Note: This is not a list of players that I believe to be the absolute best individually in their roles. This is a list of who I believe to be most valuable in their role. This is based on their individual split performance, but also on how much their team relies on them to perform at a high level. How much “value” one player brings to a team is very subjective, but I’ll try to explain in-depth for every player listed. Please visit http://www.oracleselixir.com/ for all stats used in this article.

Top Lane – Noh “Gamsu” Yeong-jin

The top laner for Team Dignitas, Gamsu has been one of two main carries on the roster, helping propel the team that was in relegations last split up into a playoff spot this split. Other players in contention for this spot on the list were Diego “Quas” Ruiz and Darshan “ZionSpartan” Upadhyaya. What placed Gamsu above Quas and Zion on this list is his importance to Team Dignitas and how utterly lost they look whenever he is not placed into a position to carry. The only other reliable carry on the roster was their marksman and all split long the meta has trended hard away from marksmen in terms of their overall carry potential. Leaving a lot on his plate in a very top lane centered meta, he stepped up a great deal. While Team Dignitas faltered towards the end of the regular season, losing five of their last seven matches, Gamsu put up massive carry performances on a number of champions that pushed the team that was one game away from being relegated to the challenger series, into sixth place this split, spending the first six weeks of the split in the top three. His extremely high impact and calculated play on a variety of champs is to be well noted. He is the hardest carrying top laner in NA LCS.

Kills – 54

Deaths – 41

Assists – 114

K+A/D – 4.1

Average Kill Participation – 73.9%

Death Percentage – 18.0%

Damage Percentage – 19.9%

Gold Percentage – 22.4%

Earned Gold Per Minute – 213.0

Total Unique Champion Wins – 6

Going into playoffs, he is the one to watch on Dignitas as they square off against Team Impulse, a team they split the regular season series with 1-1. With Impulse still adjusting to their new mid laner, Gate, now is as good a time as any for Dignitas to make a run and it will most likely come off the back of their star top laner. While I won’t say he’s the best top laner in North America, I will say what he brings to Dignitas is greater than any other top laner. This team would likely be relegated without his commanding presence.

Jungle – Lee “Rush” Yoon-jae

The Team Impulse jungler is my MVP for the role this split. Christian “IWillDominate” Rivera was the only other player I considered to take Rush’s place on this list. Only joining the competitive scene last split, Rush really livened up the entire jungle position in North America immediately. Bringing a very obstinate style to the role, he forced others to adapt to his own highly aggressive, selfish style, very reminiscent of Qiao Gu jungler Baek “Swift” Dae-hoon. One of the very few jungle centered teams in the entire world, Impulse relied upon Rush heavily all throughout the split to be the main carry of the roster. He was given extremely high priority in the pick phase to ensure he was on a comfort pick that would lead to his success. His individual performances on both Nidalee and Lee Sin down the stretch of the season that landed Team Impulse third place is to be particularly notable. The team going 10-2 in their final twelve matches with Rush recording a combined 61-33-135, 5.93 KDA. He is just so incredibly integral to the style Impulse has, with both of their solo lanes never truly stepping up into a consistent main carry capacity. The early game pressure he exerted was one of the main factors in the team’s success, pushing them through the laning phase into the mid game team fights that their members excelled in.

Kills – 75 (Highest in his role)

Deaths – 56

Assists – 190 (Highest)

K+A/D – 4.7

Average Kill Participation – 76.3%

Death Percentage – 23.6% (Highest)

Gold Differential at 10 – +261.9 (Highest)

Damage Percentage – 17.6% (Highest)

Gold Percentage – 19.0% (Highest)

Earned Gold Per Minute – 224.6 (Highest)

Extremely high risk player, he was also being given, and he took, a lot of resources. No other jungler was as important to their team as Rush was.

Mid Lane – Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg

The best player overall in the region and by far the most important, Bjergsen dragged Team SoloMid into the playoffs kicking and screaming. For as crucial as TSM is to North America in terms of its overall growth in esports, it’s kind of hard to realize that they would be sitting in relegations fighting for their spot in LCS if not for one single player, their mid laner. No other player did more for his team and contributed as much as Bjergsen did. The only other mid laner I think some people would bring up is Kim “FeniX” Jae-hun of Team Liquid, who had an exceptional split in his own right. Why I put Bjergsen over Fenix is because of how incredibly little Bjergsen had to work with in comparison. With a top laner that has shown zero prowess in his ability to carry, a jungler that translates real life pacifism into League of Legends, and a marksman that is best known for suiciding at the most inopportune times, Bjergsen had absolutely no one he could remotely rely on to even try to carry a match. He was the one and only main and secondary carry for Team SoloMid. He’s the best player in the region and the most valuable player in the entire region. No one in the mid lane is on his level within North America. His struggles this split with TSM very much remind me of the struggles Faker went through last Summer with SK Telecom. Just to put into perspective how ridiculously hard he is carrying TSM, he is dealing the highest percentage of his team’s damage in the entire world at 42.5%. For reference, CoCo, the Champions leader in this category and someone many believe to fill a similar role to Bjergsen, is only sitting at 33.2% of his team’s damage. Someone please get this man some teammates.

