Curiosity of a Meaningful Power Ranking

GeminiRune·Jun 13, 2017·2 votes·690 views

So this has been a thing that has been bugging me as of late. As most know, power rankings, specifically global (or major region) ones have been on less of a notable recognition, usually showered in criticism and ample ridicule and flame. Some explain their method of analysis while others tend to shoot it off of results and even more history irrelevant to the present. I was reading one earlier today on Reddit (why was I there?) which was apparently weekly and I just found myself really disturbed by it. I looked back a few articles and figured out the process of opinion the editor used. While I was fine with it, I didn't like how optimal it was at a present time at all. It did not really produce much of a realist message more than it was the same thing that draws the right interest.

So it had me thinking: let's give it a try - if not the full 50, probably the top 10-15 and bottom 5. The way I've been up and down on a power ranking should feel is basically something off of recent performance (stretching a bit back to spring split currently) up to the present. Little on stats. No looking into the future at a match up that may not happen. No on paper based "A beats B because they're in the same league as C therefore A is C" which is pretty false in its own right. None of that. I'd rather be honest than unfairly overrate everything that has attention.

A few opinions of mine per region:

There's only 3 - probably 4 at the most - Korean teams in my own current top 10. SKT and SSG absolutely. There's just no denying that and I'd be on something to not have them anything other than #1 and #2. But where #3 falls, I'm refusing to definitively say anyone else. JAG may be on an upswing but like LZ and AFS have this really shady record of never looking consistent enough to be a real deal despite their talent pool. KT has punished themselves enough and until they give me a week or more of actual results (or just beat JAG convincingly), I'm not willing to give them a solid spot either. (Considered teams: SKT, SSG, KT, "LZ")
Even with G2's shaky start, Europe likely produces 3 top 10 contenders, 2 if I'm willing to be a little strict on G2 themselves until they really kick up their play as I know they can. It's just as simple as that. I've been liking the top side of this league. (Considered teams: FNC, UOL, "G2")
Being real, no NA team deserves a top 10 for now. Even if last week had some kind of blowout performance by say...CLG or IMT, that still wouldn't be enough to merit me some validation to give them a #9 or #10 spot. I will say the closest, despite their series loss, is CLG whom somehow continue to be prominent in casting fan induced heart attacks. (Probably top 15: CLG - everyone else get their act together)
China has only had one week of play being causally behind the curve. It's still enough to make something out of it given their MSI run or more loosely the recent Demacia Cup. Currently we have Team WE and OMG leading both groups. We also have RNG and EDG both seeing better days; more to be said for RNG's Demacia Cup win. I'm willing to forgive that a bit over EDG. All together... (Considered teams: WE, "RNG") OMG is almost there to me. I really want to see what Week 2 does to the standings however.
The LMS is super awkward right now. One thing that can be said at the very least: Raise Gaming is a real deal and Rift Rivals is going to be just as interesting for this region. Okay that's two things. It's unfortunate of the things that are now plaguing FW. With their two losses to Raise and Wayi Spider of all teams and possibly no near sign of recuperation, they are definitely out of my top 10, probably top 20 at this point. But on the bright side, there's still a 3 leg race going on but only 2 teams I'm considering. (Considered teams: RG, "JT")

Total Considered Teams: 11

So now come the hard part. What's my top 10 at the moment?

