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Let's rank LCS teams strength

Ale non è male·1/7/2016, 11:02:52 PM·1 votes·933 views
Stats | Fantasy LCS

I waited the official rosters to be released to do this, and now that Fantasy LCS site has basically confirmed the rumored rosters of the teams that we diidn't officially knew about 8if you don't know the rosters check out the site linked ), I think is about time to release our rankings of LCS Team strength

I will try to judge here teams strength in comparison with the other teams in Western Scene, and I will put them in tiers, going from S tier to F tier - the tiers are done in comparison with Western teams, best Korean teams are one or tier above S tier, something like SS/SSS - according to various factors. Also, I'll put (+) and (-) symbols next to the teams to indicate if they are closer to the tier above or below. I'll give also a brief explanations in the comments to the thread of the most difficult and controversial decision I had while doing these rankings (I'll do this to keep the original post short and easy to read

DISCLAIMER This is NOT exactly a thread predictions about final standings in Spring Season of LCS. Obviously, I expect the teams placed in a better tier to place higher than a team in a worse tier, but among teams in the same tier or straddling between the low end of a tier and the high end of the next one, there could be pretty well swap in the final standings due to head to head match-ups,possible inconsitencies of teams and such

THE RANKINGS (the EU teams are indicated with italic)

Tier S: OG Tier A: TSM (+), H2K (+), C9, FNC, VIT, IMT (-) Tier B: NRG (+), CLG, G2, TL (-) Tier C: GIA (+), UOL, EF (-), Tier D: SPY (+), RNG (+), EL, DIG (-), ROC (-) Tier E: Tier F: TiP

What do you think on these rankings (Check the comments below before answering)? What are your own rankings?

Hope it is appreciated

21 Comments

Ale non è male1/7/2016, 11:21:37 PM1 votes

Brief explanations, part 1

Q: "Why NRG is ranked so low? " A: Listen, I wanted to place them higher. I really wanted. In my opinion, the trio of carry laners they have can actually compete with the best of them in the Western scenes, and arguably in NA no one but TSM only can compete with them...but then I look at their jungler and support, and no way I can place them on the same level of the best teams out there. The teams placed above them have at most 1 possible weakness in their roster, they have possibly two glaring weaknesses. Moon and KonKwon were unimpressive in their CS splits, and are below average for LCS level, imho. Unless at least one of them MASSIVELY improves, they are probably going to set NRG back from reaching excellent level because they would below average for Western level, and it would be too much burden to carr for the three NRG carries when they will have to face the top teams

Q: "Wow, G2 placed in tier B as a rookie team? What the hell?" A: Well, they oddly they don't seem to have realy weak spots and they really have quite potentially good carry potential . PerkZ and Hybrid are the best talent coming from CS to LCS in EU and entire Western scene, they seem really to be super good from the start. Trick played well enough for CJ Entus as a rookie to assume he can easily deliver good performance in West. The question marks are admittedly Kikis and Emperor, but Kikis in the past had yet played as top laner so he shouldn't hold back the team that much if he is at least somewhat close to the great play he showed as jungler in the entire last season where he was the main factor of UoL success alongside PoE, and Emperor. Emperor career path has been really strange, and it is unclear if he is as good as a player like he was believed to be when he started his pro career back in Korea...but here it is the point, he has next to him one of the best Western supports, the abovementioned Hybrid, so aven if he is just average the bot lane should at least not be a liability for G2

Ale non è male1/7/2016, 11:47:13 PM1 votes

Brief explanations part 2

Q: "How did Quas retire and the 10 man roster solution impacted TL ranking?" A: Honestly, it didn't influenced it that much. Quas was severely overrated, as he was the kind of guy that relied exclusively on mechanics to perform, and his 2015 campaing showed how thanks to his mechanics he could stomp lower tier top laners, and then lose miserably against the best top laners, even the one that had clearly lost several steps from their prime like Dyrus and Balls. The swap with Lourlo (or zig) will honestly won't make them lose enough to not allow them to beat the team that are worse than them, at worst against top teams they'll have the lackluster performance from top lane, and at best it could even gave them even better performances against such teams. Let's be clear, I don't think Lourlo or zig will be super good, but I don't think they will be bad either The 10 man roster won't help TL, because you still play with 5 guys and TL still has the same fundamental problem that hold them back from being a top team in the west. I was not sold on them last season, and I'm not sold on them this season, because as long they will use Fenix and Piglet as imports they will never be elite. Not because Fenix and Piglet are inherently bad...heck they are kinda good. TL got the results they got because of them. But they are not actually good enough to waste the import slots on mid-adc positions and to not "invest" those imports spot to improve the weaknesses TL has had on top, jungle (at international level at least) and support. TL has actually not got worse per se, imho, as Smoothie is a lateral move but stil a slight upgrade over a declining Xpecial and as mentioned above they won't really losing anything with Quas gone, but the other teams have gotten so better that they are stuck in mediocrity like they were in the past season. And I don't trust Fenix and Piglet to suddenly improve so much to carry them. Honestly at this point, sacrifice one of Fenix-Piglet for a NA guy that is a slightly downgrade at that position and get a very strong upgrade in another spot would actually overall end up improving TL level.

