NA LCS Spring 2018 Statistical Power Rankings

0 - tl;dr

Skip to section 5.1 for the overall power rankings and section 5.2 for team-specific reviews!

1 - Introduction

Following the end of Worlds 2017 and the announcement of franchising in the NA LCS, there has been an introduction of five new teams and a massive roster shuffle in the offseason. The biggest topic before the split starts is how well these teams will perform with such drastic changes to existing lineups and new lineups. With all the Reddit/Professional analysts voicing their opinions based on gut instincts and industry point-of-view, I thought it’d be interesting to develop specific scores for each player and team to see how well my statistical approach to power rankings stack in comparison.

2 - Goals

We will be attempting to calculate an unbiased numeric value to represent each player’s individual performance during the split to predict the strengths of the teams in the NA LCS after the massive roster shuffle.

3 - Methodology

We will be gathering player statistics based on individual game results, rather than by the winner of the best of three. That way we can look at each game independently and increase our sample size, as well.
In an effort to create both a uniform and unbiased way of representing each player, we will normalize player statistics based on the entire set of North American LCS players by role. Once normalized, an index score will be created based on selected performance metrics (i.e. kill participation, wards placed) that will not result in collinearity (i.e. using percent gold share vs total gold).
Once the index score has been calculated we’ll proceed to sort each player into their respective teams, and average the player index scores to determine an overall team score.

4 - Caveats

There are five roles within the game and it’ll be difficult to accurately represent them in a non-biased and uniform way. For example, although many players say that vision is a high contributing factor in winning the game, we would not say that ward placement is a strong performance indicator for the AD Carry role.
There are new players from the NA CS, EU LCS, and LCK, along with veteran players who have not participated in competitive play for at least a split. Since there is no easy, unbiased way to adjust for regional strength, we will have to assume that how they play in one region will transfer 1:1 in North America. However, a performance score will be negatively adjusted in order to account for the discrepancy of strength between LCS and CS caliber players. A similar negative adjuster will be applied to veterans who have not been competitively competing to account for a possible degradation of skill.
Due to the complexity of League of Legends, there are a lot of explanatory variables that go into how well a player performs — and there are even more that contribute to the match result. With more variables, we increase the likelihood that we introduce collinearity, which would cause unwanted over-adjustment. We attempted to limit the amount of variables used by creating a single index score for each player. Thorough checking would have to have been done before adding in specific variables.

5.1 - Results: Power Ranking

It’s interesting to note that there seems to be strong variability between seeds 1&2, 3&4, 5&6, and the bottom four teams.

5.2 - Review: Teams and Players

Summary: Taking the first seed, we have TSM. Coming off a hot 2017 year and a mediocre worlds (again), TSM replaced three of their players with proven bot lane — Zven and Mithy, and rookie of the split — MikeYeung. Arguably, the new bot lane may not be a significant upgrade, therefore all eyes will be on rookie jungler, MikeYeung. There have been arguments as to whether or not MikeYeung was over-hyped or if he’ll continue with the fantastic momentum he picked up when he was on Phoenix1. However, with four world-class veterans and the newly acquired Coach Ssong — who brought a bottom tier team to worlds — Mike will have quite the support system to make sure he performs to the TSM standard. With this five-man roster, we expect TSM to be able to take first place.

Player of Interest: MikeYeung

With just as many critics as fans, MikeYeung has a lot to prove as the rookie jungler of TSM. Having possibly picked MikeYeung over Contractz, TSM has made a bold statement in the potential they see that MikeYeung has in being both a mechanically gifted player and possible shot-caller for the team. Whether or not TSM dominates or struggles (especially against the 2nd seed), will be dependent on MikeYeung since he is the most “unproven” of the squad. All eyes on MikeYeung.

Summary: In our 2nd seed is Team Liquid with a completely revamped roster, sporting some of the best players in the world. This team is TSM’s greatest threat — with 5 veterans who have all been to Worlds last year. In the top lane, they acquired Top-Die Impact from Cloud 9. In the jungle is one of the bests of last split, Xmithie. Top 10 Midlaner, Pobelter from the infamous Immortals lineup will be starting. And rounding out the team in the bot lane will be the best AD Carry of North America — Doublelift, and the best support of last split — Olleh.

Players of Interest: Impact and Doublelift

Impact’s performance in comparison to his Spring 2017 split has been less than stellar. While Impact is a world class top laner, is he worth the rumored $1,000,000 contract when there are rivals such as Hauntzer, Summday, and Flame?

Having been let go by TSM, we not only get a heated rivalry between the replaced — Doublelift — and the replacement — Zven, but we also get to see how the best AD Carry of North America stacks up against the best AD Carry of Europe. The NA LCS has officially become the sparing grounds to see who claims the title of Best AD Carry in the West.

