League of Legends LCS power rankings – Week 5

5. TSM (6-4)

After ending the first half of the split on a high note with a convincing win over 100 Thieves, TSM started the back half of the split on a poor note. It’s not just that they lost to their long-time rivals in CLG, but it’s the fact that they got completely outclassed.

Beaten in 25 minutes, TSM looked like they had no clue what they were doing in this game, with players constantly making mechanical misplays that were easily countered by CLG. I know Zikz said that his team was trying a more difficult to execute comp this week, running Yasuo/Gragas bot lane, but I have a problem with this team thinking they’re good enough or in a position to be able to try out difficult comps.

This team has been too inconsistent all season to be experimenting on stage, especially given the fact that they didn’t look to be even close to proficient on those champions. If they were beating up on teams and had that clean lead over the rest of the pack, then yeah I would say it’s fine to try and experiment. But TSM needs to focus on refining their style and finding their identity, especially after that disastrous showing at Rift Rivals.

4. OpTic (6-4)

OpTic should have gone 2-0 this week but dropped an easy win over FlyQuest on Sunday. For a team that could have been tied for the first spot in the league, OpTic cannot afford to drop gimme games like this.

3. Cloud9 (7-3)

The margin between teams number two and three is razor thin, but C9 just managed to lose out this week, despite taking down Liquid on Saturday. With Licorice out for the foreseeable future, I thought it was going to be near impossible for this team to maintain their spot, but they were fantastic in his absence.

Kumo, obviously, stepped the hell up in their games last weekend (and styled on Impact for most of their match-up including solo-killing him). But Nisqy and Zeyzal also both went massive in that game, each having 11 kills and assists with zero deaths.

2. CLG (7-3)

The reign of terror is over CLG fans! After over three years, they have finally managed to beat TSM and, in doing so, vaulted themselves into a tie for first place with a chance to overtake Liquid next week. Since CLG won their first meeting this year, with another win they would own the tiebreaker should they end up even in the standings with TL.

Obviously, a lot of props need to be given to Wiggily for his superb performance on Sylas jungle against TSM, but I also want to shout out Biofrost. He went 7/2/15 (including a zero death game against his old team) on the week.

1. Team Liquid (7-3)

After emerging from the only “competitor” at Rift Rivals and being declared the only hope for NA, Team Liquid came out flat in Week 5. They lost to the still injured/sick Cloud9 (missing their best player) and then struggled mightily to beat 100 Thieves, taking over 43 minutes to win a game they very well could have lost.

Although Liquid is still the best team by the measure of statistics and performance in clutch games (see LCS Spring Finals, MSI, and Rift Rivals), they should definitely not be comfortable. According to Oracle’s Elixir, they are the worst team with a winning record in terms of mid-to-late game performance. They may be great at getting and keeping leads, but man Liquid sure does have a lot of problems transitioning them to wins.

Which LCS teams do you think we have too high or too low? Let us know in the comments!