In a bo3 format, the power rankings are fairly easy to decide because they’re almost as accurate as they can be. Instead, I’m going to focus on separating teams into tiers and talking about them more holistically while pointing out interesting areas.

The top dogs (TSM + IMT):

TSM (10–0): What really needs to be said about this team? They are undefeated in sets throughout the entire split in the most competitive split in NA LCS history.

Their improvement in the offseason was actually insane and combined with the fact that they have a world class mid laner + 4 players at the top of their region, it should say something that most people’s questions aren’t about their ability to win the region itself, but about how their international performance will be.

Historically , TSM always had problems finding ways to transition early game leads into mid game impact, but this iteration of TSM has actually been very impressive in being able to do so to the point where TSM’s elder dragon control is now a meme of it’s own. TSM’s solution to their midgame seems to be constantly invading the jungle and pressuring deep with the jungle + support and it’s been working wonders to create snowball situations that they did not consistently have in prior seasons.

To add to their new mid game strength, two players that have been infamous for poor shotcalling in the past (Bjergsen/Doublelift) have now developed into very competent shotcallers in their own right.

If there’s anything that could be pointed to as a problem, it’s that their recent early games against P1 and CLG have actually not been as good as you would expect given their record, but their ability to play the map and create decisive victories means that any team that gets an early lead still be hard pressed to close it out.

IMT (9–1): The direct competitor to the tsm throne. What looked originally like a 3-legged race with C9 has quickly turned into a two-manned tug of war.

IMT, a team that most people would have considered to fluke out of last playoffs, is now back with a vengeance. Armed with probably the best jungler in NA, they’re here to prove that their last season record wasn’t a mistake.

I think overall this team is just a very well oiled machine. Reignover puts himself constantly in places to pressure the map correctly and his team is able to work off of his pressure to create leads throughout the map. He is put in situations where he’s many times the team’s only form of initiation and/or frontline, and he plays the role extremely well.

I think the current meta suits IMT extremely well with a carry oriented top laner, frontline jungler, ranged support, and utility AD. Not only that, Pobelter (aka viktorplayer69) and Wildturtle have been playing extremely well this split, very quietly racking up insane statlines week by week. Adrian has been a rock for the team and going into 6.13, his support pool is getting buffed, so expect him to be even more impactful on a game by game basis.

Last split and early this split, IMT was a team that I thought had one of the worst drafts in NA but could consistently win just based on player and team skill. This split, their drafting has finally improved week by week, which means that they comps are way more streamlined. Many of them have said in interviews about how they’re taking their opponents more seriously, and I haven’t seen a single riven pick into trundle in weeks which can only spell good things for them.

If there’s anything to be worried about as an IMT fan, it’s the X factor, Huni. It should say something that across both western regions, Huni is the man with the highest death% of any team in both LCS regions. He’s a very talented top laner with a common problem of overextending and randomly dying in places that he shouldn’t be dying in. If he cleans up his play, his overall tp map play is extremely good and his laning is top class.

Overall, I’d say IMT and TSM are very close in skill, and I can’t wait to see the rematch come up in the next split.

The high-middle (Liquid + Cloud 9):

Liquid (6–4): I was actually going to make this tier only Cloud 9 up until I saw this weeks games which had Liquid not only go 2–0, but beat C9 on their way back up the rankings. This team has improved dramatically this week, and their recent results have caused me to reevaluate them and put them fairly high up in the rankings.

Stylistically, I feel like Liquid is somewhat similar to IMT in the sense that Dardoch applies a huge amount of pressure early to open up space for TL to create plays and control the map. Their new AD, Fabby, has allowed the team to open up strategic options they didn’t have before with Piglet. He’s consistently able to find picks mid game especially with his patented ashe arrow accuracy which allows his team to obtain mid-game leads. In a meta where top side bruiser snowball is a very viable option, Lourlo has been slowly proving himself as a very competent carry player on their team while Matt has been working very well with his AD in creating space and picks for his team.

The player that’s received the most criticism on this team has usually been Fenix. He is actually an incredibly strong mid laner, but he tends to have very polarizing performances in terms of performance and game impact. Unlike more consistent mid laners like Froggen or Pobelter, Fenix is a man that has many games where he carries extremely hard and some games where he’s much less of a visible presence. If TL can find a way to create consistency through his play, they’ll have a shot at making a good playoffs run.

