See Who’s Surging In Our Spring Split Power Rankings

League of Legends Power Rankings

The 2017 North American LCS Spring Split has been one of the craziest splits we’ve seen. With an influx of foreign talent in the top lane, some crazy midseason trades, and dominating performances by rookie players, this split had it all.

The Spring Split Playoffs are now upon us, and how the top six teams fare will have a strong implication on the race to Worlds. Each team will acquire LCS Championship Points based on its finishing spot in the playoffs.

With the quarterfinals starting April 8, the semifinals continuing on April 15, and the finals culminating on April 23, it’s time for an end-of-season power rankings update.

1) Team SoloMid (Overall Record: 15-3)

TSM has held strong this entire split despite the key loss of one of their premier players, AD Carry Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng, who was replaced by former starting ADC Jason “Wildturtle” Tran from Immortals. They continue to show their expertise in pulling through late in the game and creating their winning formula.

The story of TSM this split has been lose the first game, barely win the second, and then dominate in Game Three to win the series. While they struggle in the early game at times, they’re able to work out their kinks mid game and pull themselves back up in the end.

Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg continues to be one of the best players in the world, displaying a confident laning phase, a willingness to assist other lanes, and maintaining a strong minion lead. His 5.8 KDA is the best among all North American players. He also has the second highest CS per minute among all players at 9.0.

Despite a renaissance of top laners this spring split in North America, Kevin “Hauntzer” Yarnell continues to rise above the rest. His 4.4 KDA, 149 kills, and 328 assists are the best among top laners. He’s also been contributing dynamically in team fights, posting a 68.1 percent KP all while holding the second highest CSPM among top laners at 8.5.

2) Cloud9 (Overall Record: 14-4)

Cloud9 has shown their dedication and collaboration as a team, melding really well together. A massive change to Cloud9’s roster has been rookie Juan “Contractz” Garcia, who was recently added to Cloud9 in place of William “Meteos” Hartman in the jungle. Contractz has made a huge impact on Cloud9 with his immaculate in-game communication and aggressive mindset.

One of the major successes for Cloud9 is their bottom lane, Zachary “Sneaky” Scuderi and Andy “Smoothie” Ta. Sneaky continues to be one of the premier ADC’s in North America, posting the second best KDA at 4.2 and the most DPM at 546. Smoothie is a confident support with a positive attitude that pairs really well with Sneaky. They’re so in sync that they know what the other is thinking, making it easy for them to work together.

Cloud9 dominated at the beginning of the split, immediately taking down opponents (including their first series against TSM). However, toward the end of the split they struggled. This is still a very strong team, with the expectations of reaching the finals once again.

3) Phoenix1 (Overall Record: 11-7)

Phoenix1 started this split with an overhauled roster, adding three new members. Former standout support player from Immortals, Adrian “Adrian” Ma, joined two additions from overseas, No “Arrow” Dong-hyeon from KT Rolster and “Ryu” from H2K.

Arrow has been a huge reason why Phoenix1 is currently in third place. He is statistically the best ADC with over 40 games played this split, posting a 5.3 KDA (more than one point higher than second place Johnny “Altec” Ru), a 70.7 percent KP, 589 DPM, all while providing 27.6 percent of his team’s damage.

This team struggled to find its identity early on, and it wasn’t until Rami “Inori” Charagh started to play more aggressively that things really began to click. Credit also has to be given to Meteos, who stepped in admirably for Inori when he had to leave for Vancouver due to family medical reasons. Combined, the two players have the highest Kill Participation among junglers (71 percent).

4) Counter Logic Gaming (Overall Record: 10-8)

Rumblings of worry spread through CLG fans early in the Spring Split, with the team limping to a 1-3 start. But since Week Three, CLG has completely turned things around. A 6-2 finish to the split, despite the loss of Trevor “Stixxay” Hayes for the last week, has this team getting hot at the right time.

It’s been a feast-or-famine year for Darshan “Darshan” Upadhyaha in the top lane, securing the second most kills (149) and assists (279) among top laners, but also leading the way with the most deaths (139). Part of that is his aggressive playstyle — he does have the best first blood percentage (36 percent) among top laners – but he’s also struggled at times in the laning phase. His CSPM has dropped significantly, all the way to 7.3 (the lowest among top laners).

CLG made zero changes to their roster this offseason, and that synergy helped stabilize the team as the split wore on. They jumped all the way from ninth place to secure the fourth best record this split (and a trip to the playoffs once again).

5) FlyQuest (Overall Record: 9-9)

FlyQuest may be the new team on the block in the LCS, but their players have been here many times before. With a team built around former Cloud9 members Hai “Hai” Du Lam, Daerek “Lemonnation” Hart, An “Balls” Le, Galen “Moon” Holgate, and Johnny “Altec” Ru, they dominated at the beginning of the split with one of the best starts of a newly promoted NA LCS team in tournament history.

FlyQuest is known for finishing games under the 30-minute mark extremely often, holding the fastest average game time in the NA LCS at 34.2 minutes. They’re very successful at grabbing early objectives before their opponents, ranking first among all NA teams in Barons, Rift Heralds, and dragons, while also securing the second most towers.

Hai is a great leader and is known for his amazing communication skills and aggressive shot-calling. While his laning phase isn’t the strongest, his DPM (601), 30 percent total team damage, and 23 percent FB rate are all top two among mid laners. Moon has also been a critical player in the jungle, posting the highest KDA (3.8) among junglers with over 40 games played. He’s cut down on his mistakes as well, exhibiting the second lowest deaths among junglers.

