As part of the LCS 10 celebration, our all-volunteer blue ribbon panel of experts voted on not only the Top 10 LCS players of all time, but also the Top 5 LCS players by position. We’ll be rolling them out over the next few weeks, so keep an eye on LCS social to get in on the debate.
To help us give context as to why these players made the cut out of hundreds who’ve played in the LCS over the last 10 seasons, we’ve enlisted the help of League of Legends esports giga-brain and esteemed broadcast analyst, Emily Rand.
(Note: All players were evaluated based on their play for LCS teams.)
Next up in the Top 5, the Best LCS Junglers!
**5 – Santorin**
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Emily's Take: League of Legends esports moves quickly — so quickly that splits seem like full years and events of previous years can seem like decades. The career of Lucas "Santorin" Larsen is particularly interesting in this framework. Given how long Santorin has been in the LCS ecosystem, it's now difficult to imagine him as anything but one of the LCS' best junglers. However, Santorin has had an up-and-down career — especially in the immediate years following TSM — that includes some time in the NA Academy system and a short stint on H2K Gaming before Caedrel role-swapped to jungle. It wasn't until his time on FlyQuest in 2020 where results reflected how much he had come into his own, establishing himself as one of the best junglers in the LCS before being picked up by Team Liquid for the 2021 season.
By his own account, Santorin is driven by a desire to give his team the best opportunity to win, and his own competitive nature. Although he won a title with TSM back in 2015, he's been on the hunt for his next one ever since, and desperately wants it as yet another piece of proof towards how much better he is now, and how far he's come as a player.
**4 – Meteos**
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Emily's Take: Returning to the idea of balancing legacy, longevity, and results, William "Meteos" Hartman's legacy in particular is interesting due to his impact on the jungle role itself. When Cloud9 initially qualified for the LCS back in 2013 Summer and won the title in their first split, Meteos not only was at a record-setting 12.7 KDA, but his farm-heavy carry style affected the way that junglers worldwide saw the jungle position. Every single member of that initial Cloud9 team is fondly remembered by the LCS community who was there during their rise, and Meteos is no exception as one of the primary carries on that team.
Often direct and self-critical, Meteos had a lot of career ups and downs towards the end of his time with the C9 organization and through his career resurgence on 100 Thieves' first-ever LCS roster that made it all the way to the LCS Spring Finals in 2018. His understanding of the game and perseverance through the years should be lauded. On a more personal note, as an interviewer, one thing I always appreciated about Meteos was his honesty and willingness to just chat about the game itself.
**3 – Svenskeren**
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Emily's Take: When Dennis "Svenskeren" Johnsen joined Team SoloMid for the 2016 LCS Spring split, he was the third in a line of European junglers (Amazing, Santorin) who had joined TSM over the years.
He would go on to also be one of the team's most successful additions, staying with TSM through the organization's most lauded roster iterations in their lengthy LCS history. Although his tenure began with a narrow loss in 2016 spring to Counter Logic Gaming, Svenskeren and TSM razed through 2016 Summer, 2017 Spring, and 2017 Summer with a 46-8 regular season record for all three splits combined. Svenskeren then went on to C9 where, despite some roster volatility, he heavily-contributed to the team's success that included a Worlds semifinals appearance.
During his C9 tenure, which included splitting time with the aforementioned Blaber, Svenskeren established himself as a premier LCS jungler. He currently holds the highest amount of kills of any LCS jungler at 936 and the second-highest amount of assists of any LCS jungler at 2,595.
**2 – Blaber**
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Emily's Take: There's a reason why the LCS community looks back at the 2017 Scouting Grounds draft as one of the premier classes of the now-defunct event. Before a single game was played, Robert "blaberfish2" Huang was one of the prospects that coaches and analysts were most excited for. He was picked onto Team Ocean Drake alongside Vulcan and, interestingly enough, current Cloud9 coach Max Waldo. At the end of the event he was drafted by Cloud9 and by the end of the 2018 season was part of a roster experiment of swapping mid/jungles with Jensen, Goldenglue, and another jungler on this list, Svenskeren. Blaber wouldn't get his chance to be the definitive starting jungler for C9 until 2020, but throughout his time with the team in 2018-19 that included two Worlds appearances, had flashes of brilliance that foreshadowed how good of a jungler he would be in the future, through MVP splits in 2020 Spring and 2021 Spring helping lead C9 to two LCS titles.
Where Xmithie is characterized by carefully tracking his opponents and responding to them, Blaber is characterized by his proactivity and willingness to make plays. It's also why he'll draw community criticism more frequently than some of his other NA jungle counterparts. As multiple past and current teammates have said, it's this sense that makes him so good and his teams so explosive.
**1 – Xmithie**
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Emily's Take: Wading through myriad names to reach any semblance of consensus on a top anything is difficult. It requires weighing legacy against longevity against results. Xmithie has all three of these in his favor.
And in the pantheon of LCS junglers, Jake "Xmithie" Puchero is uniquely unassuming. It's not that he didn't have individually-brilliant moments but that the entirety of his career was characterized by his stability. In speaking to his former coaches, analysts, and teammates through the years, the most common sentiment was how it almost wasn't until after a certain performance, title, or Worlds appearance that people would realize how it had been Xmithie helping carry them a majority of the way. By facilitating his oft-flashier teammates, Xmithie's strengths were showcased by their plays, drawing attention away from him while earning him the community nickname of "NA Bengi" because of his jungle style and ability to track opponents.
In talking to Xmithie himself over the years, the most impressive thing is how easily he shrugs off criticism, both long-term over splits or in immediate post-game analysis of his individual mistakes. His attitude of shrugging things off due to his wealth of experience is likely one of the reasons he was so good for so long in a pro career that extends from 2012-2020, defying meta shifts that often hit junglers harder than any other position.
**ICYMI check out previously announced Top 5s by Position: [Top Lane][1]**
[1]: https://lolesports.com/article/lcs-10-%E2%80%93-top-5--best-lcs-top-laners/blt0322b5136c14a535