Cloud 9 (6–4): Like I said before, I originally had this team as the only team separating the two giants from the rest of the mid tier teams. I had thought that their level of play was the closest, but the results of last week kind of showed me that the mid tier teams might be closer than I expected.

I’ll be completely honest. I did not expect Meteos to play as well as he has on his way back. Additionally, I did not expect their two supports to see almost identical starting time. I’m honestly glad to be proven wrong on both points. Meteos has been a great jungler on his return, playing a large amount of reksai games where he’s generally improved a lot since his last outing.

I think every team needs consistently good players (what I like to call “rocks”). Sneaky is C9’s “rock”. He’s almost always regarded as a top tier AD and performs very well in most if not all of their games. I always think the most important trait of a professional is consistency, and sneaky has that in spades. The current meta of ashe/jhin seems very well suited for him seeing as how he was famous at one point or another for playing each of those champions. The pair of Bunnyfufu and Smoothie is what I would want in an ideal team. However, usually it’s extremely hard for any team to find players willing to share LCS/scrim time especially if they are top players. I think C9 got super fortunate with their ability to do this which keep motivation and dedication at a high throughout the season.

I think Bjergsen is the best mid laner in NA and probably the best single player in the region as well. It should mean quite a lot when I say that I think Jensen is the closest to his mid lane throne (With pobelter silently sneaking into the third spot). I felt like the old roster didn’t have a lot of vertical potential in terms of growth. For instance, I never felt that Rush and Jensen actually synergized that well together; it seemed like sometimes they were both playing in the same game but not with each other. However, I think their current roster feels a lot more like a team sometimes, and I think with Reapered behind the scenes, they have a good shot at developing into a great team by the time playoffs rolls around.

The low-middle (Team Envy+ CLG):

Team Envy (6–4): This team had an explosive start to the season with an insane top three record. Their overall results were truly unexpected for me and I’m nothing but excited to have rookie competition in NA LCS, and it seems like Envy is the only new team that can even remotely challenge for a good playoff spot.

It’s usually very hard to form a roster with multiple different language speakers and be successful immediately. Envy has found a way to make it happen with their trifecta of Korean talent in the top, mid, and jungle positions while the North American bot lane duo hold their own on the opposite side of the map.

There’s a lot of stuff to talk about with this team. Seraph has slowly developed into a really strong top laner. He’s one of the best AP top players in NA(notably his lissandra is extremely impactful), and he has very good teleports. While he states that bruisers aren’t his forte, he’s been performing extremely well in multiple metas starting from last split when he was brought in originally as a substitute player on renegades. Proxcin was probably the best player on TiP and really underrated all around. Even with lanes that weren’t that good compared to their opponents, he was able to consistently make and create plays to open up ways for his team to get leads. Ninja is a really interesting player. He has a really experienced background as a player for old World Elite back in LPL and his trip from there to NA LCS tends to slightly mirror seraph’s trip from CLG to his current state. Like Seraph, Ninja seems to have developed into a better player after these experiences, and he tends to bring consistent carry threats especially on lissandra, a champion that both solo lanes seem to perform very well on. Lod and Hakuho round out the team and they’ve generally been the very consistent followup that the trio of koreans need. I think of the top side of Envy as very competent initiators/flankers/playmakers and the bottom lane of Envy as consistent followup and strong in game threats. LOD especially has been able to pull up surprisingly good numbers and when you watch his in game play, he’s pulling his own weight more times than not.

Recently Envy has been looking pretty bad. There’s no real sugarcoating their last week performances. I think there’s 2 things I look at on these situations.

First of all, I think Envy has really random drafts. I talked about how IMT used to draft in whatever way they wanted and still come out on top due to superior gameplay. I feel like Envy is highly experimental with their picks. I’ve seen super weird drafting decisions like triple flexing trundle into support and then counterpicking your other lanes. I’ve seen karthus mid into a team comp and lane that gets countered by itself (at the same time giving Froggen his best and most impactful mid laner). Sometimes they have comps that are actually pretty cool like the ezreal +varus poke comp, but a lot of the times I’m left confused about their drafting strategy. Honestly, Envy probably plays the most different new champions compared to other teams, but I find that when I look at their drafts, I hope that they don’t outdraft themselves rather than the other team drafting better. From what I understand when I talk to their bottom lane, their whole team isn’t on the same page for drafts sometimes and that seems like a really bad problem to have especially going into the later half of this split.

