League of Legends: sorry Liquid you’re not the best LCS team of all time…yet

How can Liquid make the case as the best NA team ever?

Why is it that the casters are so quick to anoint this Liquid team the best team North America has ever produced, despite clear evidence to the contrary? They haven’t had seasons as dominant domestically as the Cloud9 or TSM dynasties did. They don’t have the overall strong international record of those teams either. Their only strong showing, at MSI this year, came thanks to a vast underperformance by an Invictus Gaming team that has regressed so badly they might miss Worlds this year.

They’ve won four straight championships, more than any other NA team in history. They’re a dynasty, to be sure, but are they the best team we’ve ever had.

Looking beyond the stats, historically those Cloud9 teams that performed at international events in Seasons 3 and 4 were seen as the great North American hope, and their eventual quarterfinals appearances were seen as a boon to the region. Back in Seasons 6 and 7, TSM was expected to be a juggernaut entering the Worlds tournament and their failure to make it out of groups both years was seen as a massive failure.

Yet, this Team Liquid iteration also failed to make it out of groups at Worlds last year, despite being North America’s #1 seed, and there is a legitimate argument that they might not make it out of groups this year either. NA has been an incredibly weak region throughout Season 9 and TL has struggled mightily just to win their two LCS championships this year.

In both cases, they were one game away from losing either of those two championships, needing to reverse sweep an over-achieving TSM in spring (thanks to some uncharacteristically bad play from TSM’s Zven) and needing some passive play and poor drafts from C9 to overcome the 2-1 deficit. Liquid may have won those two championships, but they did so only after their opponents shot themselves in the foot and handed TL the gun.

If Team Liquid fails to make it out of groups this year, there’s a very real chance that Steve will look to move on from at least one of the players on this roster. If the TL dynasty ends there, it would be with a worse record domestically and internationally than both those strong TSM and C9 teams of years past. They’ll have won nothing internationally and four domestic titles in less-than-convincing fashion. Putting their legacy against those of TSM and Cloud9, who not only won titles but utterly demolished all competition, is foolish.

But, if Liquid manages to perform well at Worlds, make it out of groups, and do some damage, they could cement themselves as the strongest NA team ever. If they made the semifinals or heaven-forbid became the first NA team to make finals at Worlds, that would be the feather in their cap that Liquid could point to in order to counter all the questions about their record domestically and internationally.

Team Liquid has unquestionably the strongest top-to-bottom roster in LCS history, they’ve been the most consistently good team in LCS history, and they’ve been at that peak longer than anyone in LCS history. But are they the best team in LCS history?

No. At least, not yet.