2016 MSI player rankings by position

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1.) Karsa – FW

In an event that is stacked at the jungle position, Hung “Karsa” Hau-Hsuan might just be the best of them all.

The Taiwanese star dominated the LMS this season and is a large reason as to why they are here.

He’s a jungler that wants to play carry champions that allow him to make the magic happen, and this is the perfect meta for that right now.

Karsa was a god in the regular season and finished the split with a 6.6 KDA, 69.5 percent kill participation and participated in getting first blood 50 percent of the time (tied for second-best in the league).

The entire FW team went nuts in the playoffs, and there Karsa finished with a 9.0 KDA, 76.4 percent kill participation and participated in 83 percent of first bloods.

2.) Mlxg – RNG

Liu “Mlxg” Shi-yu shouldn’t be afraid of the jungle competition at MSI since China has some really, really strong junglers that he faces all the time.

He had a strong regular season, but he stepped it up in the playoffs by averaging a 5.7 KDA to help Royal win it all.

Chinese as a whole really disappointed at that Katowice, and Mlxg wasn’t an exception.

He had a couple of nice moments from Katowice, but he also wasn’t able to step up when needed a lot of the time. Take the semifinals against Fnatic, for example. Royal were defeated 2-1 and Mlxg had a 2.4 KDA in that series. That’s not going to cut it if Royal want to have any success.

Maybe Mlxg will be able to use Katowice as inspiration to dominant MSI.

3.) Trick – G2

This has been the season of G2, and it’s time for them to have their breakout party on the international stage. If that’s going to happen, they are going to need Kang-yoon “Trick” Kim to be a beast – and that’s all he’s ever been for them.

Trick was never able to show what he could really do when he was playing in Korea, but the move to G2 has turned him into one of the region’s best players. In the regular season, Trick led G2 to the best record in Europe with a 6.2 KDA and 75.9 percent kill participation percentage. He also placed the most wards for any jungler that played the entire season with 1.02 wards per minute.

He’s a great carry jungler who can also play the top tanks extremely well whenever it is needed. He can do it all. MSI is going to be a great test to see where he is.

4.) Blank – SKT

Similar to Duke, Kang “Blank” Sun-gu had some huge shoes to fill as he came in for two-time champion Bae “Bengi” Seong-ung.

However, Blank’s situation was very different from Duke’s because Blank had no pressure whatsoever. Bengi was not performing up to his or the team’s standards and they needed to see what Blank had to offer. If he didn’t look any better than Bengi, no big deal, he would continue sitting behind him on the roster. But if he performed well, he would be where he is today.

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Blank has gotten better and better as he gets more comfortable with the team.

It’s always a team effort for SKT, but Blank was amazing in the playoffs and ended them with a 5.9 KDA and 73.8 percent kill participation.

What’s fascinating about Blank is that pressure doesn’t bother him at all. Katowice was essentially his tryout for SKT, and he finished the event with a 9.7 KDA. The recent finals against the ROX Tigers was the biggest moment of his career, and he rose to the occasion and made a statement in the very first game on Kindred: seven kills, zero deaths and seven assists.

It’s hard to put Blank so low on this list, but the jungler position really is stacked for MSI. This event will be another opportunity for him to make a statement and show that he is the real deal.

5.) Xmithie – CLG

Jake “Xmithie” Puchero is a role player, and that’s not a bad thing. Every team has to have some role players who are only there to fill some holes and compliment the other guys.

Xmithie only has one stat that jumps off the screen, and that’s that he had one of the lowest percentages of his team’s damage in the regular season at only 15.1 percent. The only non-support players that did less than him were Galen “Moon” Holgate and Alberto “Crumbzz” Rengifo.

Xmithie isn’t going to be the man winning games for CLG, but he could be the person losing them games if he gets completely outclassed by the other junglers.

It’s going to be interesting seeing how Xmithie does when he has to face off against Karsa, Mlxg, Trick and Blank. It probably won’t go too well for him.

6.) Stomaged – SUP

Unfortunately, for Furkan “Stomaged” Gungor, he might be the only jungler that Xmithie will have the advantage over.

The jungle competition at the IWCI simply wasn’t that good, but Stomaged was the best jungler there.

He played the meta junglers well and finished the tournament with a 5.0 KDA and kill participation of 68.3 percent.

However, he may find himself in over his head when facing off against the likes of Karsa and Mlxg.

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