2021 LCS Power Rankings: Top Lane
By: Matthew H
Tags: League of Legends, League, Lol, Esport

This Saturday, I will be recording the first of a series of podcasts focused on Esports content. For the first episode, our team will be Power Ranking each of the LCS teams in 2021. First, we will focus on lane specific power rankings, before expanding out into the overall team ranking!

Overall, the talent in the Top Lane has gotten overwhelming better in 2021 compared to 2020. Only 4 top laners remain from LCS in 2020 (Licorice, Ssumday, Impact, Huni), and with the exception of Huni, they were all incredibly successful and considered among the best in the league.

The addition of some strong imports from the LEC with Alphari and Finn, as well as up and coming talent from various amatuer scenes, make this the strongest top lane pool that the LCS has ever seen.

S Tier — Lane Kingdom

1. Ssumday — 100 Thieves

From dominating Korea, to dominating LCS, to dominating NA Academy for some reason, back to dominating LCS, it would be really difficult to not place Ssumday at the top of the rankings. Not only has he consistently shown that he is one of the strongest 2 top laners in LCS for years, but this year he may actually have a team behind him to make a run for the title. Ssumday has become famous in the LCS for being able to make Ssumthing out of nothing.

Despite 100T not being a top performing team in LCS Summer 2020, Ssumday had the following stats among top laners who played all 18 games:

1st in KDA (4.8)

1st in CS/Minute (8.5)

2nd in Gold/Minute (403)

4th in Kill Participation (59.3%)

2nd in Damage Percentage (25.3%) and Damage/minute (497)

1st in Vision Score/Minute (1.22)

2nd in Gold Difference @ 15 (316)

Lowest First Blood victim rate at an amazing 0% of games

This guy has been hard smurfing on NA for a long time, and our new top laners are going to have to prove themselves against Ssumday, who has solidified himself as the gold standard for top laners in LCS.

2. Alphari — Team Liquid

It was incredibly difficult to not place Alphari at number 1, and for good reason. This guy is an absolute monster with some of the craziest statistics I have ever seen in a player (In many ways more impressive than Ssumdays). In LEC Summer 2020, his team, Origen, finished dead last with an abysmal 6–12 (33%) record. Despite this, Alphari finished:

2nd in the league for CS/minute (8.2)

4th in the league for Gold/minute (381)

2nd in the league for Kill Participation (63.1%)

1st in the league for Damage Share (24.8%)

1st in Damage per Minute (432)

2nd in Vision Score/Minute (1.01)

2nd in Gold Difference @ 15 (389)

1st in CSD @ 15 (18)

1st in XPD @ 15 (323)

The main reason that I could not place Alphari above Ssumday in the power ranking is because Ssumday was able to do one thing that Alphari couldn’t in Summer 2020: Win. Although 100T didn’t finish with many more wins than OG, they did finish 7th in the league rather than 10th, with a 7–11 record. The ability to take a bad team over the finish line is something that Ssumday did more consistently than Alphari, especially considering that Origen had one of the best ADC’s in the League, Upset, while Ssumday didn’t have a single player that I would place in the top 5 of their position.

A Tier — NA’s best

3. Licorice — FlyQuest

Eric ‘Licorice’ Ritchie has been a top 2 Top laner in LCS since he joined Cloud9 for the 2018 Spring Season, with only Ssumday as a consistent rival. LCS Summer 2020, however, showed that there are weaknesses in the Licorice armor. Mistakes in his laning started to show, most notably he struggled significantly against Ssumday in what would be their first loss of the split, with lapses in judgement like the below play:

That being said, Licorice didn’t have a terrible year. He still finished 1st in GPM, Kill Participation %, Damage %, DPM, CSD@15, XPD@15, and FB%, which makes for a hell of a resume. Licorice has been good for several years, but it will be very interesting to see if he is able to replicate the results on a different team. Many players have had incredible careers on Cloud9, only to turn into Clown9 once they leave the org (see Svenskeren).

B Tier — The art of the possible

4. Fudge — Cloud9

I imagine that I am going to have Fudge higher in my Power Rankings than a lot of people, but I think he deserves it for a multitude of reasons. First and foremost, he dominated NA Academy in Summer 2020. Cloud9 Academy finished first in the regular season and playoffs, (only losing one game in playoffs) with Fudge as a key player in the lineup. If you thought some of the stats above were crazy, Fudge has a more impressive resume (albeit against weaker competition):

1st in KDA (6)

1st in CS/Minute (8.2)

1st in Gold/Minute (423)

2nd in Kill Participation (66.4%)

1st in Damage % (25.9%)

2nd in First Blood %

1st in Solo Kills (9)

The second reason Fudge comes in 4th in my Power Rankings is because I’ve learned over the years to trust Jack Etienne’s judgement when it comes to LCS talent. Cloud9 has done better than any LCS org when it comes to finding and developing ‘North American’ talent, and I believe Fudge is going to be one of the next super stars. Even though it’s obvious that Licorice was considerably more expensive than Fudge, it’s hard to believe that Jack and team would have allowed the trade if they didn’t believe that Fudge could perform as well, if not better, than Licorice.

The way Fudge dances in and out of a teamfight is pretty sweet, and I can’t wait to see him on the stage against the best laners in the LCS. If you aren’t familiar with his gameplay, you need to watch this Irelia play during Academy 2020 Summer:

5. Impact — Evil Geniuses*

Quick pop quiz for you… Who has a reputation for being only a weak side tank player, yet also had the most solo kills in LCS Summer 2020? If you guessed Impact then you must have a knack for context clues. Impact led the league with 7 solo kills, and carried a few crucial teamfights to help TL secure first place in the regular season. Despite the fact that I am rating Impact 6th on the list, I still think Impact is heavily underrated.

