League of Legends: top LEC players on bad teams

Who are the best League of Legends pro players on LEC teams that are struggling?

With only a few weeks of regular season LEC play remaining, we have a pretty idea of which teams are good (G2, Vitality) and which are…not as good. But when it comes to League of Legends, the whole of a team is not always made up of equal parts.

These not as good teams may not be abjectly terrible, they may just be mediocre to below-average. Largely the reason that they aren’t abjectly terrible (like Rogue) is that they have at least one or two players who are carrying the load. Here are five players on bad teams that are far outperforming their team

Raymond “kaSing” Tsang (ExceL)

ExceL has struggled mightily throughout the year, currently sitting in the second-to-last spot in the LEC standings with a 3-11 record with only two weeks to go. As a tea, ExceL has one of the longest average game times in the LEC, along with the worst mid-to-late game rating according to Oracle’s Elixir (http://oracleselixir.com/statistics/eu/lec-2019-spring-regular-season-team-statistics/). However, if there’s been one shining spot on the team, it’s been their support, kaSing.

More from League of Legends

• Bee’koz Vel’koz Skin: Splash Art, Price, Release, How to Get
• King Beegar Skin: Splash Art, Price, Release, How to Get
• EMENES retires following leave from Cloud9, cites military service
• EMENES Donezo Manifesto: Former Cloud9 Midlaner airs out grievances
• Team Heretics Perkz: European legend reportedly playing for TH

On the year, kaSing has been one of the rocks for ExceL. He has one of the top KDA ratios of any support in Europe, along with the lowest death share among supports. This indicates that while kaSing’s teammates are often dying in bad spots, Kasing isn’t giving up his life needlessly.

And that aversion to death isn’t coming at the expense of kaSing’s participation in team fights, as he has a solid 65.4% kill participation. Most impressively, he also drives the vision for his team, posting a 2.57 vision score per minute (VSPM). By contrast, supports on teams that don’t perform as well – such as Rogue’s Wadid or Fnatic’s Hylassang – tend to have a VSPM closer to 2.1 or 2.2, meaning kaSing does a great job at getting and maintaining vision even though his team is losing a lot of games.

Andrei “Odoamne” Pascu (FC Schalke)

Schalke 04 isn’t as bad as ExceL, they’re a .500 team with a shot at making the playoffs, but they’ve been wildly inconsistent. However, Odoamne has not been.

Odo is, by my metrics and estimations, the third-best top laner in the LEC, behind only Cabochard of Vitality and Wunder of G2. Now, both of those guys are on the top two teams in the LEC, which makes Odoamne’s performance all the more impressive.

Despite the fact that Odoamne has a kill participation below 50%, he still ranks top three among top laners in DPM and he has the best damage share of all tops in the LEC. Although he does play a lot of team fight champions (he’s been particularly fond of Urgot and Kennen this split), Odo is still not getting a kill share.

This seems to make no sense until you realize that Schalke has the second-fewest kills of any LEC team (ahead of only Rogue) and you realize that his two big other carries on the team – Abbedagge in the mid lane and Upset at ADC – are towards the bottom of their respective positions at damage and kills. Plainly, Odoamne is the best of a team that has a lot of trouble executing, in more ways than one.

Fabian “Febiven” Diepstraten (Misfits)

You could have made an argument for Hans Sama instead, but Febiven has tended to be a much more “carrying” factor for Misfits this year. Not only is he the second-ranked mid laner by our rankings – behind Caps, of course – but he actually leads Caps in a few categories like deaths, gold share, kill participation, and damage share. Some of those, like gold share, damage share, and kill participation, is due to the fact that Febiven’s teammates are far worse, but the fact is Febiven has been playing quite well since returning to Europe.

On a Misfits team that has wildly underperformed, Febiven’s been one of the rare exceptions. Although you can gripe about his poor vision control, that’s a problem that’s been consistent across the rest of Misfits. Besides that, Febiven’s been in the top three of every major statistical category and is a large reason why Misfits are able to have such strong early game control.

Martin “Rekkles” Larsson (Fnatic)

Maybe the biggest disappointment to start the season, Fnatic have begun to turn the corner. They’re on a four-game winning streak and have won six of their last eight to put them right back in the playoff hunt. A large reason for their ability to catch up ground has been their main carry, Rekkles.

Despite the fact that his jungle and support have been playing unevenly throughout the season, Rekkles is still able to maintain a positive gold and CS differential at 10 and 15 minutes. This is in spite of the fact that he’s usually behind in experience and has the lowest first blood percentages, indicating his lane is often on the back foot.

Although Rekkles isn’t god-tier in terms of damage or KDA numbers, he is the absolute best ADC in the LEC at getting gold, even when his team is behind. He’s also the best European ADC in terms of helping his team with vision by a large margin and his kill participation is respectable, so it’s not as though he’s just off farming side waves for 30 minutes.

Instead, Rekkles has been a good team fighter and team player, enabling his other teammates to have agency even while he demands fewer resources. Even when his team should probably be looking to funnel a bit more priority to him.

Which players from bad teams do you think deserve to be on the list? Let us know in the comments!