After what seems like an eternity due to the cancellation of MSI, professional league is back. The 2020 LCS Summer Split begins tomorrow, June 13th. Whether it be professional sports, esports, or random everyday happenings, I love making predictions. I get so much satisfaction not from making accurate forecasts on the landscape of a sports season (“e” or otherwise), but from speculation and analysis of that season. While I can’t deny that I enjoy making an accurate prediction, the far more interesting aspect is to see how predictions compare to reality as it plays out, in what ways they differ, and why.
Speculating at the beginning of a season what will go wrong or right for a sports team is nearly impossible. However, by making these hypotheses, we know where to look in a season to understand why things played out the way they did. This exercise provides focus as to what a team or player’s strengths are and if they are being utilized correctly. So, when a team’s performance inevitably differs from what we predicted, we can ask why in a more productive and analytical way. As I stated before though, the speculation is half the fun. So, if for no other reason than to provide a baseline for conversation, here are my predictions for the standings of the 2020 LCS Summer Split.
Take a moment to mentally criticize these rankings and leave me a comment to tell why they are incorrect. All good? Okay, let’s talk about what led me to this order. At the beginning, middle, and end (before playoffs) of the spring split this year, I ranked each NA player by role.
At the beginning of the season, the ranking was fueled purely by my personal biases of players and what I remembered of their 2019 performance. For the mid and end split rankings however, I compared the players of each role one by one gauntlet style based solely on the stats (such as gold share, damage share, dpm, csd and gd @15, etc.) Then, I did some minor rearranging after doing a quick gut check of what the stats told me. So, to rank the teams this split, I began with the end of split (again, before playoffs) rankings.
(The numbers in the “ranking” section are the sum of the rank of each player on the team in their position. Thus, lower numbers represent better teams)
Now, I could spend some time making arguments as to why I believe these rankings are the way they are, but let’s discuss the rankings (based on my own biases and these end of split rankings) of players going into summer.
Note, only players listed as the day 1 starters for each team are ranked here. Several teams have stated that they plan to rotate in other players and experiment as the split goes on (Looking at you, IMT). Rest assured, we will rank every player that participates in the summer split, starting at our mid season update.
Let’s explore some of the steamier takes of this ranking. Top lane is pretty straightforward. Unless you’re a Riven main, I don’t expect too much disagreement here. So let’s start with jungle, the role I had the most difficulty ranking. The two most controversial rankings here are for Meteos and Closer for being too high or too low respectively. To be honest, I didn’t watch all the games for either of the two teams these junglers represent, so these placements are mostly stat driven. It must be noted however that these two players’ stats are likely heavily influenced by their team’s overall placement in the spring split. Closer especially falls victim to the fact that he was probably his teams second best, if not best player. Since GG finished where they did though (6th), Closer’s stats will look worse. I honestly believe that every player ranked above him, is just a stronger player on their team (yes, even Wiggily, who actually had a decent spring all things considered). As noted, jungle was the hardest role to rank and so this role especially could be heavily shuffled come mid split.
Speaking of mid, let me draw your attention to the mid rankings and specifically one solo mid player, Bjergsen, who is ranked 6th on my list. TSM fans will be the first to tell you how Bjergsen is the best mid NA and the first to forget that that hasn’t been true since 2017. Don’t get me wrong, Bjergsen is an incredible player and the undisputed face of TSM. His current form though is a far cry from the 3 time MVP he once was. In the splits since TSM’s salad days, Bjergsen has taken a backseat on TSM. He is all too happy to take fewer resources and play utility champions. While I think he is still capable of playing carries, TSM has made it clear this isn’t what they want his job to be. Bjergsen has been self-effacing for so long that he has almost faded to the background of an admittedly strong pool of mid laners in NA. As for the rest of the players outside the top 5 in this role, you could order Damonte, Pobelter, and Ryoma any way you like. These players in their current state are so close in skill in my mind and seeing how they perform and separate will be one of the most interesting developments this split.
The two most interesting nuggets for ADC both involve Team Liquid; Doublelift and Tactical. Let me start off by saying that I’m as big a fan of Doublelift as anyone. However, we can all admit that one, his lack of motivation and poor performance of the last split cant be overlooked, and two, Zven has clearly earned the title of best ADC NA for the time being. I wouldn’t be surprised if he surpassed Bang this split, but putting him 3rd right now seems like a fair compromise considering his reputation and his off split this spring. As for Tactical, I loved what I saw of him in spring, but there is hardly enough data on him to draw conclusions. His floor seems to be about current WildTurtle, and his ceiling is somewhere in top 5, so I placed him accordingly. He is definitely a player to watch and I expect him to breach top 5 by mid split without much incident. One last thing, I can hear you FBI nonbelievers from here. Go check his stats, he is a lot better than you think he is.
Similarly to top lane, I don’t have much to say about support other than I expect CoreJJ to bounce back this split.
Alrighty, so, once I tallied up each team’s score based on the players, I had a split to predict (I have a bet with a friend based on the end of split rankings. The payoff is baked goods, so I take this very seriously.) So lets compare the final tallies to my eventual power rankings.
Rearranging the teams at this point is based on two things, how the team works together holistically, and common sense (read: my opinion). As you can see, the top 4 teams are power ranked the same as their collective player rankings indicate. In fact, the only teams I switched here were Evil Geniuses and 100 Thieves. I still am of the belief that EG may even be deserving of the fourth place slot over TSM. I made the decision regarding those teams based on potential. TSM’s ceiling is incredible, but they have two “new” players this split and TSM is a disaster of an org, so I’m hedging my bets. I would rank EG higher, but their plan to try out lineups with the Huni and Deftly package over Kumo and Bang has me nervous. In any case, it will likely take them a few weeks to determine which combination is better, and that process will cause some bumps for what is already a somewhat swingy team.
Otherwise, I still fully expect Cloud 9 to be dominant this split (though not necessarily as dominant as spring) and be the 1 seed representing NA at Worlds. I am very excited to see if and how Team Liquid bounce back with Tactical plying his trade at ADC. Will POE be able to elevate his team to the heights they achieved last split with the help of Solo? Will 100 Thieves put the pieces together and silence the Ryoma naysayers? Will Immortals win a single game? All will be revealed in the coming weeks. Happy summer my friends. Till mid-split!
P.S. I also watch a lot of LEC, but I know far less about the inner working of their teams. Nonetheless, if you’re interested, here are my predictions for the LEC summer split.