Secondly, I heard from LOD in my past interview that they’ve had a lot of problems with getting highly efficient practice for the week and suffered because of it. It seems like Envy was playing and improving a lot more in the early two weeks than the recent one, and I hope their move to the new gaming house that’s closer to the studio will help create a cleaner looking team.

If this team can’t find ways to improve, they might be passed up by the other mid tier teams as they slowly fall down the ladder rankings (aka the “apex fall”)

Counter Logic Gaming (4–6): No team has ever won two three NA LCS splits in a row. Maybe this is the curse that now haunts the two-time returning NA LCS split winners.

Coming off a super hot performance at MSI, everyone expected CLG to perform extremely well domestically after putting one of NA’s best international performances to date. However, everything seems to have fallen apart at the seams.

The roster itself I feel like is solid. Nobody had an issue with this roster when MSI came, it’s just off the back of their recent performances has almost everyone come under scrutiny. I don’t doubt the talent on the roster even if I’m worried about their recent performances.

I do think that CLG ran into a lot of meta related issues as they’ve stated on multiple news outlets.

I don’t think anyone expected them to be able to beat TSM in the past week (a game certainly would have been nice though). I think their loss to TSM covered up the positives in their play from the game before. I think their improvement is easy to cover up because they got smashed so decisively by the best team in the league.

Even with these facts in mind, their improvement has been relatively slow compared to some of their mid tier and top tier peers.

CLG is a team that looks terrible when they aren’t on the same page. I’ve always enjoyed the saying “better than the sum of their parts” to describe CLG. This isn’t a call out on any of their players individual skills, I just think that this is a team that will always look terrible until they figure out their problems. Honestly, each of their players have looked bad throughout the split, with the only exception really being Xmithie who tends to almost always have extremely solid play week after week.

I’m also going to talk a little bit about CLG’s drafts. CLG prior had a problem to where unless Aphromoo was on an initiation/pick support, they struggled to find ways to actually end games. This made it so they highly valued champions such as alistar who could both frontline and initiate which let Xmithie play his super carry oriented junglers (nidalee/kindred/elise).

After the meta shifted from MSI over to tank oriented junglers like gragas/reksai and the support meta shifted away from initiation frontline supports to braum + ranged utility supports (karma/zyra/bard), I thought that CLG would naturally just swap as well. While aphro has has no problem playing bard (one of his best champions), I’d like to see CLG run more tank oriented jungle champions to make the midgame and teamfighting easier to navigate. A lot of teams now can look to ban bard and with clg always seemingly prioritizing a lot of non utility ads (like ezreal) who tends to excel in 1–3–1 situations, they tend to lack both frontline and valuable forms of pick/inititation.

However, I still have faith that CLG will end up as a top four team in playoffs. I think their coaching staff and prior history at least warrants them this much room. The fan inside of me hopes that I don’t have to wait till playoffs comes to see a return to form ala tsm spring split.

I knew this team as the macro-oriented team that made a mess of NA teams through superior rotations and map play. Maybe what once won them two NA LCS titles, their very impressive macro oriented gameplay and shotcalling, has now been negated by the other teams catching up to them in that specific aspect of the game. I’m really curious what form CLG returns as.

The pitfall (Apex):

+

The bottom of the barrel (NRG + Phoenix 1 + Echo Fox):

Before I get into these teams, I often have people ask me how I can tell if a team is strong or weak. One of the best ways for me to see if a team is good is if they can do something with their leads. All four of these teams tend to struggle both getting leads and converting leads consistently into meaningful objectives/kills. Often times, when two of these teams play, the average game time feels extremely long. If you need any sort of example, watch what TSM is doing right now with leads and then watch some of these teams try to navigate their way into killing the nexus.

Apex (4–6) : The fall from grace hit apex quite hard. They started out really hot similar to teams such as Envy, but their recent performances have left a lot to be desired. While they have the same record as CLG, I find it very hard to put them on a similar tier so I’ve invented a separate tier right between playoff contention and relegations.

Take a good solid look at Envy and Apex. Apex shares a lot of similarities with Envy. Both teams have Korean top + mid + jungle rosters with a full NA bottom lane lineup. On paper, does it seem like either roster is significantly better than the other? I would say it’s relatively close especially if you saw them at the very beginning of the season. Now though, Apex is taking a full nosedive to the bottom after poor performances from their roster.

