory “GoldenGlue” Gilmer for a grand total of 7 Gs. He looked pretty good on C9A, and he is a native player, but I don’t see him outclassing any of the mid laners in NA except for maybe Eika or any OCE imports that flop. They also imported Closer from Turkey, where he looked quite good, but it’s difficult to tell if he will find the same success against NA competition. Finally, by far the most bizarre signing of the off-season, was Keith to support. He’s roleswapping from AD to support and we’ve literally never seen him play the role competitively, so he’s the most unpredictable player in the league, but my expectations of him are not high. If Golden Guardians places higher than 8th it will be a miracle, and several teams will have to collapse completely for that to happen.

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That should just about do it for the LCS 2020 Spring Split power rankings! Just like before, I’m more than open to asks or pms about any criticisms or questions you have about my rankings. NA felt more difficult than EU so I definitely wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of these go differently than I expect! I plan on uploading a lot more content as the season goes on and expect some post-first-week over reactions after this weekend’s games end!

[virtuoso-lol]

2020 LEC Pre-Split Team Power Rankings

It’s that time of year when everyone following professional LoL has to aimlessly make an attempt at predicting the strength of teams they’ve never seen play before. Although I am entirely self aware of this, I continue to try irregardless. I’m sure there’s something to be said about pursuing futile objectives at 2 in the morning, but I can’t concern myself with such matters. Time is of the essence! Below are my League of Legends European Championship, or LEC, team power rankings.

#1: G2 ESPORTS

It doesn’t take a genius to make this prediction. G2 is the most dominant team to ever play in Europe, making it to finals essentially uncontested last worlds, and absolutely smashing all of the competition until they had to face their Chinese overlords. No roster changes were made over the off-season, but the one wildcard for this team is the Perkz and Caps role swap. Judging by the success of the Perkz roleswap last year, I don’t see the roleswap hurting the team too much, and even in the worst case scenario, I don’t think there’s a world where they don’t come top 3.

#2: FNATIC

In my opinion, Fnatic is the only team that has a chance of contesting G2 for the European title. The only roster change they made in the off-season was replacing Broxah with Selfmade, which I honestly consider an upgrade. Both players are exceptional, but Fnatic seemed to have stagnated with the roster they ran last year, despite Nemesis getting comfortable throughout the year. There was allegedly some internal issues between the team, and I think changing the jungler is the best way to change the team’s pace. There are few junglers that could fill the shoes of Broxah, but I think Selfmade is more than capable. Only time will tell whether or not the change will garner Fnatic another championship.

#3: ROGUE

This is where we start to get into the more controversial opinions. Despite this, I feel very confident in my picks for top 4. Rogue shocked fans across the world last year after they gave their rookies starting positions and surged to a startling 3rd place finish in the summer split, where they even defeated Splyce, who would eventually go on to represent Europe at the world championship as 3rd seed. Rogue is filled with young talent eager to prove themselves, and I think that this is their year to do just that. The main detrimental factor of Rogue last year was their ADC, Woolite, who they seemed to win in spite of, rather than as a result of. This year, though, with the acquisition of European staple ADC Hans Sama, their roster is stacked and I expect great things from them.

#4: ORIGEN

Origen absolutely has the potential to come top 3, but there are too many question marks for me to grant them that spot on this list. Origen looked absolutely lost at the end of the 2019 summer split, and made roster changes accordingly. Acquiring Upset and Xerxe is arguably the best 2 pickups they could have made. However, I’m left with two big questions revolving around this team; firstly, it’s impossible to tell for sure how their support, Destiny, will fare against European competition. Origen followed the trend of importing OCE talent that several orgs seem to have been on this off-season, and it could pay off big, or bring the whole team down. Additionally, it’s difficult to tell whether or not we will get 2019 summer split Nukeduck or LEC finalist Nukeduck. His play was a perfect epitomization of how lost Origen was at the end of last year, and if Origen wants to compete for a worlds spot, he’s going to have to step back up to his peak level of performance that we’ve seen from him in the past.

#5: EXCEL ESPORTS

Excel reaped the benefits of the Splyce and Origen boom. Picking up Patrik and Tore (formerly Norskeren) gave this team a serious upgrade in the bot lane, which had essentially been an empty void for the entirety of the org’s existence. Both of these players are top level competitors in the region. On top of this, the return of Mickey brings a solid player back to the mid lane, another role in which Excel struggled to fill in the past. Despite his apparent interpersonal issues (none of which are confirmed to be true), Mickey is a player that has proven he can compete with the best and I think he has what it takes to bring Excel to the playoffs. Expect has also been a pretty consistent rock in the top lane for Excel, so his return is no surprise, and more than welcome. The one issue I have with this team is keeping Caedrel in the jungle position - perhaps they tried and failed to acquire a new jungler, but I worry that Caedrel will simply get outjungled by the stacked jungle competition in the LEC and will prevent the rest of their team from realizing greater success. I wasn’t impressed with what he brought to the table last year, but maybe he will surprise us this year now that he has a real bot lane to play around.