Kills – 107

Deaths – 43

Assists – 78

K+A/D – 4.3

Average Kill Participation – 75.0%

CS Differential at 10 – +8.2

Gold Percentage – 27.2%

Damage Percentage – 42.5%

Wards Placed Per Minute – 0.45

Damage Per Minute – 756

Before everyone starts thinking Bjergsen is only a damage dealer, he is actually warding the second most of any mid laner in the region. He does it all.

AD Carry – Johnny “Altec” Ru

When Altec joined Gravity Gaming this past offseason and replaced David “Cop” Roberson, quite a lot of people believed the move to be a downgrade or a side-grade at best due to how well Cop performed in the previous split. Altec was often considered overhyped by the community due to talks of his extreme skill despite being on a lowly Evil Geniuses and Winterfox squad for two splits. His performances this split helped erase that sentiment as he led Gravity all split long with phenomenal play. I believe he’s not just the most valuable marksman, I believe he’s the downright best marksman in the region. Playing on a team that has little identity or focus, he was very often left independent from the rest of the team both in-game and in the draft phase. As a marksman in an extremely anti-marksman meta and playing on a team that was extremely divided on where they wanted resources to go, he was tasked with being the main carry for Gravity and he succeeded in spades. The one issue that most people have with Altec is the fairly lackluster laning phase, but this was an issue not just with Altec, but the whole of Gravity. They are one of two playoff teams, the other being Dignitas, to average a gold deficit at the 15 minute mark. Their early game was very rough and didn’t improve over the split. Lane swapping and catching waves properly were ideas lost on them. Entering mid and late game team fights though, Altec’s play was always surgical and precise, knowing exactly what he needed to do and knowing every limit to his champ. He’s just ridiculously versatile and the definite star of the roster, even if they themselves have not yet figured it out.

Kills – 90

Deaths – 37

Assists – 104

K+A/D – 5.2

Average Kill Participation – 71.4%

Death Percentage – 15.9%

Damage Percentage – 31.1%

Gold Percentage – 28.7%

Earned Gold Per Minute – 297.9

Damage Per Minute – 570

Only two other marksmen were as efficient as Altec was in translating the gold he received into damage, those being Chae “Piglet” Gwang-jin and Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in.

Support – Adrian “Adrian” Ma

Likely the biggest surprise on this list due to already having one Team Impulse player, Adrian stood out in a huge way for me this split as he was the glue that kept the volatile Team Impulse together. On a team that had no one else warding, he single-handedly put Impulse as one of the top two warding teams in the region, placing 20% more wards than any other support. Now, one common argument against Adrian is the whole idea that he can only place three wards so he overlaps existing wards and he probably runs his Sightstone dry when needed most. This line of thinking is incredibly flawed. Impulse is one of the few teams in NA that has truly dynamic vision control because of Adrian. Instead of placing vision in popular spots and letting it sit like most teams, due to how Adrian is constantly roaming their vision is always moving with him. Another thing I was impressed with his play is that due to this, everything that happened in an Impulse match went through Adrian. He determined when, where, and how Impulse fought. This is a team that had the most kills overall of any team, yet on average had the third quickest matches. They fought a lot and it all went through Adrian as he was very often the primary engage for his team. You could have replaced Adrian with any other support in the region, including players like Alex “Xpecial” Chu and Ham “Lustboy” Jang-sik, and you would see worse results just due to how vision heavy Adrian is compared to every other support. There is no one else in the region like him and he is an irreplaceable player for Impulse, at least until the rest of the team finds out what a ward is.

Kills – 18

Deaths – 46 (Least in his role)

Assists – 239 (Highest)

K+A/D – 5.6 (Highest)

Average Kill Participation – 81.1% (Highest in NA LCS)

Wards Per Minute – 1.48 (Highest)

Wards Cleared Per Minute – 0.28

The support that comes in second in the wards per minute category is Michael “BunnyFufu” Kurylo at 1.23. Most LCS supports range in the 1.00 to 1.20 area. Adrian goes above and beyond, hitting Korean levels in how often he wards.

As stated at the very top, these are the players I believe are most valuable within their roles in NA LCS. Please check out www.oracleselixir.com for all things stat related and you may find me at https://twitter.com/stilwell__.