SKT - No way they go down unless they struggle for more than a week while SSG keeps going strong.
SSG - They go up for SKT's downfall. They go down for a rather chaotic breakdown of play, but likely not out of top 10 any time soon.
KT - As much as I don't like it, they did bounce back from their first week. And every other team I had consideration in had to climb from somewhere. And with G2's start, they kind of lost out on the #3 spot in my eyes...
FNC - And the #4 spot at that. Currently whatever is happening in the FNC camp is giving them probably this praise they shouldn't have just yet. But the more teams continue to let some of their comps run free without caution, the more this will continue to look out of place.
WE - Even though they came out of Demacia Cup with an early bow in the quarterfinals, they came into the LPL split taking their first week with ease. They could have wound up in a worse situation.
RG - 4 series victories and a 8-1 game record. If they were undefeated, then this would be an absolute top 5 from what I've watched of them so far. My question is can they live up to the challenge.
UOL - Hesitant to call them a top 10 team because of their reputation alone. But they have something that even some top and mid tier teams elsewhere don't have themselves: a sense of direct identity and team synergy in team play.
G2 - I'm not sure what to look at more: their first week showing that subs can also do well not on SKT or their second week where their actual roster pulled NIP out of my consideration for bottom 10 teams. I'm sure they'll pull themselves back up.
LZ - While they had an amazing first week, they went right back down to normality with their second week. It's almost simply because it's the beginning of the split and not everyone is too in tune yet. It's almost as if I'm waiting for them to fall back into the mediocrity of 7th place again.
JT - A team that's normally on the outside looking in (and are kind of lucky because I'm not the kind of person that is fine stacking the top 10 with a few inconsistent Korean teams).

11 thru 15 (No order): OMG, RNG, AFS, CLG, H2K (JAG in 16-20, blame spring split)

Bottom 5 (No order): Snake, P1, HKA, MM, and VIT (TL escaped...still down there in 40-50 though)

I'd like to know opinions whether it be on mine, power rankings in general (records, stats, duration), over/underrated teams, etc. I'm like half prepared for some criticism.

7 Comments

III BAKURYU III Jun 13, 20172 votes

Gotta see more from Raise Gaming before I call them top 10 for me personally. They've beaten teams that an average league viewer could tell would have beaten, impressive the 8-1 record but the teams are not impressive what's so ever. Machi 0-3 Fireball 0-2 Hongkong 0-3 and Flash Wolves 0-2 Wasn't Machi a LMS Playoff team last split? Fireball Will most likely be that last or near to last team in the standings for a decent amount of splits in my mind, HongKong same thing similar to like TPA where they're just not good whats' so ever, Flash Wolves coming back from MSI in which every team that was apart of MSI had slow starts.
Raise Gaming may be a great team but top 10(?) IDK but I do like the roster on the team and possibly be a Worlds team, never know.

Great list and love the effort that you put into this list, keep it up dude!

GeminiRuneJun 13, 20172 votes

Much appreciated feedback. I personally found the most difficulty with Raise, UOL, and G2. I'm probably overrating Raise from my own observation but at least it gives me reason to watch them closely not only as top of the table but not a Rift Rivals rep. I honestly did expect more out of at least HKA and FW (despite their subs) though.

Speaking of which for RR, M17 was indeed a playoff team last split - that split's 4th place dark horse. If NA has it heavy with the way TSM and P1 have looked specifically (I would say all 3 but man), I can only feel for LMS in tighter competition. Heck every major region probably barring Europe has some kind of baggage on their representatives. Depends once again on how severe one will burden G2.

III BAKURYU III Jun 13, 20171 votes

UOL Now I know UOL gave G2 a run for their money in the Finals and even tho they lost UOL still looked good. However looking at UOL right now I can't stop but think the same team that were very similar to themselves last year, #1 shortest games, #1-2 in towers taken, barons, towers, towers lost etc etc UOL were a top #1-2 team and same thing here but then last split UOL faced the either #1-2 team in objectives G2 Esports.
One of the two were either the best or second best in objectives with the exception of The Unicorns were the shortest game length team at around 31 mins and G2 were the longest at around 39 mins. G2 destroyed Unicorns during their first meeting in the regular split. Overall I think the Unicorns are a great team - top 10 IDK maybe they are but whenever it's the big games they always seem to just lose, they beat all of the other teams but can't ever win when it means the most. However, like I said that's not a reason to say they're not top 10 but like I said before IDK personally about them.