6) Dignitas (Overall Record: 9-9)

Team Dignitas came in with dark horse intentions this split, but we’re still unsure how good they really are. They had two predictable sweeps over the bottom tier teams, Team Liquid and Team Envy. However, against every other team they lost at least one series, including both to TSM and Cloud9 (the top two teams in NA).

There biggest clash was this past weekend against Immortals (more on them right after this), and Dignitas battled it out in one last series to see who would go to the playoffs. Game One was a 58-minute slugfest, with both teams combining for five Barons before Dignitas finally found the opening they needed to win.

Game Two started out much the same way, with Immortals out-maneuvering Dignitas early (an issue this team has had all split) to build another early lead. Despite having to defend Immortals’ siege for much of the mid game, Dignitas was once again able to battle back and find the team fight wins in the late game.

7) Immortals (Overall Record: 8-10)

Coming out on the losing end of their series with Dignitas and missing the playoffs, Immortals can now take some time to find their identity.

The roster was completely new coming into this split except for the return of Eugene “Pobelter” Park in the midlane. While Immortals did end up taking down the former first-place team Cloud9 in the middle of the split, their losses against the two bottom-barrel teams, Team Liquid and Team Envy, really brought them down.

Jungler Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnett was one of the bigger acquisitions this offseason for Immortals, and while he was crucial to getting Immortals early game leads, they can’t figure out how to maintain their aggressiveness. However, that wasn’t apparent in Game Two, as Immortals had a huge mid game lead (they were up 5-0 in towers) and still couldn’t win. Given a mid inhibitor, bottom inhibitor, and a Baron buff in the mid game, but still not closing out the game, it begs the question: Where is the shot-calling?

8) Echo Fox (Overall Record: 6-12)

This was supposed to be the split that Echo Fox finally put it all together and showed that Henrik “Froggen” Hansen could lead a contender. Despite upgrades in talent at certain positions, the same macro issues linger for this team. Maybe it’s poor coaching, or maybe it’s the lack of a true shot caller (Froggen, despite his laning prowess, is not the answer at shot-calling).

Jang “Looper” Hyeong-seok was a slight upgrade over kfo from last split, but there were apparent communication issues that really put a damper on his ability. After missing out on Dardoch, Matthew “Akaadian” Higginbotham was supposed to be the weak link on this team. However, he really performed solidly. There were some rookie issues and inconsistency, but Akaadian has most certainly earned his starting spot.

Where I really see issues with this team are in the bottom lane. It was a second straight split where Yuri “Keith” Jew underperformed. For a team in win-now mode, it looks like Keith is not quite ready for the big stage. He’s still young, but a split off playing for Echo Fox’s challenger squad could really benefit both player and team.

This is not all on him either. There were question marks surrounding Austin “Gate” Yu, his support player, before the split even started. Those concerns manifested, as Gate died a lot last split (158 times, second to only Matt “Matt” Elento in the support position). His early game was better, but this team needs a strong support player in the mid-to-late game that can also shot call.

9) Team Liquid (Overall Record: 5-13)

Oh, Team Liquid fans, how did we get here? This was a lesson in expectations versus reality. After grabbing arguably the best jungler from last split, Kim “Reignover” Ui-jin, TL looked like they were heading in the right direction. Chae “Piglet” Gwang-Jin was once again returning to reclaim his top ADC spot (spoiler alert: he didn’t). Matt “Matt” Elento showed promise as a rookie last year, and perhaps some consistency in the ADC spot would have him returning to glory (it didn’t).

TL made a gigantic blunder in the offseason by completely neglecting the mid lane position. The team brought in Greyson “Goldenglue” Gilmer, a perennial journeyman player, to be their starter. When the organization announced it was bringing in Austin “LiNk” Shin (who hadn’t played in a competitive game in over two years) to complete with GG, we knew mid lane was a very delicate position.

How much of a disaster was this split for TL? We had to endure the phenomenon known as Midlet. (That’s right, the mid position was such a disaster that Piglet became the starting mid laner). Doublelift was brought out of his one split retirement to actually try and save this franchise from relegation. Throw in a late split trade with Phoenix1 that sent Adrian over, and the disaster level was a clear 10/10. Despite all that scrambling, TL will have to fight for its LCS spot.

10) Team Envy (Overall Record: 3-15)

We felt Team Envy was going to be a weak team in our early season rankings, and it’s unfortunate there just wasn’t enough talent on this roster to be competitive. After a fast start to the 2016 Summer Split, they really struggled at the end of the year, and those same struggles continued into this split.

It was a struggle all split for Shin “Seraph” Woo-Yeong in the top lane, posting a 2.3 KDA (lowest among top laners) with 138 deaths (just one behind Darshan for most deaths). It wasn’t much better in the mid lane either, as Noh “Ninja” Geon-woo had the lowest KDA among mid laners (2.2) as well as the lowest DPM (472).

Not all was wrong with Envy though, as Apollo “Apollo” Price had a really solid year. His 8.9 CSPM and 22 percent FB rate were top for ADCs. Nam “Lira” Tae-yoo also was quite strong in the jungle, posting a 3.3 KDA and a 49 percent FB rate (tops among junglers). His 5.8 CSPM and 271 gold advantage at 10 minutes were tops among junglers as well.