#6: FC SCHALKE 04

I’m not entirely confident in my placement of Schalke here, and I think any one of the teams below them can and likely will surpass them, but Schalke has the benefit of being a team made up of familiar faces. Odoamne and Abbedagge both performed quite well last year, which is why I give them an edge over the other teams. Additionally, if Forgiven is still in form, his pickup will be huge for them, but it is a high risk for a pretty low chance of reward. Dreams is a player that I have found to be mediocre and unimpressive, but perhaps being paired with Forgiven will allow him to shine more. My biggest issue with the team is, similarly to Excel, the jungle position. Gilius has shown fairly high highs and significantly low lows. If we get peak Vitality Gilius, then I feel more confident in granting Schalke playoffs positioning, but if he flops, then I don’t expect the team to come higher than 7th. Schalke is a coinflip team that mostly depends on the performance of Forgiven.

#7: MAD LIONS

As we get lower on the list, you’ll notice these teams will be increasingly filled with rookies, which makes it more and more difficult to predict where they will place. I personally put Mad Lions over the other rookie-filled teams because of two reasons. One, I think Humanoid is the best individual player on any of these rookie rosters, and his presence in the mid lane should be able to lift the ceiling for his teammates. Additionally, Carzzy is one of the few rookies that I know enough about to consider promising. His performance in the academy scene gives me confidence that he can compete with the best ADs in the region, and I think he will quickly become a staple in the league. Ultimately, the loss of Splyce created a lot of opportunity for other European teams to snatch up their talent, and I don’t think the sole return of Humanoid is enough to even approach the level of success the Splyce squad had - but I think in comparison to the other rookie squads, it has a higher ceiling for success.

#8: SK GAMING

SK has a lot of promising rookie talent on its roster, but I’m less impressed with its returning players. SK retained its AD and Top laner of Crownshot and Sacre, which I think both performed sufficiently but failed to really break through into the top tier of competition. Sacre has had praises sung about him by pros and fans alike, which I think gives him an edge over the lower half of the LEC competition. Additionally, losing Selfmade hurts SK a lot, although acquiring former G2 and Schalke jungler Trick band-aids this hole somewhat, I don’t think Trick has as high of a ceiling as Selfmade did. On the other hand, I’ve seen and heard a lot of good things about SK’s returning mid laner, Jenax. If he’s as good as the rumors suggest, perhaps he will be able to help carry SK to a lower seeded playoffs position. He looked solid last split, but insider opinion suggests he can perform at even higher levels, which I would be eager to see. I haven’t heard much hype about their rookie support LIMIT, but his high placement in EU masters gives me hope that he will be able to compete against other European bot lanes, especially being paired with Crownshot, who I think has a lot of potential. As with all rookie squads, as we saw with Rogue last year, this team has the ability to contend for a playoffs position, but they lack the confident veterans that many other teams have.

#9: TEAM VITALITY

Similarly to MAD, Vitality has the benefit of retaining Cabochard from last year, which gives them a rock in the top lane who is almost guaranteed to perform. However, I don’t think that top lane is as influential as mid lane, so MAD gets the upper hand there. Additionally, keeping Jactroll is a penultimate failure and I think is a main factor holding Vitality back from a playoffs position. Somewhere along the line he lost his way that allowed Vitality to go to worlds as second seed two years ago, but his play last year was absolutely atrocious, and he had some of the worst stats for a support in the league. I don’t know enough about Vitality’s rookies to make confident statements on them. Although I’ve heard good things about their rookie ADC Comp, I don’t have as much faith in these rookies as much as I do other teams, and I think failing to get an upgrade or rookie support hurts this roster big time.

#10: MISFITS GAMING

Misfits as an organization has been on a downward velocity ever since their series against SKT in the 2017 world championship. This team gave European fans a glimmer of their chance against the Korean giants that teams like G2 and Fnatic would soon realize. However, since then, a series of unfortunate roster acquisitions wrecked this team. In 2019, they built what should have been a superteam, and likely cost them a lot of money, and it was an absolute trainwreck. Despite being filled with historically great players, the team just didn’t mesh, and failed to achieve anything. In light of this, Misfits is taking an alternate approach and fielding a few rookies. However, their decision to retain Febiven and pick up Bvoy perplexes me. Febiven was one of the worst looking players on the failed 2019 squad, but perhaps with a change of environment we can see him succeed as much as he did on Fnatic and Clutch. Bvoy, on the other hand, has struggled a lot since leaving Young Miracles in China and hasn’t found success since. Maybe Misfits still sees potential in him, but from an outsider perspective this is a head scratcher. Additionally, the pickup of Razork and Denyk from Giants in the mid and support positions respectively is a bit of a coinflip. On one hand, they have past synergy, but on another, they weren’t even the best team in Spain’s amateur scene, so it could fail horribly. I do think that promoting Dan Dan from Misfits Premier to the starting roster is a good and safe move, but it’s not enough for me to see this team placing any higher than 9th unless several teams completely collapse.

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Well, that just about wraps up what I have to say about these teams before the season starts. Feel free to send me pms or asks with any questions or statements about these rankings! I’m more than open to criticism, conversation, or clarification. Keep an eye out for my LCS power rankings tomorrow, and expect more content on LCS and LEC players, champions, meta, strategies, and more as the season starts up!