LCS: 2020 Spring Split Power Rankings for Week 1

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LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – JANUARY 26: — during 2020 LCS Spring Split at the LCS Arena on January 26, 2020 in Los Angeles, California, USA.. (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games) /

After the first week of LCS action, we look at which teams performed better or worse than we thought.

Going into the 2020 LCS Spring Split, there were a lot of question marks, but also a lot of givens. It was a given that Team Liquid would be the strongest team to beat and teams like TSM and Evil Geniuses would be challenging them for their supremacy. On the other hand, those question mark teams like FlyQuest and Dignitas were projected to be somewhere in the middle to the bottom of the pack by most analysts (myself included).

Well after one week of play it’s clearly time to throw out all of those prognostications and make wild speculations based on an insignificantly small sample size!

In seriousness, the first two games of the LCS season did give us a lot of information as to how these teams are synergizing and what their strengths and weaknesses are. While it’s only two games for each team, keep in mind that these teams had been scrimming together for months prior to this weekend and should be accustomed to playing together. So, the question is then, after Week 1 of the LCS, which teams are at the top and the bottom of the pack?

10. Counter Logic Gaming (0-2)

Elo: 166 (-218)

I won’t mince words, CLG fans should be concerned. Yes, they lost to two of the unbeaten teams, FlyQuest and Dignitas, both of whom look miles better than most people predicted. The problem is that in those losses CLG looked completely outclassed.

Their kill to death ratio in those two games is 0.29; no other team has a K:D ratio below 0.5 and the average for the league is 1.5. Their early game also looks incredibly weak as they average over a 2,000 gold deficit at the 15-minute mark. Right now, all the major stats for CLG look bleak, so their fans better hope that these two games were flukes and they can turn it around against 100 Thieves and TSM next week.

9. Golden Guardians (0-2)

Elo: 170 (-173)

No surprise that the Golden Guardians are at the bottom of the pack. They were pegged to be our worst team in the LCS by a mile and thus far they didn’t disappoint, losing to Cloud9 (understandable) and 100 Thieves. Golden Guardians, shockingly, didn’t look as completely outmatched as they could have in those games.

8. TSM (0-2)

Elo: 181 (-224)

The good news, TSM fans, is that your team has so far proven to be the best early game team in the LCS. TSM averaged a 1,900 gold advantage at 15 and had the best turret differential at 15 as well. This team is good at getting an early lead, they’re just bad at everything after that.

In both games, TSM got bled out by playing incredibly passive and not translating their leads to victories. Despite that early game prowess, TSM has the lowest GPM as a team (1497) of any team in the LCS. Even with a more aggressive early jungler, those shotcalling problems appear to have re-appeared for TSM, who should have won both their games this week.

7. Evil Geniuses (1-1)

Elo: 326 (-41)

A rocky start for Evil Geniuses (“EG”), suffering a loss to the surprising Dignitas before taking down 100 Thieves to close out the weekend at an even record. With all of that said, EG hasn’t really impressed me in their first few games individually outside of Jiizuke.

6. 100 Thieves (1-1)

Elo: 368 (+16)

Before we all start freaking out that 100 Thieves are actually much better than I thought and could be a playoff team, let’s remember that their win came off of Golden Guardians. You need to take wins where you can get them, sure, but in watching their game against EG I was not very impressed by 100 Thieves, particularly Meteos. I do think Ry0ma and Stunt showed flashes of promise so I wouldn’t say this team definitely won’t make playoffs, but I still need to see more from these young players before I buy their stock.

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LCS: Spring Split 2020 Power Rankings for Week 1

By Josh Tyler | Jan 28, 2020