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LCS 10 – Top 5 | Best LCS Bot Laners
Who made the cut?
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 Bot Laners!
**5 – Stixxay**
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Emily's Take: Of all bot laners on this list, Trevor "Stixxay" Hayes is the only active player still in his original position, returning to the LCS stage after spending time on Golden Guardians academy as both a bot laner and a coach. When Stixxay first burst onto the scene in 2016, his appointment as the new Counter Logic Gaming bot laner was heavily-doubted both by CLG fans and the LCS community. Doublelift's shoes seemed impossible to fill since he had been, at that time, CLG's star and had just won his first-ever title with the team in 2015 Summer, ending what had been a career-long drought. However, in his rookie year, Stixxay not only had success with CLG, but ended up beating TSM and Doublelift at Mandalay Bay in 2016 Spring. Stixxay and CLG would go on to make the finals of the 2016 Mid-Season Invitational in what is still widely-regarded as the LCS' best showing at an international tournament, proving the initial doubters wrong.
**4 – Zven**
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Emily's Take: Jesper "Zven" Svenningsen is one of two AD carries on this list still active in the LCS. However, he's not playing AD carry. He role swapped to the support position after spending this past spring on Cloud9's academy team, allowing the team to keep Berserker in the bot lane. When asked about why he swapped, he admitted that it wasn't because he necessarily wanted to play support but because it was how he could stay on the team and potentially compete for another title and a spot at the World Championship. This is the kind of player that Zven is: someone who is so driven by competition that he would rather roleswap if he thinks it would get him into a position that brings him closer to another Worlds appearance.
Zven has been a standout bot laner since his initial debut in the EU LCS on Origen as Niels and later became the first player to win both an EU and NA championship title.
**3 – WildTurtle**
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Emily's Take: It will be unsurprising to people that, since 2014, three of the top five LCS leaders in overall kills are bot laners and the two that are not (Bjergsen in first and Jensen in third) were both covered in the top mids section. What may be surprising is that the bot laner with the most kills of the three (WildTurtle, Doublelift, and Sneaky) is Jason "WildTurtle" Tran at second overall with 1,993 kills, eclipsing both Doublelift and Sneaky in that time period. WildTurtle is often forgotten in comparison to these two due to having a more volatile career and volatile playstyle. I still remember headlines from pre-LCS tournaments saying "A WildTurtle appears!" describing his aggressive tendencies long before he was a household LCS name. Due to the erratic nature of his play, the myriad of teams he has been on, and his own affable personality, WildTurtle's overall strength as a bot laner is sometimes forgotten. When you go for big, aggressive plays and they don't work out, it's going to look worse than if you played it safe. If there's one thing that I always appreciated about WildTurtle's playstyle it's that he rarely played it safe.
**2 – Sneaky**
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Emily's Take: There are obvious things that come to mind when Zachary "Sneaky" Scuderi's name is mentioned. Part of what is the most beloved lineup in LCS history, 2013 Cloud9, Sneaky was the original North American AD carry narrative of being less of a laner and more of a teamfighter. This narrative has extended to more recent NA AD carries in the league like Danny, but with no other bot laner in the LCS was it as prevalent as it was with Sneaky, manifesting in the memetic "Sneaky in lane lul" posts in Reddit threads and Twitch chat. It's unfortunate because, while it's now a fond remark on Sneaky's career and impact, it also simultaneously overshadows said impact at times and, in particular, his oft-overlooked longevity. Sneaky was a part of the original C9 roster that took the LCS by storm, but he was also part of the 2018 C9 roster that unexpectedly made it to Worlds semifinals. He was still playing on C9 as of 2019 and qualified for a record seventh-consecutive Worlds appearance that same year. Although memes will always reign eternal, Sneaky deserves credit for how consistent he was from his first appearance in the LCS in 2013, to his last in 2019.
**1 – Doublelift**
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Emily's Take: For so many of these short paragraphs celebrating players' presence and success in the LCS over the past ten years, it's been difficult to distill a career into 200-400 words. How does one even begin to do that when so many LCS players have such storied and interesting histories. With no other player is it as difficult as it is with Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng. His career, in many ways and through its many dramatic twists and turns, for better or for worse, is synonymous with the LCS itself. The last time I wrote about Doublelift, it took just over 4,500 words and that was edited down from a count even more daunting to read than that. Listing his career accomplishments, both individual and team, would inevitably fill this space, but would also be boring and wouldn't tell even a fraction of the story. His influence both on and off the Rift on the LCS are immeasurable.
There are many anecdotes that have stuck with me since the last time I sat down with Doublelift and interviewed him in 2019 prior to Team Liquid's Worlds appearance that year, but this is probably the most interesting.
"I saw in some threads, 'Oh, he'll just retire eventually.' And it's like damn, you're that not-confident that another team, another AD carry, will be good? That you're just waiting for me to retire? That's pretty sad. That's pretty pathetic. I don't want to lose, but if I do lose, I want to lose fair and square, I got outplayed and I played my best and I wasn't good enough. I don't want the streak to end but I think four in a row is pretty greedy already."
**ICYMI check out previously announced Top 5s by Position: [Top Lane][1], [Jungle][2], [Support][3], [Mid Lane][4]**
[1]: https://lolesports.com/article/lcs-10-%E2%80%93-top-5--best-lcs-top-laners/blt0322b5136c14a535
[2]: https://lolesports.com/article/lcs-10-top-5-best-lcs-junglers/blt8f8dc081e8d785ef
[3]: https://lolesports.com/article/lcs-10-%E2%80%93-top-5--best-lcs-supports/blt45dcbd6dde1d365b
[4]: https://lolesports.com/article/lcs-10-%E2%80%93-top-5--best-lcs-mid-laners/blt7ae8d3eed5959a64
