Ranking all 24 mids at the League of Legends World Championship

5. Rasmus “Caps” Winther (G2 Esports) – 84 OVR

On pure talent and who I would build a team around, Caps would be higher on this list. He is, without question, the best laning mid in the world, with his 1.6 Laning Score being second-best in the world but coming against very tough competition in the LEC. Caps averages 1.25 solo kills per game, which is simply absurd and outputs 592.6 adjusted DPM (third-best in his role). In short, Caps carries his team, but he can do it by himself.

4. Lev “Nomanz” Yakshin (Unicorns of Love) – 85 OVR

This is the player I am probably most interested to see in the play-in stage because Nomanz has absolutely dominated the LCL this year. I mean, this is a guy who put up a staggering 622 raw damage per minute, which accounted for 29.4% of his team’s damage. I mean, this is what you mean when you talk about a carry mid laner.

His champion pool supports that notion with games on Yasuo, Akali, Talon, Qiyana, and Zed, Nomanz is a guy who is going to look to flex on players at Worlds. His 1.65 Laning Score is the best among all mids at Worlds, but I’m excited to see if that dominance will translate when going up against the tougher competition.

3. Heo “ShowMaker” Su (DAMWON Gaming) – 85 OVR

If I was going straight on my own personal opinion, ShowMaker would be number one with a bullet. He has been absolutely flawless during the LCK regular split, with mind-boggling numbers including a 6.06 Kill Efficiency (thanks to a 5.1 aKDA and 118.9% aKP), 434.4 aGPM, and 1.17 VSPM. The only areas he doesn’t excel at are damage output and laning, where he is slightly below average.

2. Tim “Nemesis” Lipovšek (Fnatic) – 88 OVR

Putting Nemesis, a rookie, over storied players like Faker, Rookie, and Caps, as well as fire-crackers like ShowMaker and Chovy just seems wrong. But what impresses me about watching Nemesis is not just his numbers, but the efficiency of his play.

His KDA and KP numbers are both above-average, if not great, and he is a decent laner (0.25 Laning Score). But he takes those modest numbers to output significant damage (552.7 aDPM) and collects a ton of income (476 raw GPM) despite not being overly resource-heavy (he accounts for 24.2% of his team’s gold share, which is on the high end but not massively out of bounds for a mid laner). Nemesis is the perfect example of a “do your job mid laner,” because he takes the resources that are given to him and translates them into more than that input should be worth.

1. Chu “FoFo” Chun-Lan (J-Team) – 88 OVR

You would be forgiven for asking “who” when seeing FoFo leading the mid laner ranking. If you’re not asking “who” my guess is you’re asking “WTF?”

No, FoFo is not the most talented mid laner at the World Championship, but he is unquestionably the most dominant relative to his competition. And he’s not exactly playing in the OPL, the LMS is still a major region with a fair amount of talent.

Yet against that level of competition, FoFo has been a monster. He averages 1 death per game and has an absurd 8.09 raw KDA (6.39 aKDA) and a 119.5% aKP. Both of these are the best among mid laners by a mile, giving him a 7.64 Kill Efficiency score that is over 1.5 points above the mid with the second-highest KE, ShowMaker (6.06).

He’s a dominant laner, averaging over 700 gold, 16 CS, and 490 experience at 15 minutes (culminating in a 1.13 Laning Score), controls vision (1.15 VSPM), and is top-five among mids in damage output (585.2 aDPM). And, most incredibly, he does it all while not short-changing his teammates.

Unlike Nemesis, FoFo only accounts for 22.8% of his team’s gold share, but still has a 432 aGPM that is respectably above average. His raw gold per minute is, in fact, higher than that of ShowMaker, Chovy, Xioahu, Faker, and Rookie.

Looking at his champion pool, FoFo seems to have no (no) problems playing the meta picks like Corki and Azir, along with assassins like Akali and Leblanc. Hell, his Akali KDA in the summer was 22! Whether this strong play will translate onto the world stage is not a certainty, but I’m thrilled to watch and see!

The League of Legends World Championship kicks off Tuesday, October 2 at 7:00 EST / 13:00 CEST.