Ray was a great pickup for this team. I think he’s an extremely good top laner and could potentially contend for best in the region. Alongside him, you have shrimp, a super well known challenger jungler that mains rek’sai and was known to be extremely strong mechanically and top of the ladder. Keane is a mid laner that sometimes struggles to find impact in games but he’s still generally considered to be a solid mid laner. The bot lane of Xpecial and Apollo tend to fill in the exact same role as envy’s LOD and Hakuho, which is be consistent threats every game + work with their top side initiators. Unfortunately, I feel like the three Koreans here have a lot worse synergy than the ones in Envy, as well as not having the same frontline/initiation power that envy rocks. Additionally, the bot lane doesn’t seem to be quite nearly on the same page as well. I think however talented a roster is individually, if they don’t come together it’s completely useless.

The biggest problem from this team from the outside looking in is communication. While qualifying, apex used to have a Korean coach that helped alongside Saintvicious. He came alongside as a package deal with police and eve when they were both back on the roster. From what I’ve heard, he used to walk through the Korean players and assist them in any problems as well as create possible solutions. Once NA started however, it seems like it’s a lot harder to get visas for coaches rather than athletes, and for whatever reason, their old assistant Korean coach did not return for this year. I had two distinctly different interviews with Xpecial this year. The second one really let me see behind the curtain so to speak about how their team suffers from huge communication problems which stifle any kind of team growth. It seems like with the loss of one of their ways to facilitate communication, apex has fallen into a rut where it’s extremely hard for them to become a better team together. This is one of the biggest pitfalls of multi-lingual teams. Envy found a solution by hiring a personal translator and NRG has one as well. It seems like Apex, outside of using Keane as a translator between the top and bottom halves of the map, haven’t been able to find a way to successfully overcome this problem. Maybe the last two weeks were just bad luck for Apex, but I feel some really extreme foreshadowing when I think about this team’s relative improvement since the start of the season.

NRG (3–7) : I want to like this team.

Let’s talk positives. Santorin has been looking like a beast recently ever since week two this split. Santorin prior to this split was known as a very passive oriented jungler that struggled to find plays and/or impact the map in meaningful ways. However, if you ever saw the man play in solo q or scrims, you’d note a much different player. I think Santorin finally found a way to transition his non-LCSperformances on stage, and that’s been key for NRG in being able to get wins and even stay competitive against others teams in their group. In a prior interview, he told me that he finally has found a way to create situations in scrims so he’s unafraid on the LCS stage, and it’s definitely shown in his recent performances where it’s common to see him with 70–80%+ kill participation.

In terms of weird surprises this split. Quas started the split off with really underwhelming performances and just straight picking maokai every game. I think it really took a while for NRG to find their team chemistry, but ever since that one illaoi pick, Quas has started to look better and better as an overall player.

Kiwikid still has tendencies to get picked in random locations, however I think his relative performance is actually better than people expect. If I had to rate kiwi, I’d probably say he’s the second best player on the team. I think he’s honestly fairly underrated as a player and I hope that he can shore up his synergy issues with OHQ because at the moment they look dead in the water sometimes.

Now let’s hit reality home. OHQ and GBM have not been playing well this split. GBM already was a player that needed to find ways to even out the game early for him because he was a monster team fight player and made good late game decisions. However, I don’t think any team can have a luxury of being able to wait for 1–2 items before they can impact the map, especially not in this current mid lane meta where you’ll just lose your jungle + dragons if you even try to do that. OHQ has not really shown much of the hype that people gave him before. He’s the player that needs a team to actually work with him before he looks like a star. NRG has yet to find that magic teamwork to be able to make OHQ look consistently good, even if he has a really threatening pocket pick (twitch).

Like other teams in this tier, NRG really struggles to find ways to close out the game. Even if they tend to find leads in the midgame, it’s very common to see them attempt to baron bait or meander around the map until they somehow find a teamfight and win or lose. I find their late game decision making specifically in terms of how to close out the game very lacking and that falls all onto the main shotcallers, Kiwikid and Santorin, as well as the coaching staff.

If this team can find a way to improve their late game shotcalling and work with GBM + OHQ, then I expect to see them rise up the ranks a little.

