Worlds 2020: Ranking and Rating the Best Top Laners at Worlds

We break down the best top laners that you will see at Worlds 2020.

5. Martin “Wunder” Hansen (G2 Esports) – 82 OVR

I’ve never been as high on Wunder as most fans around the world, but in 2020 he has absolutely put up the performances to justify being rated in the top five for his role at Worlds 2020. He has been one of the more consistent pieces of a G2 team that has seen regression from certain players and struggled more than expected this summer.

Nevertheless, Wunder has been exceptional in terms of damage output, with his 479.7 aDPM being among the best for his role and his 1.23 damage-to-gold ratio also being one of the highest among top laners. Most impressive, though, is how much he dominated enemy top laners in the LEC. Wunder averaged gold/CS/XP differences of +405/+12/+192 in the regular season and then improved those marks to +788/+26/+378 in the playoffs.

Having their top laner elevate his game in the pressure situations was huge in G2’s miracle run for another LEC title and Wunder deserves all the praise for that. And none of this even touches on the fact that he has one of the most diverse and unique champion pools in professional League of Legends.

4. Chen “Bin” Ze-Bin (Suning) – 84 OVR

At only 17 years old in his rookie year, Bin has been nothing short of a prodigy thus far in his career. To start, his champion pool is filled with aggressive picks including Wukong, Gangplank, and Jayce in his top five (along with Renekton as his most-picked and Aatrox). Most surprisingly is that he almost never plays Ornn, with only five games on the Fire Below the Mountain in 2020 (the same number of games he’s played on Jax this year).

Bin is more of a resource hog than most top laners, with a 24.5% gold share that is among the highest for top laners this year. However, Bin uses all that gold he gets very effectively, with a 1.19 damage-to-gold ratio and 493.0 aDPM in 2020.

3. Zhang “Zoom” Xing-Ran (JD Gaming) – 85 OVR

When people talk about great tank or weakside players, Zoom is the guy to model your game after in 2020. He’s played 31 of his 80 games this season on the two premiere tanks in professional League of Legends – Ornn and Volibear – and has a 5.11 and 4.72 KDA on those picks, respectively.

While his champion pool is fairly limited (he only played 14 champions this year) and he tends not to play carries (his top five includes Wukong, Renekton, and Mordekaiser), he plays his role perfectly. He dies very infrequently (2.2 deaths per game in 2020) and does a decent amount of damage (440.8 aDPM) given the amount of tanks he plays.

2. Bai “369” Jia-Hao (Top Esports) – 87 OVR

The man most top laners in China model their game after, 369 plays a mix of carry and weakside top laners (Renekton, Mordekaiser, Ornn, Aatrox, and Jayce make up his top-five most-played champions). Four of those five champions have a 3.00 KDA or higher for 369.

Where 369 is most unique, though, is how often he is able to pull pressure to himself by playing side lanes. His kill participation (57%) is towards the low-end of the range for most top laners, but he averages almost 3 kills per game, which is almost half a kill more than most top laners.

1. Jang “Nuguri” Ha-gwon (Damwon Gaming) – 93 OVR

In our second ranking of the players by role at Worlds 2020, it’s Damwon Gaming who has the best player in the world. Nuguri retains his title from last year as the best top laner in the world, both at the tournament and overall.

Nuguri shines in just about every major statistical category. He had the second-highest adjusted KDA of all tops in major regions in the world at 4.15, was third in the world in damage output (584.9 aDPM), had the highest gold counts including the highest gold share of any top laner (25.5% in the regular season). Yet despite being a resource hog, his damage-to-gold ratio didn’t suffer and at 1.22 he had one of the highest in the world.

As far as laning goes, he was also exceptional in one of the toughest regions in the world. His regular-season laning stats split was +1053g, +12 CS, +564 XP difference at 15 minutes.

Just like last year, Nuguri has shown fit to take on the role of carry for himself to success. His most-played champion is Jayce, followed by Sett, Camille, and Renekton; he only played four games of Ornn this year. While this is a major departure from the rest of the worlds’ champion pool, Nuguri played it perfectly and helped use it to bring Damwon an LCK title.