I do believe that Impact is towards the top of the league, and this year will be crucial to show that he is still better than some of the up and coming stars like Fudge and Niles.

Evil Geniuses as a team really fits into the art of the possible, as well. This team could reasonably finish anywhere from 3rd to 8th depending on how the pieces fit, and if Impact can continue to be a rock in the top lane like he was for TL.

C Tier — Competing for top half

6. Finn — CLG

People have been hating on Finn a bit too much considering how good he actually was in LEC. He didn’t have the best Worlds performance, but he did help bring Rouge to a first place finish in the LEC Summer 2020 regular season. He wasn’t the primary carry, but he wasn’t bad…

2nd highest KDA (3.9)

3rd in Kill Percentage (59.9%)

3rd in Damage Percentage (23.9%) and DPM (419)

1st in Vision Score/Minute (1.21) — by a large margin (2nd is 1.01)

2nd in First Blood % (38.9%)

The community is overwhelming negative on Finn due to his Worlds performance, but I think it’s safe to say that he is going to edge out some of the LCS rookies when it comes to individual performance in 2021. I could see Finn’s stay in the LCS being very similar to that of Impact’s reputation. A solid, consistent, weakside top laner who can show up big in teamfights. My only question for Finn is if he can elevate to the level of primary carry, since someone on CLG will need to.

7. Huni — TSM

I have been off the Huni hype train for a while, and I would be surprised to see him do well at TSM. It’s clear Huni is not the superstar that he once was, and although he has the occasional pop-off game, it is much more common that he ints a teamfight than carries it. I think he fails the eye test, and he also had some pretty bad statistic from his 8 games in LCS Summer 2020:

2.1 KDA (worse than any 18 game player)

7.6 CS/Minute (worse than any 18 game player, and my solo queue ability)

0.94 Vision Score/minute (worse than any 18 game player)

-305 Gold differential @ 15 (worse than any 18 game player)

-9 CSD@15 (worse than any 18 game player)

What Huni does do well is force a team to play around him. He did tout the highest Kill Participation % out of full time starters, with an impressive 72.3%, and the highest Damage/minute at 518, but with the improved talent pool in top lane this year, I don’t see his high-risk, high-reward playstyle working as well this year.

I do think that Huni is going to be better off than some of the rookies in the league, especially those playing on worse overall teams, which does net him the 8th spot on my tier list.

8. Niles — Golden Guardians

I think Niles is going to turn some heads in the Spring Split. I used to live in St. Louis, and actually worked next door to Maryville University, where Niles has made his name known. Maryville dominated the Collegiate scene, and Niles was the main threat on that team. The League of Legends Collegiate scene may not be the most developed league out there, but this guy in the best player to come out of it so far. He also was ranked the highest in the Honda 2020 Scouting Grounds hosted by Tim Sevenhuysen and PastryTime.

Niles (Camille) solo kill on FakeGod (Fiora)

Niles was far and above the best top laner on the best team in collegiate, and he always maintained a successful solo queue career during competition while pursuing his degree. I get the sense that attending college as a pro league player is not the same as a D1 basketball player, and that Niles was still a full time student. I believe the extra time to spend on the rift is going to even further unlock his skill level on the LCS stage. To add on this, I have been watching lots of the in houses hosted by CoreJJ and CaptainFlowers, and Niles has been getting it done there.

Niles has said before that he wanted to go pro “to save NA”, and I think he has a decent chance of doing so. If Niles comes out and performs better than the likes of Ssumday, Impact, and Alphari, it proves a few key things: North America can produce top tier talent, and that the collegiate scene should be taken as a serious intake pipeline for LCS talent. Go save NA, Niles.

9. FakeGod — Dignitas

I don’t have too much to say about FakeGod. He has managed to have slightly above average stats on a slightly below average Academy Team, so that’s good. Out of those who played at least half of the Academy games, he finished 4th in CS/Minute, 3rd in Gold/Minute, 4th in Kill Participation, and 4th in Vision Score/Minutes. However, his damage numbers were very low despite not playing many weakside tanks throughout Summer 2020.

Overall, FakeGod was a good player in academy, but nothing about his performances there lead me believe that he is going to end up anywhere near the top of the LCS competition.

D Tier — A lot to Prove

10. Revenge — Immortals

Even with all the community push for teams to take risks on newer players, it does seem very strange to me that Revenge made it to the LCS stage, especially with players such as Hauntzer and Solo not making it on a main stage team this year.

He had one of the lowest KDA’s, a below average CSM, one of the lowest Kill Participation %, and some of the lowest damage numbers. Even his vision score/minute was terrible, a stat that you should be able to maintain decent numbers on despite your team. Overall, Revenge is a clear choice for the 10th ranked Top Laner in the league.

In closing:

If you made it this far, thanks for reading! I will be hosting a live podcast Saturday evening the 12th, where I will be discussing these rankings, other lanes, and overall team rankings with Jay ‘de medicii’ Patel @ https://www.twitch.tv/lowsmith

*Roster placement not officially announced as of 11/30

Note: at the original publication of this article, Niles was placed 5th, Impact 6th, and Finn 7th. Since then I have watched more gameplay, particularly in LEC and Collegiate, and adjusted the rankings.