League of Legends LCS power rankings Week 2: is TSM in trouble?

5. Clutch Gaming (2-2)

After starting the season 0-2, it was maybe the biggest shocker of Week 2 that Clutch is sitting at a .500 record. They got their freebie win over 100 Thieves on the way, sure, but taking down Golden Guardians was fairly impressive.

This team does have some impressive early-game objective control – by our metrics the best in the LCS – and the second-best gold difference at 15. They’re also the best team in terms of vision control in the league, better even than Liquid. However, this team also has a few concerns, like their long average game time in victories and their 0.83 kill-to-death ratio.

4. Team Liquid (2-2)

Their slow start isn’t quite as concerning as TSM’s, because Liquid’s underlying stats are much better. In fact, they’re the best LCS team when it comes to percent difference of gold earned per game, gold spread, and gold difference at 15. So why do they keep losing to worse teams?

Their two wins came against TSM and 100 Thieves, two of the worst teams in the LCS. They lost to two of the other worst teams in the league in Echo Fox and CLG. Liquid has had, by my measure, the easiest schedule in their first two weeks of any team (even if you account for the fact that TSM was expected to be far better) but they’re at even. That is unacceptable.

3. Cloud9 (3-1)

The gap between C9 and Golden Guardians is tiny, but I gave the edge to GGS over C9 because they won the head-to-head matchup. That puts them over the top, for now, but know that these two teams are quite evenly matched.

2. Golden Guardians (3-1)

As mentioned above, the Guardians beat C9 in their most impressive win of the split thus far. Now, they did lose to Clutch as well last weekend as well, but given how much stronger Clutch appears to be than they were initially ranked, it doesn’t hurt them quite as much.

The funny thing about the Guardians is that they don’t do any one thing especially well; they don’t lead the LCS in any single statistical category. However, they are above-average to very good at everything. This is a very solid team that is finally living up to the hype that was built up before the Spring Split.

1. OpTic (4-0)

Is OpTic for real? That was the question we posed in our rankings last week. I was very bearish on their standing, but after another 2-0 weekend, I have to change my tune a bit.

In addition to being unbeaten, OpTic’s underlying stats as a team are quite solid. Like the Guardians, there’s nothing that they are bad at as a team. They may not be world-beaters statistically, but they are just overall solid and – unlike teams like Liquid and Golden Guardians – they’re not dropping the games they’re supposed to win.

However, I will qualify this by pointing out that OpTic has gotten a cupcake schedule through the first two weeks of play. The toughest team they’ve played so far this year has been Clutch, and they’ve gotten easy wins off 100 Thieves, FlyQuest, and CLG. Will this same level of play continue when they face tougher competition?

Who do you think should be ranked higher or lower? Let us know in the comments.