Ranking all 24 mids at the League of Legends World Championship

10. Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok (SKT) – 77 OVR

Yes, yes, I know. Like I just said, this isn’t a ranking based on who I would trust to step up or who has been the best mid historically or even who is the most talented. By pure numbers, Faker has been pretty bad in the LCK and no one is really talking about it.

A big reason for that, in my opinion, is that Faker is no longer the driving force for action on SKT. Although he dies at about the same rate as most mid laners in the world, his 2.23 aKDA is second-worst among mid laners. In part, this is because of his incredibly low 2.16 kills per game (worst among mids) and 0.24 solo kills per game (third-worst among mids).

Compounding on these issues, Faker’s 89.9% adjusted KP is the second-worst among mid laners, largely due to the fact that his kill share and death share are worse than that of the average mid. This gives him the worst Kill Efficiency (2.00) among all mids in the world.

Now, people might point out that now that SKT doesn’t need to rely on Faker to carry, they’re not depending on playing through mid as their win condition and certainly that’s likely. SKT is a team with a very balanced attack, with solid carries out of the jungle and ADC role.

However, if you compare how SKT allocates resources versus another balanced team like G2 with Caps, there is a clear distinction. If SKT is deliberately making the decision to withhold resources from their mid to benefit other lanes, in my opinion, they are being far too restrictive on Faker. His 403.7 aGPM is second-worst among mid laners, indicating that either he is not getting the income he needs to stack up against other prominent mids or SKT’s strategy is not enabling him to do so.

9. Marek “Humanoid” Brázda (Splyce) – 78 OVR

When you say the sentence “Humanoid above Faker,” yes this list and metrics start to look suspect. However, Humanoid seems to be moving in the trend of more successful mids (aggressive, risky carry-focused players) as opposed to Faker (more reserved, control the map players). In any case, his numbers outstrip Fakers in just about every metric, including Kill Efficiency (2.08) where he, Faker, and Rookie are among the bottom three in the world.

8. Li “Xiaohu” Yuan-Hao (RNG) – 79 OVR

Xiaohu is a player I’ll be very excited to see at Worlds, for the simple fact that his numbers are not all that eye-popping. He’s above average in kill participation and adjusted KP (110.2% aKP), below average in income (398.7 aGPM) and just average in most everything else.

7. Kim “Doinb” Tae-sang (FunPlus Phoenix) – 81 OVR

At long last Doinb has made it to the World Championship looking to prove his mettle. Like Xiaohu, his numbers don’t really jump off the page at me, but Doinb excites me for a different reason than Xiaohu. His champion pool (which includes six games on Nautilus, five games on Ryze, games on Qiyana, Lulu, Nocturne, Riven, and Yasuo) is going to be bonkers to watch.

6. Jeong “Chovy” Ji-hoon (Griffin) – 82 OVR

Oh come on now, most people have Chovy as one of the top five players in the world, yet he doesn’t even crack the top five mid laners on this list? Yes, Chovy is an exceptionally talented player, except for one aspect. He’s a KDA player that makes Jensen blush.

I’m not saying that he doesn’t help his team (his 1.25 VSPM is second-best in the mid lane) or that he’s not a talented player (he has a respectable 0.27 Laning Score). What I am saying is for a guy who has a solid 4.1 aKDA and dies only 1.21 times per game, you need to do better than a 96.2% adjusted kill participation and 372.5 adjusted damage per minute. That’s right, compared other mids, Chovy has the second-worst output of damage ahead of only Damonte. I’ll take a guy who dies maybe a few times more but is willing to put himself in danger to give his team more damage any day.