A general observation for the next explanations: It was generally super super hard to rank any time placed below GIA and UOL. Actually, these teams have either so big discrepancy between their best and worst player or have so little difference between them or have such unknown/unproven guys that it was kinda hard to properly rank them, and lot of those teams have shifted position throughout the whole process, so it was difficult to give them a precise value because of how fluctuating their value could possible be considering all the different variables and scenarios and there has been probably room for certain mistakes here and there because of last minute changes and comparison with new rosters line-ups incoming I'll have to take multiple teams in consideration together to explain how the process of reasoning went and why they ended up in a certain position and order even though they could have been close or theoretically swapped each other depending on different factors Generally, I have used UOL as about average team (middle of C tier) as kinda of Polar Star to try to extricate among all these various teams, and I'll explain later why I used them

Ale non è male1/8/2016, 12:39:37 AM1 votes

Brief explanations part 3

Q: "Then why did you use UOL as kind of yardstick to judge the other team below them? Shouldn't they have been placed lower given their IEM performance?" A: Well, I did it mainly because if you look the UOL roster, you can see that they have two slightly above average players (Vizi, Hylissang), two completley average players (Diamond, Steelback) and Fox who is the big question mark. How Fox will perform will decide the fate of UOL in the next split. If he'll be utter trash, UOL risk relegations, if he'll be just average or mediocre UOL can do decent. I would have honestly placed with them with TL or Giants if they had a good midlaner and even above if they had a very good midlaner rather than fox I think that IEM performances were a fluke in negative because the Gillius-Fox duo was paired really bad being both super passive, in a line-up that generally didn't basically had carry potential. Diamond, while not being a top LCS jungler, with his aggressiveness fits just much better in UOL schemes, he basically fits far better than Gillius or H0R0 ever did after Kikis left, and Fox in an environment of a team playing decently well around him (the Spring Split SK, not the troubled SK team of the Summer Split) can be at least mediocre to slightly below average So I believe they are the closest team to the sufficiency-ish overall, even though they still have scarce carry potential. These were the factors that I pretty much picked for those teams around UOL value to rank them; how many of the various players in the line-up of the other teams differ from sufficiency in negative (and fhow much discrepancy from sufficience they have) and how much carry potential they possibly have in positive kinda of dictated the placements of the other teams

For the example, Gia and Ef are kinda similar as line-up construction, both having a super star mid laner with ton of carry potential, supported by another kinda good guy in the team, a pair of guys that are just there affloating in mediocrity/averga-ishy, and a bad guy each. But, for how bad GIA Adryh can possibly be, Baby (or BIG how has been actually called) is possibly the worst starter of ANY LCS team that is not Impulse. With Imagine he lost in relegation against freaking Dodo8 that was like the worst support in NA and entire Western scene last Summer alongside bodydrop, and I fear he can drag down the entire EF bot lane since keith is decently good but not special, while G0dFred can actuall act like a kinda of safety net for Adryh shortcomings

Maszii1/8/2016, 12:42:52 AM1 votes

G2 to high, i would move all of the B section/C/D one tier lower and put Vitality in Tier B

Ale non è male1/8/2016, 1:08:26 AM1 votes

Brief Explanations part 4

Q: "Wait, why Splyce are rated so low? Everyone is hyped for them and many people are placing them around 5th place? They have no communication problems since they are all danish and most of them play together from a lot of time and they have young uprising players...what the hell?" A: I am not really sold in Splyce. They stormed through CS on Sencux and Kobbe back, but LCS is a whole different beast from CS I don't think Splyce is either average or above as overall quality or have super high carry potential like someone believe them to be. Sencux is certainly one of the best young uprising EU midlaners, BUT, while for CS he was excellent, if I have to rank him compared to LCS competition he is below average (with big potential to grow, but I got to stick to actual rankings and perforamces level), and he is basically the guy that should be the main carry and positive factor to win games for them if they play like they did in CS, which put big concerns and headscratches on Splyce campaign - and if you argue about the fact that Perkz itself is a rooki and G2 are place much higher, well, PerkZ has been rated above Sencux in CS - . And you can basically replicate the same reasoning for Kobbe too, even though ADC has lower level competition than mid in Eu On what things they are going to rely, too? Nisbeth is bad as sen in his previous LCS showings, Obvious whose level was unknown was replaced by trashy that for sure is below average to bad...paradoxically the guy that could better compare to the competition in the role could be Wunderwear who wasn't very hyped up in the team I think Splyce can safely avoid troubles given that Sencux and Kobbe at least vs the worst team in Eu can carry hard, but while many are indicating them as the dark horses in Eu, I don't really see great perspective for them in this first split, avoid promotions would be a success and get playoffs a HUGE success for them, imho

