Who were the Best Laners in the LCS in the 2020 Season?

We break down which LCS players were the best laners in 2020 to help inform how they might do in 2021.

Jungle

Robert “Blaber” Huang

Like his former teammate, Blaber was the best in terms of early game among LCS junglers by a massive gap. His +821 AGXD was over 400 gold/experience greater, given the matchup, than the second-place LCS jungler (another un-signed player like Solo).

As you would expect, Blaber’s most-played jungler in 2020 was Lee Sin and he dominated on the Blind Monk. His +690 AGXD wasn’t as good as his overall numbers, but that was still exceptional. Blaber was also favored to be ahead in gold/experience in 67.8% of lane matchups last year, but still outperformed expectations wildly.

Matthew “Akaadian” Higginbotham

Shockingly, Akaadian was actually the second-best early game jungler in the LCS last year. Although he had a limited sample size (14 games combined in spring and summer), he still managed to post a +208 AGXD that was good for second-best in the league. Like Blaber, he was expected to win most of his lane matchups (64.2% of the time he was favored to win) and still came out on top.

Can “Closer” Çelik

In terms of the best “weak-side” early game junglers, we again drop down to the fourth spot in terms of overall AGXD (Spica actually beat him out to make the top three). Closer had the best gold and experience differential, adjusted for matchup, compared to any LCS jungler who was also more often than not put in the less favorable side of the matchup. He was only favored to win 48% of jungle matchups in 2020.

And I’m not exactly sure why Golden Guardians kept putting him onto those weaker matchups, because Closer was by far the most effective on Lee Sin in the early game. His average AGXD at 15 was 648, his second-highest mark on his most-played champion.