Summary: In 3rd place, we have Counter Logic Gaming. It’s been a rough year for CLG having swapped junglers twice and having their team captain — long time CLG player, Aphromoo — leave. However, despite the difficulties, the remaining 3 members — Darshan, Huhi, and Stixxay — came off a really good split in terms of individual performance. Having picked up veterans Reignover and Biofrost, we expect CLG to do fairly well, so long they can fill the void Aphromoo left, otherwise they’ll just be a team of headless chickens with a lot of potential.

Player of Interest: Biofrost

Counter Logic Gaming had an extremely vocal team captain in Aphromoo who, by many reports, was the main shot-caller for CLG. It’s up to Biofrost to fill the shoes left by the legendary support. However, based on the reasons he was let go by TSM, there are concerns that Biofrost is not close to the vocal level of Aphromoo. On paper, this team is great, but without a confident shot-caller, they’ll fall significantly lower than 3rd seed, especially with the upcoming teams not far behind in overall score.

Summary: Behind by a mere 0.2 points, we have Cloud 9. The newest iteration of Cloud 9 is rather interesting. Having acquired TSM jungler, Svenskeren and eUnited top laner, Licorice, it’s difficult to say how well this team will perform. Having Jensen, Sneaky, and Smoothie come off one of the best years in terms of individual performances, this team has the potential to be dominating and going well above the calculated 4th seed. However, Svenskeren just came off a rather weak year, having taken the majority TSM’s criticisms for their failure during Worlds 2017 and overall performance in NA. Licorice’s score is difficult to accurately display since he comes from the Challenger Series. Based on the calculations, he was the 2nd best top laner of the of the NA CS — right behind Solo. Due to the skill disparity between NA CS and NA LCS players, his score was hit with a penalty — landing him a 97.9.

Players of Interest: Licorice and Svenskeren

Licorice not only has to fill the shoes of Impact, but also Ray — both of whom were extremely important players to Cloud 9’s success. While he has had good showings in NA CS, we will have to wait to see if Licorice can translate his performance to the LCS stage.

Svenskeren has a lot of people to prove wrong. When he was announced as Contractz’s replacement — there was a lot of uproar as to how he would be a downgrade. However, with a new team and new memes, hopefully we’ll see the aggressive Sven that we saw in the early days with TSM.

Where Cloud 9 ends up this split will largely depend on if Licorice and Svenskeren can keep up with the standards of the other three.

Summary: The first and strongest of the new teams is 100 Thieves. Sporting players from five different teams, it’s an unknown if they will mesh well. Summday has proven that he is an extremely skilled top laner, having taken down TSM every single time during the regular season last split. Ryu and Aphromoo came off of some less than stellar splits, but knowing the potential and history of these two players — there isn’t much doubt that they won’t be able to bounce back. In the AD Carry position, we have Cody Sun who, thankfully, has a chance to proven himself once again after what many call a tragic rookie mistake during the group stages at Worlds 2017. The unknown factor (albeit, only slightly) seems to be Meteos, who took a split off after a decent showing on Phoenix1, and being replaced by MikeYeung in Summer 2017. Because of this break, he is final score was slightly penalized.

Players of Interest: Aphromoo and Cody Sun

As the main shot-caller of CLG, we expect Aphromoo to take up that role in 100 Thieves. With a breath of fresh air after such a long time on CLG — he can hopefully regain his old form as his performance last split was rather mediocre.

Along in the bot lane, Cody Sun has proven himself last split, but it was apparent that he still had rookie nerves based on his actions at Worlds. However, neither his mentality nor his spirit seem broken as he held his head up high even after all the criticism he received. With veteran Aphromoo at his side, hopefully we can see Cody Sun improve even further with another great support once again.

Summary: Following 100 Thieves is the Houston Rocket’s Clutch Gaming. Clutch Gaming acquired three of the disbanded Team EnvyUs players — Lira, Apollo, and Hakuho. These three players had good showings last split — unfortunately losing out to CLG in a 5 game series at the playoffs. They didn’t go out without a fight however, as Hakuho was landing hook after hook on CLG’s bot lane, and Lira was outclassing OmarGod in the jungle. Coming from H2K and having barely missed Worlds 2017 after a crushing loss to Fnatic, is Febiven. Rounding out the roster in the top lane is Solo who, according to the calculations, was the best performing top laner in the NA CS of last split having played for GCU. Similar to Licorice, we will have to wait and see if he can translate his performance from the NA CS to the NA LCS. Because of this, his score was also penalized.

Player of Interest: Lira

It’s been known for awhile that Lira is a monster in the jungle. If Clutch Gaming wants to succeed, Lira is going to have to step it up and continue his dominance in the jungle. Thankfully, coming with him is his old bot lane, so we can expect jungle-bot synergy to remain intact. However, with a new top laner who performed rather well in the Challenger series and an experienced veteran to replace Nisqy — who actually performed quite well for them — Lira will have less of a burden to carry the team as he will potentially now have two reliable solo lanes. Hopefully, Lira will be able to go above and beyond now that he has less holding him back.