G2 The thing that makes me scratch my head is what makes a top 10, Standings ? Surly a 9-7 team for example may well deserve to be top 10 if they have a winning record but could maybe just be in a tough conference, division etc, kills, really good objective focus ? What ? I look at G2 and they're good at really all things record, objectives, kills-death ratio, etc with 1 exception that always makes me think to myself how or why they're not better as a team at it and that's teamfighting. For some reason G2 sucks at teamfighting, look at Sven and Mithy when they were on OG - That team didn't teamfight, sure they won 1-2 of them maybe with as much talent as they had but OG with Zven and Mithy they were more of a objective team(dragons/towers) even with Sven and Mithy on G2 they would have Expect splitpush 24/7 we've seen this at 2016 MSI, 2016 Summer Playoffs, 2016 Worlds, and a little bit in 2017.
They would lose in most if not all teamfights for some reason, we've seen it against all of the teams at MSI 2016, vs Rox with Kennen, CLG at Worlds 2016 etc - I bring up 2016 because it was the same roster for the most part with the exception of 2016 MSI.

I'm not disagreeing your list or anything saying X team shouldn't be top 10 etc etc but I too have a hard time with UOL/G2/Raise as top 10 teams. Especially G2's history of beating their region teams and looking bad on the International stage very similar to say TSM from NA who always wins their region but looks bad on the International stage, EDG from LPL who's always being hyped as the runner up at Worlds only to barely make it out of Groups and be eliminated in the first round 3 years in a row, and G2 from EU are all in the same boat as teams that wins only their region, get hyped and get destroyed if it's not against their own region teams.

( I know NA's history so when I say NA get's no respect I know it's history of being super over-hyped) but............ I feel like most people see last splits teams 2nd/3rd/4th with a combined record of 3-9 and say " NA sucks" and that just annoys me somewhat. If a team destroys all of their opponents in their region for a full year/split does that mean they're really good or their competition just sucks ? No NA team deserves to be in the top 10 but overall NA has in my opinion the 2nd toughest region. Some of the most garbage NA teams are still really good but people just don't see a 18-0 team and say " LOL they all suck" but don't see how close each team are. Just a rant for me

You know when you look at logos and be like " wow that team logo looks cool they're probably good" if it's a cool looking logo ? Well I look at teams like Hong Kong attitude, Fireball and Wayi SPider and they're logos suck and most times they do come in near to last in the standings.
I look at Raise Gaming and well I see the Washington Capitals in both Logo( or the FW logo too) and in the team, I think they will make it to Playoffs but just be eliminated whenever it's time for their 1st series and be done.

Miror BJun 13, 20172 votes

While JAG probably shouldn't be in the "top 10", they do deserve an honorable mention for vastly improving compared to other splits. Games are being closed by them in under 30mins (compared to their average game time of like 45 in previous ones), and I'm under the assumption that they could contend with KT for that final worlds spot if they keep it up.

Would also reccomend waiting until the end of week 4 before making any assumptions on fnatic. Although they beat G2/Misfits, the former came off of a week in which I'm pretty sure the team got very little practice (with perkz coming back from medical stuff and expect/trick coming back from vacation) while the latter looks to be a mid-tier EU team. H2K will be their first real challenge of sorts, which'll ultimately determine which of them will take that third seed at worlds.

GeminiRuneJun 13, 20171 votes

I'm with you on the JAG portion. With a split like what they had spring, they were lucky to have not been in my bottom 10 for the spring due to more teams honestly looking worse. But I can't just let them skip the line after the dumpster fire of a split they had.

As for FNC, with a night's rest I feel their placement was kind of cosmetic based on their winning. But while their strats go unpunished, it does give a bit of a blind eye at accurate assumption. I fell into that bait. What world would they be in if teams are smart enough to bar the Shen and more importantly Kennen consistently?

So yeah it is up to both of them them to really keep it up by week 4 or 5 whenever I decide to look back at this. Noting RNG as well from finding it hard to really pin them top 10 at the moment with Uzi out for the time being. Doing a ranking like that weekly is kind of poor in my opinion because the draw sample being a bit sketchy depending on matches (especially in EU, CN, and LMS) .

Virgin RayJun 13, 20171 votes

It's weird for me to say this, but SKT struggles by picking weird ass champions into lane. TSM also struggles from this as well, like the lucian mid really fucked up faker