Q: "Why Dignitas is so low? Their IEM show was really encouraging and they could have advanced to semifinals without their patented baron throw that can be avoid with increasing comunications, no? Are they going to be bad because they wasted their imports on two unkown EU CS players rather than invest on Na talents or get top imports" A: Well, the problem for Dig is that they are both below average and have non-existent carry potential, and this is all due to their NA players Shiptur has been the LCS gatekeeper for midlaners for quite some times, namely if you are worse than him you literally don't deserve to be in LCS...and as matter of fact any mid laner that was worse than him in 2015 isn't anymore in NA LCS, and NA mid laner has greatly improved thanks to imprts like GMB and Froggen, so he is likely to be really bottom tier of Na midlaners. Apollo was the only weak link of the Impulse team that was otherwise a really really good team when XWX was still with them and not banned. kiwiKid is the symbol of mediocrity applied to NA LCS pro scene as he has never been really good for season now, but still NA scene has managed to have so bad supports than KiwiKid even being really mediocre has never been bad enough that dignitas could or had the need to replace him, and this remains true for this season too with supports like baby or konkwon being actually in really good teams the Europeans unkwonw CS players would paradoxically the only chance for Dig to carry games, and to be honest I don't think that they are from the start so good to to that, and they shouldn't have even being given all that much pressure at first if it wasn't for a mediocre line-up of Na guys. I think SmittiJ and Kirei will be indeed good enough to keep Dignitas affloat for the next split, with kirei showing signs of brilliance at IEM and other teams having either enormous weaknesses that can drag them down far below expectations and simply actual TiP roster existing

Ale non è male1/8/2016, 1:31:48 AM1 votes

Brief explanations part 5

Q. "Roccat/ Elements, how could you really separate them? They are both kinda bad! Heck, Dignitas being on par or worse than these teams?" A: Well, all these teams are really bad, and basically is almost a coin toss between them for last spot in EU I chosed to pick Elements slighlty above roccat despite this is a really uncommon belief (everyone gave Roccat 9th and Elements 10th place) because actually of consistency I think Elements are slightly more of a known quantity than Roccat, and while potentially roccat could be better, Elements are slightly ahead. They aren't even that bad in a vacuum, imho MrRallez is a really solid ADC, average to slighlty above average of Western level, Steve while nto exactly spectacular and with really low ceiling to improve can pretty much hold his own even if he is a bit below average on top laner. The only guys that give comparable guarantees of performance on roccat is Edward GosuPepper indeed. Airwaks has not played on UOL as sub after Kikis left despite UOl going with guys that didn't perform like Gillius or h0R0 and was mediocre to slightly below average before, Fredy seemed completely washedup and on the way to retire on Sk, Jebus/Safir and Betsy are just not good for the LCS level. The same things can be said for Elements guys...but at least, if I have to look for something in those teams, I can think that Elements other guys still has some hope someway PromisQ/sprattel was kinda bad for Elements, but the whole team was kind lackluster and had bad support staff, and also promisQ had just made a jump too big from a low level amaeteur team straigth to LCS when he joined Elements in his first stint. Also Gillius, that seem to be in the scene foreverm has really played 9 game overall at international/LCS level (the 3 games when he subbed at World, the 4 when he subbed for UOL in 2015 Summer, and the 2 where he was on tryout on UOl at IEm), basically half of a B01 split all subbing with different rosters, and he never translated his soloQ success because he ended up with the super bad attitude to rely on the champ that give him success in soloQ, which end up in failing pretty hard in the competitive games he played, especially on his signatue Lee Sin. For these guys and Eika which is a complete LCS rookie (not a high rated player in CS, but still), with still very little experience in competitive, you can argue there is still some kind of potential to grow, even only as experience that can lead them to take out some bad attitudes here and there (I'm looking at you Gillius), for Roccat I don't see any of this, I don't see any hope to really improve from their level, unless Fredy pulls out the most impressive bounce back ever from utter trash to best Eu top laner, surpassing even what sOAZ had with origen after the lackluster S4 (and with sOAZ you could tell it was a meta problem, with fredy he seemed just uttelry bad) To call out who is last is still though, but I would rather put Element an half step above Roccat for just this reason + the fact that they have more consistent players actually

CLG Factor1/8/2016, 1:42:34 AM1 votes

I have really low expectations for c9 and fnatic, why are they tier a?