LCS Summer 2020 Week 9 Power Rankings: On To the Playoffs

LCS Summer 2020 Week 9 is in the books, here is where the teams sit in our LCS power rankings ahead of the playoffs.

8. Dignitas (5-13)

Final Elo: 294

First-round match: Loser of Evil Geniuses/FlyQuest

While European fans are (rightfully) marveling at Schalke 04’s miracle run back into playoffs, it’s worth noting that Dignitas made a miracle run of their own. This team started the split 0-8 before winning five of ten games down the stretch, including wins over Evil Geniuses and FlyQuest.

Ironically, it is one of those two teams that DIG will get to face in their first-round match-up. They can take comfort knowing that they’ll avoid TSM and Golden Guardians, both teams that won the season series 2-0 over DIG. That said, it’s still going to be a tough road for Dignitas from the lower bracket, where a single series loss ends their playoffs.

7. 100 Thieves (7-11)

Final Elo: 325

First-round match: Loser of TSM/Golden Guardians

100 Thieves ended the Summer Split strong, going 3-3 in their last three weeks of play. While that’s all well and good, those three wins came against Immortals and CLG (both of whom missed the playoffs) and Evil Geniuses, who were wildly inconsistent towards the end of the split.

Instead, they’ll face either the hottest team down the stretch (Golden Guardians) or a team most fans are penciling into the semi-finals if not the finals in TSM. Even worse, 100 Thieves lost both of the season series to these two teams, going 0-4 against those teams. Like Dignitas, it’s a big long-shot that they will make a deep playoff run with no room for error.

6. Evil Geniuses (8-10)

Final Elo: 351

First-round match: FlyQuest

Evil Geniuses finished the split by going 2-4 in the last three weeks that saw them suffer some bafflingly bad losses to 100 Thieves and Dignitas. That period is significant since those are the games since EG made the decision to sub in top laner Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon and Greyson “Goldenglue” Gilmer at mid lane. Contrast that to the 6-4 record they had with Ziqing “Kumo” Zhao in top lane and Daniele “Jiizuke” di Mauro in the mid lane and another roster shuffle seems obvious.

This is especially true given the fact that they will be facing FlyQuest. This team is carried on the back of their star mid laner Tristan “PowerOfEvil” Schrage along with his jungle synergy with Lucas “Santorin” Tao Kilmer Larsen. Leaving the roster as is just begs for FLY to exploit the mismatch in mid (as they did last week when PoE decimated Goldenglue on Corki).