** 1. CLG, 4-1: Alphabetically the best**
- If you, like a growing number of reddit commenters, have recently awoken from a 7 year coma, seeing CLG in 1st place should come as no surprise. For the rest of us, this start is pretty shocking.
With that being said, their week 1 wins came against DIG, TSM, and GG, who at the end of that week had a combined record of 2-7. It’s going to be extremely interesting to watch them play against C9 and TL this weekend.
- But why is CLG winning? Dhokla has been good, and their schedule has been on the easier side, but it’s more than that. Their week 1 drafts were stellar and surprising; drafting from Red side 3 times they excelled at finding counterpicks while still assembling cohesive team compositions. They’re currently 4-0 on Red side, 0-1 on Blue.
- They’ve also expanded their coaching staff, with several positional coaches (Damonte, Apollo, and Brandini) who the players speak highly of.
- On top of that, they’ve just been able to win the close games. Their win against EG was perhaps the closest and most exciting game of Summer so far.
If CLG can win against C9 and TL this weekend, I may consider them as one of the best teams in the league (and not just alphabetically).
**2. Evil Geniuses, 4-1: Too young to be hungover**
There was an expectation before the split began that EG would suffer the “MSI hangover”. While a team competes at MSI, they end up falling behind in their read of the current patch, and then also have reduced practice time after taking a much- needed rest before Summer. The hangover had a history too. Since the inception of MSI, no NA team had better than a 50% win rate in their opening weekend of LCS. EG somehow managed to avoid the hangover. That’s not to say that they’ve demolished teams, but it’s definitely looked like their improvements during Spring Playoffs have been maintained moving into Summer Split. Danny is STILL leading the league in Kills (as he has now for the 3rd split running). Jojo continues to go for big plays in lane, and Inspired looks more and more comfortable the longer he’s with this EG squad. For a team that finished Spring 9-9, EG are looking more and more like the favorites to top the standings in Summer.
**3. Team Liquid, 4-1: CLG with a better rep (and worse name alphabetically)**
- If I'm going to downplay CLG for their strength of schedule and quality of wins, it’s only fair that I hold TL up to the same microscope. While posting an insane 44 kill, 6 death scoreline in their 3-0 Week 1 was impressive, following that up with a loss to TSM and a ‘near’ loss to FLY has definitely tempered my expectations. TL has played IMT, DIG, C9, TSM, and FLY so far. That’s 5 of the current bottom 6 teams in the LCS.
- I think in many ways the expectations Team Liquid has set for themselves (of being the very best team in the LCS) make me overlook their strength of schedule at times. After all, if TL is the best team… then every game should be ‘easy’. It’s faulty logic, but their reputation as well as their 14-4 Spring Split finish still weigh in my mind.
- With that being said, TL must re-assert themselves as a top team after Week 2. Games vs. 100T and CLG will be a good indicator of their strength.
**4. 100 Thieves, 3-2: Nobody believes in us (them)**
- What does 100T have to do to get some damn respect around here? Sure, Abbedagge has the worst mid-laning stats of everyone in LCS (-260 GD@10, -325XPD@10, -10 CSD@10). Sure, they have the 3rd worst early game in the league (-1041 GD@15). Sure, they lost to C9 because they over-forced a mid-game teamfight despite lacking the tools to engage well, costing them baron and 8k gold. But let’s not forget, this team was the 2021 LCS Summer Champs, and finished 2nd in 2022 LCS Spring. Based on their last year of results, they should be considered a top team (especially since they’ve kept the same 5 players + head coach throughout). So... Why does this team seem so lackluster?
- My completely hypothesized theory is that they need people to doubt them. Nobody believed they could upset TL in last year's Summer playoffs (then they 3-0’d them). They also had many doubters last split when they opened a lackluster 6-5. Basically, this team needs an extra kick of doubt in order to reach their peak form. As a 100T fan, (or coach.. Or player) I imagine these slow starts are quite frustrating... But weirdly, if you want 100T to contend for a title, keep calling them bad.
**5. Cloud9, 2-0… I mean 2-3**
- There was a distinct lack of C9 discussion on [this week's JLXP podcast][1], so much so that their owner Jack [tweeted me][2] about it. In retrospect… they deserved more discussion. C9 was the only team to go 2-0 in Week 2, with Blaber also receiving Player of the Week. The question has to be asked though – how much of their 0-3 Week 1 can be excused by their 2-0 Week 2? Doing some quick math – 2 divided by 3 = 66%. So yeah about 66% of it. (Don’t think about it— trust me it makes sense).
- Obviously there were big roster changes. Zven and Berserker arrived after having Green Card and Visa issues.
- C9’s win against DIG was actually quite shaky; Jensen had a hard time snowballing off his 2-0 start on LeBlanc and they won a close 34-minute game. C9’s game against 100T was more convincing though. Much like Week 1, Jensen locked in Yone, but unlike Week 1 he was able to consistently find space in teamfights and had a huge impact. Additionally, Berserker and Zven looked solid in lane, even if Zven’s transition into playing out the rest of the game looked quite passive. To be fair.. He only played Tahm Kench and Lulu in his Week 2 debut as a support.
