One last regular season power ranking before we start the 2023 LCS Summer Playoffs.
LCS made a delayed return to action in Summer as the scheduled June 1 start for the league was postponed for two weeks due to the LCSPA walkout and the negotiations between players and Riot. But both parties eventually came to an agreement, so LCS kicked off on June 14 with six consecutive superweeks.
Coming into the last week of the 2023 LCS Summer regular season, 6 teams already lock themselves into the playoffs, with Cloud9 and Golden Guardians guaranteeing their Upper Bracket positions. Two more teams from Dignitas, 100 Thieves, FlyQuest and Immortals will join the other six, but with Fly and Immortals two wins behind the former two teams with only three games each remaining, there is not much room for surprises in Week 6.
Looking at the preseason expectations and how the current standings turned out, there were three teams that stood out this Summer. Both TSM and Evil Geniuses performed a lot better than expected. We ranked TSM 10th at the start of the season, and they are now currently fifth with a locked playoff spot. EG spent the majority of the split in top two, despite significant roster changes in the offseason. The one team that went the other direction is FlyQuest. In their second split they started as a title contender, FlyQuest completely imploded as they are now basically out of the playoffs.
10. Immortals (Last Week: 10th)
- Top lane: Colin “Solo” Earnest
- Jungle: Shane Kenneth “Kenvi” Espinoza
- Mid lane: Onur Can “Bolulu” Demirol
- AD Carry: Edward “Tactical” Ra
- Support: Erik “Treatz” Wessén
Preseason prediction: 9th
Not much to write home about Immortals during this split. Aside from Weeks 1 and 5, they did not show any signs of life during their games. The individuals weren’t up to far for the majority of the split with Kenvi and Solo performing like the worst players in their roles. The only positive this split for IMT this split was Tactical’s resurgence, which makes this bottom two finish a bigger tragedy.
9. FlyQuest (Last Week: 9th)
- Top lane: Jeong “Impact” Eon-young
- Jungle: Mingyi “Spica” Lu
- Mid lane: Lee “VicLa” Dae-kwang
- AD Carry: Lee “Prince” Chae-hwan
- Support: Philippe “Vulcan” Laflamme
Preseason prediction: 2nd
If FlyQuest cannot find a miracle this week and finish the season in the bottom two, this will be one of the biggest team failures in the history of the LCS, ahead of squads like 2018 TSM and 2022 Team Liquid. Even worse there are a lot of questions about the management of this team with head-scratching decisions between the support situation from last Spring and the Spirax-VicLa change last week.
8. 100 Thieves (Last Week: 8th)
- Top lane: Kim “Ssumday” Chan-ho
- Jungle: Can “Closer” Çelik
- Mid lane: Lim “Quid” Hyeon-seung
- AD Carry: Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng
- Support: Alan “Busio” Cwalina
Preseason prediction: 5th
Even though 100T’s situation isn’t as bad as FlyQuest’s since the expectations weren’t as high, the Thieves are still a big disappointment in this split. Their gameplay is uninspiring and boring, and they don’t inspire any confidence about their chances even if they qualify for the playoffs. One of the best junglers in the league just a couple of splits ago, Closer has been one of the worst-performing players in the league this year. With no other reliable carries in any other position on the team, even Doublelift hasn’t been as good as Spring, not sure what the ceiling is for 100 Thieves.
7. Dignitas (Last Week: 6th)
- Top lane: Lee “Rich” Jae-won
- Jungle: Lucas “Santorin” Tao Kilmer Larsen
- Mid lane: Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen
- AD Carry: Frank “Tomo” Lam
- Support: Philippe “Poome” Lavoie-Giguere
Preseason prediction: 8th
0-3 week brought Dignitas closer to earth a little bit, but they are still in a pretty decent position. There were a lot of unique Rich picks this week with Illaoi and Quinn making their returns, but these picks aren’t turning out as useful as Dignitas would love to. Considering most of the Dignitas’ success in this split came from their new top laner, maybe it’s time to take a break from this new playstyle since the rest of the team isn’t as comfortable playing with these champions.