Echo Fox (1–9): This team is actually the hardest team in the NA LCS for me to watch. I’m pretty sure they have the longest average game time and it seems like they’re a team that slowly bleeds out until they die.

Let’s talk players. I think Hard has been pretty lackluster as a jungler this split. Usually, junglers right now are the main players that create early game plays and mid game action. However, I think that hard has done a relatively poor job at getting anything going. It’s not completely his fault, but when I think about his relative performance this entire split, he’s had a lot to be desired. Maybe that’s a statement that can be made to the rest of the roster but bear with me for a little bit.

Froggen is a really interesting player to talk about. I think he’s a good player, even a great player. I however think it’s really weird that he tends to lack a lot of impact on the map before late game. Even with his jungler/team underperforming and even on champions with notoriously good map play (twisted fate), he’s struggled to put down consistent meaningful impact before late game with maybe the exception of when he’s playing anivia. The fact that a lot of teams are getting away with just banning anivia and leaving up azir seems to be a relevant concern. I don’t think right now he’s a franchise player because he seems to be missing the ability and qualities to lead a team to greatness. However, he has a lot of qualities that great players have (SUPER consistent good performances, strong mechanics, good awareness, etc) and is maybe a few steps away from being able to become the player people have always wanted him to be.

The main problem with this team is honestly just the shotcalling/decisive playmaking. They need to find a way to create proactive play. I’m all for reactive stuff but my god PLEASE DO SOMETHING.

I would be ok if this team didn’t have any talent and just lost every game, but I think that the roster isn’t even bad, it’s just the natural style of the games makes everyone on the roster look worse (similar to CLG). I feel like echo fox can become one of those teams that look better together. While I’ve talked poorly about two of the players on their roster, I don’t think either of them are bad players (or the rest of the roster). There needs to be some serious changes behind the scenes to address these problems, and it seems like getting a new coach, Heaventime, is a good direction for them to go in. However, it’s already five weeks into the regular season and they have almost no time left to spare. They need to develop what most teams do in a month or two inside one or two weeks or else their chances of seeing any movement up the rankings is next to nothing.

Pheonix 1 (1–9): I’m a lot more lenient on this team than echo fox. They got completely crushed by visa problems and only have had their full roster playing in the LCS for two weeks. Inside those two weeks I saw a lot of remarkably good improvement from the roster.

Inori for me has been a really nice standout. His first week was relatively tame where I thought he played average to maybe slightly above average. However, his second week was actually super good. He outpressured sven early in the TSM matchup and is this team’s constant early pressure threat. Even if it’s a bad play, I consider him a fairly decisive initiator which is always really nice to have on a team.

I feel like team’s who tend to prioritize lucian and other carry oriented ads sometimes put themselves in hard to play situations especially when they’re a lower rated . When mid game comes, lucian players rely on the rest of his team to set up the play and find the pick/initiation so that he can excel on his one and two item spike. However, lower level teams tend to have a lot problems with being able to find the plays at the right times. I thought with Zentinel, Mash looked a lot worse than he was because he loves to play lucian every game but lacked anyone to be able to help him in the midgame to really snowball with his champion pick. Now that the team has Inori + Gate as their consistent initiators, I think mash’s play has looked relatively a lot better even if his skill didn't necessarily increase.

I don’t really want to go into their strength’s and weaknesses too much to be honest. I consider them a relatively new team even though they’ve been playing with subs throughout the split. I’ve yet to see if they’re going to slow their improvement down after a couple weeks ala apex or envy.

Is it weird that I’m somewhat optimistic about them getting more wins even though they’re bottom of the standings right now? In a world where phoenixes don’t exist, I’m hoping P1 can truly show me some magic.

Hope you guys enjoyed this power rankings. It’s a gift for a lot of you subscribers who’ve stuck it out with me thank you all. I have a small prediction for next week down below.

Predictions next week:

Friday:

TSM V C9: TSM

ENVY V IMT: IMT

Saturday:

NRG V APX: NRG (CLOSE GAME)

P1 V FOX: P1 (CLOSE GAME)

TL V IMT: IMT (please be close…)

ENVY V CLG: CLG (CLOSE?)

Sunday:

APX V TSM: TSM

NRG V C9: C9

CLG V P1: CLG (are you scared clg fans?)

TL V FOX: TL