[1]: https://youtu.be/_84NKA826vA
[2]: https://twitter.com/JackEtienne/status/1541653983671963648?s=20&t=-TH71HPOAw1IRQsKzYkIYQ
**6. FlyQuest, 2-3: Extremely average**
If a team was statistically allowed to have 2.5 wins and 2.5 losses I’d vote to change that to FlyQuest’s record. They were 9-9 in Spring Split, made a roster change for Summer (Phillip in, Kumo out) and have looked… remarkably like the same team. They’ve played some hard teams, facing CLG, EG, and TL, our 3 teams tied for first. With that being said they also handed IMT their only win of the split. It’s hard to be excited or disappointed in FlyQuest. The two high points have to be Johnsun’s impressive performances on Twitch (why is he seemingly the only one playing it??) and Toucouille’s impressive KDA (7.8). The low point has to be their inability to close out a victory in their game vs. Team Liquid, where they held the advantage for the majority of the game before forcing a Baron and handing over the lead. Or you know… Losing to Immortals.
**7. Golden Guardians, 2-3: Actually better than TSM**
In Spring, Golden Guardians was that team that could consistently jump out to an early gold lead, but then fail to close the game. This was usually due to them making really strong map plays in the mid-game and focusing on Heralds and Turrets. In Summer it’s actually been fairly similar, with them taking leads in the league in the “First 3 turrets” stat (which tracks how often a team kills the opponent’s outer 3 turrets before their own outer 3 turrets fall.) They’ve accomplished this in 4 out of 5 games, but only won 2 of them.
My eyes will continue to be on Olleh and AblazeOlive in the late game. Olleh is great at finding engages, but often overextends. Olive continues to be a strong mid laner in the early game, but needs to be a more consistent late-game team fighter.
**8. TSM, 2-3: Consistently inconsistent**
- TSM looked really good against Team Liquid. Tactical and Mia were able to get first blood vs. Hans Sama and CoreJJ, Maple was able to out-roam Bjergsen, Spica had a powerful early game as usual, and Huni went deathless while split-pushing with Gnar top. It was the most ‘complete’ game I’ve seen TSM play in 2022. The next day, TSM lost to Golden Guardians. Draft definitely had a big part to do with it (Golden Guardians’ team comp with Senna Mundo bot worked wonders) but it also included some familiar TSM failings. Tactical was overextending while Mia was elsewhere on the map, and Huni had a hard time in side lane (ending 1/5/2 on Gnar).
- If TSM can’t find consistency in their level of play, fans are in for a bumpy ride.
**9. Dignitas, 1-4: Summer of Sadness**
- Since rejoining the LCS in 2020 – Dignitas has ended Summer with a worse record than Spring. In 2020, they were 8-10 in Spring, 5-13 in Summer. In 2021, they were a surprising 11-7 in Spring, only to go 12-15 in Summer. This year, they finished Spring 8-10... And have opened Summer a dismal 1-4.
It’s hard to criticize Dignitas too much for trying to shake things up between splits (in each of the past 3 years they have had roster changes between Spring and Summer)
- What’s important to remember though, is that the expectations going into each YEAR for Dignitas were exceptionally low. Only after they over-perform in Spring, do they disappoint in Summer. Gamsu has been the most recent change for Dig (replacing FakeGod) and has looked largely the same in the fact that Dig sends no resources his way, and he is struggling. It will be interesting to see how Dignitas deal with their newfound expectations from Spring throughout the rest of Summer.
**10. Immortals Progressive, 1-4: Definitely the worst (for now)**
- I was a stark defender of IMT throughout almost all of Spring Split. “Definitely not the worst!” I would shout at the analyst desk as we were watching games. I felt like a team with PowerOfEvil and Xerxe just couldn’t end the split with the worst record in the league. After all... I’d watched PowerOfEvil carry team after team to middle or top of the pack finishes. It always looked to me like they were so close to turning a corner; just unable to close out wins and become an average team.
- Summer Split has been much worse. They were ‘perfect gamed’ by TL in week 1, failing to kill a champion or objective. I could excuse that performance based on TL’s reputation. Then in Week 2 they killed 0 champions, 0 turrets, and 1 measly dragon in their defeat vs. Dignitas.
- This isn’t to say they don’t have excuses. PowerOfEvil arrived in the United States 1 day before their first stage game. Their jungler Kenvi is still new to the LCS and hasn’t been able to build synergy with the team. Also, it’s only two weeks. No matter the excuses, their opening to Summer has been rough.
Also – if you’ve enjoyed the read and want even more thoughts, check out my 10 thoughts podcast over here: [https://youtu.be/WQNB53t7ECw][1]
[1]: https://youtu.be/WQNB53t7ECw