6. NRG (Last Week: 7th)
- Top lane: Niship “Dhokla” Doshi
- Jungle: Juan Arturo “Contractz” Garcia
- Mid lane: Cristian “Palafox” Palafox
- AD Carry: Victor “FBI” Huang
- Support: Lee “IgNar” Dong-geun
Preseason prediction: 4th
NRG’s best split so far this split, and it’s not a surprise to see Dhokla with three good games in a row. Since the CLG days, this team has been reliant on their top side to consistently win games, and it doesn’t seem to change with the new bot lane. Their troubles this split were due to Big Dhokes and Contractz struggling a little bit, but they managed to deal with it throughout the split and now have two weeks to fix their issues before playoffs.
5. TSM (Last Week: 5th)
- Top lane: Kevin “Hauntzer” Yarnell
- Jungle: Lee “Bugi” Seong-yeop
- Mid lane: David “Insanity” Challe
- AD Carry: Jason “WildTurtle” Tran
- Support: Jonathan “Chime” Pomponio
Preseason prediction: 10th
Not sure when was the last time we saw a NA player carry his team to such a degree, especially a mid laner, but Insanity has been the difference maker for TSM this split—not to take away from Bugi who really unleashes his mid laner. We how much TSM struggled against 100T when Insanity wasn’t on a champ that can carry, which only helps his very underrated MVP campaign for the Summer Split.
4. Evil Geniuses (Last Week: 2nd)
- Top lane: Mo “Revenge” Kaddoura
- Jungle: Jonathan “Armao” Armao
- Mid lane: Joseph Joon “jojopyun” Pyun
- AD Carry: William “UNF0RGIVEN” Nieminen
- Support: Bill “Eyla” Nguyen
Preseason prediction: 7th
A lot of LCS players have been recently calling out EG as a fake top-three team, and even Armao isn’t as confident in his team’s spot in the standings so far this Summer. This last week’s 0-3 finish should be a wake up call for Evil Geniuses if they want to avoid an unpleasant surprise during playoffs and take one of the three guaranteed Worlds spots for themselves.
3. Team Liquid (Last Week: 4th)
- Top lane: Park “Summit” Woo-tae
- Jungle: Hong “Pyosik” Chang-hyeon
- Mid lane: Eain “APA” Stearns
- AD Carry: Sean “Yeon” Sung
- Support: Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in
Preseason prediction: 6th
Even with a mid-jungle duo that can’t speak the same language, TL is the best early game team in the LCS. They really have some things to work on once the game goes on a little bit later—the solo laners in the team tend to get caught out a lot, but they are really improving week after week. They beat the title favorite Clou9 twice this season, which is a confidence builder going into the postseason.
2. Golden Guardians (Last Week: 3rd)
- Top lane: Eric “Licorice” Ritchie
- Jungle: Kim “River” Dong-woo
- Mid lane: Kim “Gori” Tae-woo
- AD Carry: Trevor “Stixxay” Hayes
- Support: Choi “huhi” Jae-hyun
Preseason prediction: 3rd
First time in the organization’s history, Golden Guardians finished an LCS regular season with a positive win record. River is having a monster of a split and one of the biggest MVP candidates so far. It would be hard to take them over C9 considering the history of best-of-series between these two teams, but their championship chances are rising with every week.
1. Cloud9 (Last Week: 1st)
- Top lane: Ibrahim “Fudge” Allami
- Jungle: Robert “Blaber” Huang
- Mid lane: Jang “EMENES” Min-soo
- AD Carry: Kim “Berserker” Min-cheol
- Support: Jesper “Zven” Svenningsen
Preseason prediction: 1st
Cloud9 showed a lot of weaknesses this split and they feel like they are playing below expectations. Still, they’ve been top-two in the standings the entire split and they are first place coming into the last week of the season. Not sure why it feels like they aren’t giving the same confidence they usually did the last couple of splits, but it even with all of the asterisks it is unwise to bet against Cloud9 during LCS Playoffs.
How to watch the 2023 LCS Summer Split
Fans can catch the LCS action on the official LoL Esports website with a chance to earn exclusive drops from Riot. Or you can follow the official LCS Twitch and Youtube channels.
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