LCS Summer 2020 Power Rankings: Week 4 was Full of Fiestas

LCS Summer 2020 Week 4 is in the books, here is where the teams sit in our LCS power rankings.

3. TSM (6-2)

Elo: 457 (+31)

TSM’s win over Golden Guardians was fairly clean, as we’ve come to expect them to do against teams at the bottom of the standings. They were never really behind in gold and, aside from one hiccup in the mid game, were constantly accelerating the gold lead.

However, their game against CLG was one heck of a fiesta. As we noted above, the team ceded the first three dragons, meaning that they were up against soul point from about 16 minutes on. Luckily, CLG were scared of their long-range engage from Biofrost (who was playing quite poorly on Leona) and Broken Blade (who played the early game well on Ornn but then kind of lost his mind in some late game engages). Let’s be clear: TSM would have lost that game against any competent opponent, which is exactly what they’ll be facing next week.

That’s right, it’s time TSM finally meets its maker as they face off against Cloud9 for the first time in Summer 2020. After that likely loss, though, they’ll at least get some easier fare to close the week as they can take down Immortals. Going 1-1 on the weekend would keep them right at the top of our power rankings.

2. Team Liquid (6-2)

Elo: 469 (+17)

The gap between TL and TSM is quite small, broken mostly by the fact that Team Liquid beat TSM at the start of the season. That said, though, if I was to give the team whose current level of play I’m higher on, it would be TSM.

Like their rivals, Liquid ended their week with a banger against FlyQuest, winning a game that they should not have won. However, what is more concerning is the fact that they had such difficulty closing out Immortals. There is no world in which they should need over 43 minutes to close out such weak competition and especially there is no reason that Jensen should have been outclassed by the rookie Insanity.

TL will close out their first round-robin of Summer 2020 with a game against CLG that you would figure they should win and they’ll get to face Golden Guardians as well. With TSM likely about to drop one game, next week is a chance for TL to put distance between themselves and their rivals entering the back half of the split.

1. Cloud9 (8-0)

Elo: 566 (-19)

Given the level of play we saw in Week 4, I will be shocked if C9 drops a single game during the rest of the Summer Split. I mean, maybe you can nitpick and say that they took too long to take down Dignitas (ending the game at just past 33 minutes) and they shouldn’t have fallen behind off that early invade play, but they were never really behind. DIG never had a gold lead over 1,000 during the game and C9 never lost the gold lead after the 12-minute mark.

They’ll face TSM next week in their last game of the split’s first half. I’m sure that they won’t take them likely, as they’ll want to avenge one of their few losses from the Spring Split. Then they’ll face 100 Thieves in a game I’d expect to incur the mercy rule.