Worlds Top 20: Honorable Mentions

To introduce the 2016 Worlds Top 20 list, we're showcasing some of the players who barely missed the cut. These players are our Honorable Mentions.

In addition to releasing our 2016 Top 20 players list for Worlds, we wanted to take some time to explain the methodology behind our madness. While some players are on every analyst’s list -- the Fakers and Smebs of the world, for example -- some are not.

That's why we wanted to start things off this year by highlighting some of the players who didn’t make our Top 20 list. These are players who might have excelled in their region, or in the past, but for one reason or another, they didn’t crack our cumulative rankings.

This year, we limited the rankings to the opinions of Deficio, Spawn, and myself. The resulting Top 20 is an aggregate of our personal rankings. And each ranking was devised while valuing different criteria, if only slightly.

• Deficio: Focused on current performance and tried to assess how that might translate onto the Worlds stage by factoring in considerations such as prior international history (of player and region).
• Spawn: Tried to look at the entire year, but placed a slightly higher value on the Playoffs.
• Jatt: Asked myself, “Who would I rather have on my team?” and answered the question based on reputation and current performance.

While those were the key factors that drove their decisions, a host of other considerations were made. And sometimes it varied from player to player. We acknowledge that all of this matters: performance, reputation, and history. But without a tried and true method to nail who’s better and who’s worse, it’s difficult to create a definitive list. And it’s the same reason teams still play the game. Things are always bound to shift on the Rift. And that’s the fun of it for us.

The first half of our list will be released tomorrow, September 24, and the rest of it will follow on September 26.

We’re looking forward to seeing where you rank your players, and we hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did. That's why we're also hosting a Facebook Live on September 26 on Lolesports' Facebook to go over the Top 20. See you there.