LCS 10 – Top 5 | Best LCS Top 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.)
First up in the Top 5, the Best LCS Top Laners!
**5 – IT’S A TIE!**
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**T-5 – Balls**
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Emily’s Take: When thinking back on the 2013 Cloud9 roster, still one of the most beloved North American League of Legends rosters in history, An "Balls" Le is sometimes forgotten against the in-game creativity and leadership of Hai, the fact that Meteos changed the way players around the world looked at the jungle role, Sneaky's phenomenal teamfighting, and LemonNation's draft planning at a time when LCS teams had no idea what a coach was. In this way, Balls is a quintessential top laner, figuratively in the community estimation and sometimes literally in-game on an island compared to the rest of his team. Balls should be remembered not only for being part of what would become a legacy LCS organization's initial foray into the league, but his versatility, teamfighting, becoming the first top laner ever to get a pentakill at Worlds, and of course, his Rumble.
**T-5 – Darshan**
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Emily’s Take: I find myself often quoting the "even my teachers call me Zionspartan" meme sometimes, and then think about how many people even remember the proto-LCS days, the days when players on this list like Dyrus, Balls, and Darshan "Darshan" Upadhyaya were not only LCS players but were peerless domestically. Darshan in particular is remembered for his time on Counter Logic Gaming, but his LCS career began two years prior on Good Game University in 2013, a sixth place team that spring that made an unlikely run to the finals and took TSM to all five games before losing. When talking to other LCS players who have played with Darshan or have learned alongside him during his time in Academy, they always praise his attitude towards the game and his game knowledge. Through his understanding of split-push pressure and cross-mapping, Darshan was a key component of one of the LCS' most exciting teams internationally, 2016 CLG.
**4 – Dyrus**
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Emily’s Take: Marcus "Dyrus" Hill was the first best top laner in LCS history. After joining TSM (then Team SoloMid) from Epik Gamer and Chicks Dig Elo in mid-2012, TSM became one of the best teams in North America. There's an argument that TSM wouldn't have become TSM without Dyrus and his weak side play, which first became a meme and is now all the more impressive in retrospect given how few resources he received. Recently in LCS history, fans have spoken about the departure of Bjergsen from TSM as the point in TSM history where the team became something different than what they were used to, something else entirely. For me personally, that was Dyrus' retirement from the team in 2015. It was the end of an era.
**3 – Hauntzer**
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Emily’s Take: As the initial crop of North American top laners (not-so-coincidentally, some of whom are featured on this list like Dyrus and Balls) began to comparatively fall off or retire from the game entirely, Kevin "Hauntzer" Yarnell was the rising star slated to take their place in LCS history. Coming up through Team LolPro and later Curse Academy-turned-Gravity Gaming, Hauntzer is best known for his time on TSM in 2016 through 2018. He was with the team for arguably their most dominant run from 2016 Summer to 2017 Summer and despite disappointing international performances for TSM, became a household LCS name. Hauntzer forced TSM's opponents into sending more pressure topside and not only absorbed it most of the time, but managed to turn would-be dives in his favor.
**2 – Ssumday**
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Emily’s Take: When Kim "Ssumday" Chan-ho burst onto the scene in Champions Korea prior to coming to the LCS in 2017, the narrative around him was the opposite of someone like Impact: Ssumday was a carry player. If you gave him just one gank, a single point of advantage in his early laning phase, he would take over an entire game. He was volatile but all the more impressive for that explosiveness, as were the KT Rolster Arrows and later just KT Rolster. That's why it's so interesting to compare this prior narrative to what you hear when you talk to his teammates now, all of whom praise his cool head under pressure and just how dependable he can be. When 100 Thieves were looking shaky mid-split just this past spring, it was Ssumday (and his strong Tryndamere performances) that they cited as a rock for the team, someone they could rely on to be steady and strong.
**1 – Impact**
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Emily’s Take: If you asked long-time LCS fans, "Who is the best top laner in the history of the LCS?" most will immediately list Jeong "Impact" Eon-young in their top two. However, the narrative around Impact throughout the years has been interesting and in its own way, despite being a complimentary narrative, undersells his (mind the pun) impact on the league. Impact is steady. Impact is solid. Impact is reliable. Impact is impossible to tilt with unshakeable mental fortitude. Nearly everything said about Impact goes back to his dependability. Never mind that his phenomenal carry performances in the NA qualifiers begat the "top die" meme. Never mind that he has the second-most solo kills of any LCS player in history (to Bjergsen in first) and the most of any player in history at 15 minutes. Since arriving to the LCS in 2015, Impact has been the best in his role in the LCS more often than not, and both the statistics and the eye test back this up.
