The Best Boss Steals of the 2015 LCS Summer Split

When the enemy team has bullied you out of the Baron or Dragon Pit, and you're too far behind to contest, you've only got one option: hide behind the wall and plan your last-second heist.

Stealing a boss kill is hard enough when you have full vision, no interference, and all the tools of a jungler. But we saw so many incredible, exciting boss steals from players working with far less this Split. Let's take a look at the best ones.

Steal It Like a Metronome

It takes remarkable game knowledge, timing, and skill to steal a boss without Smite. You have to calculate exactly when the enemy team will be trying to finish it off, what amount of health will be left if the enemy jungler Smites too early, and how long your projectile will take to travel there.

We saw our first perfectly calculated steal from a non-jungler in Week 1, when Team Dignitas' top laner Yeong-jin "Gamsu" Noh tossed a timely boomerang through terrain to sneakily nick the last bit of health off the game's first Dragon.

Not to be outdone, Origen's mid laner Enrique "xPeke" Cedeño Martínez upstaged three players with Smite on their hotbar and a Kalista's Rend when he stole Dragon from Fnatic in Week 4!

But in the playoffs, when it mattered most, Team Liquid's mid laner Jae-hun "FeniX" Kim stole Baron from the resurging Team Impulse. That single steal shut down Team Impulse's comeback attempt and gave TL the extra power they needed to turn the next team fight into their ticket to 3rd place.

Bargain Shoppers

Sometimes you don't so much steal the boss, as much as you barter for it -- giving up one thing to take another.

Throughout the Split, teams unintentionally paid way too much in lives, towers, and cooldowns to knick a boss kill from the enemy team. But, every now and then, we saw a player get a tremendously good deal on picking up a boss steal for cheap.

Like when the Unicorns of Love's mid laner Tristan "PowerOfEvil" Schrage grabbed his team Baron for the measly price of one laser and a cow in the Quarterfinals.

Team8's jungler Braeden "Porpoise" Schwark and Team SoloMid's jungler Lucas "Santorin" Tao Kilmer Larsen bought a two-for-one special. They both managed to steal Baron from an entire enemy team with just their Flash and Smite combo. No deaths, no Ultimates, no fuss.

Game-Winning Steals

You're always happy to steal Baron or Dragon for your team, but every now and then that steal happens at such an important moment in the game that it makes the difference between defeat and victory.

Like in the Copenhagen Wolves' Week 9 match against ROCCAT, which they needed to win to keep any chance of avoiding automatic relegation. After a long and careful 40 minutes, ROCCAT prepped for their own game-ending push by starting Baron.

But the Wolves' jungler Ilyas "Shook" Hartsema saved the day with a last-second Smite steal that set up his teammate Lenny "Lenny" Uytterhoeven for one of the most impactful Teleport backdoor plays of the Split.

After an amazing start to their Week 7 matchup against H2K, things started to look bad for ROCCAT in the late game. They hadn't capitalized on their kill or gold lead, and H2K was crawling back up with four Dragon kills.

When H2K (who gave up the most boss steals this Split) went to take their 5th Dragon, ROCCAT's jungler Marcin "Jankos" Jankowski sniped it away. ROCCAT would've certainly lost that follow-up fight if H2K had the massive Dragon buff on them, and would've likely lost the entire match right then. Instead, ROCCAT stole Dragon, started Baron while H2K was still respawning, and won the match off of it.

The Blind Shots

The best Baron steals are the ones that no one sees coming -- not even the person stealing it. I'm talking about those mind-blowing blind steals. Baron steals so good that players didn't even need to see Baron in order to snipe it away from the other team.

The first brain-busting blind steal came in Week 7, when Team Liquid's ADC Gwang-jin "Piglet" Chae counted in his head for several seconds before lobbing a Corki bomb into the Pit. He said afterwards that he had seen the Baron's health for a brief moment earlier and knew how fast TSM would kill it.

Considering he couldn't see anything in the Pit, I would've been impressed if Piglet had guessed within one second of the actual instant Baron died. But Piglet predicted it down to the freakin' nano-second, using one lone rocket more effectively than four TSM members used all of their abilities combined.

TSM's AD carry Jason "WildTurtle" Tran didn't let Piglet get all the glory the next time their two teams faced off in the Semifinals. He stole Dragon and Baron back-to-back off of incredible blind Jinx Super Mega Death Rockets.

Those steals kept TSM in the game while they struggled in fights, and were key to them winning that first, pivotal game in the Best of 5 series that would send them to the Finals.

Go Forth and Steal

You've seen the pros do it. You've heard the shoutcasters rave about it. Now it's time for you to go out there and steal some Baron and Dragon kills of your own.

Good luck! And remember the key rule of boss steals: when in doubt, fire large explosives blindly.

Josh Augustine's favorite Baron-stealing champion is Jinx, he's never enjoyed a Darius, and he will always go for the kill, even when he knows he shouldn't. He currently works as a game designer on EverQuest Next at Daybreak Games. He’d love to talk with you on Twitter.