Summary: With a new roster and an improved logo, FlyQuest lands in a questionable 7th place. Even though FlyQuest acquired a newly invigorated Flame and retained WildTurtle, they acquired two rookies, and a LCK mid laner who had consistency issues. FlyQuest was the most difficult to properly place. Their support, Stunt, had good showings during his short time in Phoenix1, but hasn’t showed competitive play in almost a whole split. Their jungler is a rookie who has had no recent competitive matches. Their mid laner seems to flip-flop on how well he performs — noting his last LCK split where KT had heartbreaking losses that resulted in them missing Worlds 2016 after a relatively successful year. It should also be noted that Stunt has his score penalized for missing a split, and Anda was given a score of 100 as a placeholder.

Players of Interest: Fly and Anda

Fly isn’t completely unproven, the fact that he finished 2nd and 3rd place in LCK with KT Rolster in 2016 means that he can definitely hold his own. The unknown factor is if Fly can be consistent; if he can maintain a high level of performance, FlyQuest will have two strong solo lanes. However, if Fly retains his consistency issues, it’ll be difficult to say where they land, but it will probably be within the bottom half of the league.

Anda is a complete wildcard for FlyQuest. We know that he was a sub on Immortals so there must be some form of top-jungle synergy, and he must have learned quite a bit under Xmithie and Ssong’s wings. Unfortunately, there isn’t anything statistical to deduce from stories. Similar to Fly, if Anda flops in the LCS, FlyQuest will be in a problematic situation.

Summary: Echo Fox has the potential to finish either very high or very low. Huni has had stellar performances during his time on Immortals, however he struggled a bit during his time on SKT. Dardoch is a very gifted jungler, but his personality has clashed with every team he’s been on and because of the toxic environment, his teams haven’t performed well overall. In the mid lane, we have a familiar face in Fenix. It’s been awhile since we’ve seen Fenix in the LCS, but he has had great plays during his time on Team Liquid and continued to perform when he was in the Challenger Series. Retaining their synergy, Dignitas’ bot lane moves to Echo Fox. Bottom line, Altec and Adrian were a good and consistent bot lane. Individually, everyone seems very talented, but the major problem is how well the team is going to mesh. It’s known that Huni, Dardoch, and Fenix are all very vocal players; how well this translates to teamwork and synergy is the biggest determining factor that Echo Fox’s coach, Peter, is going to have to handle.

Players of Interest: Dardoch and Huni

Dardoch has been known to have issues mixing well with players. He’s gone through so many teams during his short career all due to this problem. While he is extremely skilled, the determining factor on how well Echo Fox performs is really dependent how well Dardoch’s personality is controlled; a toxic environment is going to result in bad placement regardless of how skilled this team is.

Huni is a very talented player, but also extremely vocal, as seen on his time in Immortals and SKT. This personality can either work well with Dardoch, or completely fall apart with Dardoch. He didn’t show great performances during his time in SKT, in fact, it was unsure if he would even be the one chosen to go to Worlds. His play style could also make or break Echo Fox since Huni has been seen to either carry or drown his team. SKT did a decent job and controlling him, but with Peter as Echo Fox’s coach, I’m skeptical to how controlled Huni will be — not to mention Dardoch.

Summary: This team is overall very average; in fact, three of their players are either average or below. Optic acquired a powerful midlaner in PowerOfCash…I mean PowerOfEvil, but the rest of the team is rather bland and confusing. Zig was a decent top laner, but by no means was he amazing. Akaadian has had signs of a very good player, but has been inconsistent. Arrow just came off a rather poor split, and putting him in a bot lane with LemonNation seems like a clash in play style when compared to his past supports, Xpecial and Stunt.

Players of Interest: Everyone

Everyone really needs to step up for Optic to perform well or at least not be overtaken by the last seeded team. Akaadian and PoE need to build new synergy together that was better than, or at least on par with, Akaadian and Froggen’s. Arrow needs to consistently carry and get on page with LemonNation (or vice versa). Zig needs to up his performance from last year; while he wasn’t really ever a weak link to Phoenix1, he never really carried either. There’s a lot of room for improvement, so if you’re a glass-half-full kind of person — rejoice, but if you’re not, well…

Summary: Finishing in last place, is Golden Guardians. Golden Guardians’ roster is rather underwhelming on paper aside from Contractz — they’re statistically the worst team. Lourlo and Matt haves been reliable and consistent teammates, but average for the most part. Hai is known for his strategy and shot-calling, but his mechanics aren’t anything to brag about. Rounding out their team is Deftly in the “Ad” Carry position. While he performed decently in the NA CS, he wasn’t extremely outstanding. Deftly’s final score was penalized for being a rookie. Even though Golden Guardians is worse than Optic Gaming statistics-wise, they do have more potential with Hai, Contractz, and an unproven AD Carry.

Players of Interest: Hai and Contractz

It would be wrong to ever count Hai’s team out. Last time Hai was on a new team, many people placed them last as well. While FlyQuest didn’t ever make a miracle run like when Hai was on Cloud 9, they were certainly quite far from last — finishing in respectable places after playoffs in both splits. Hai will be in charge of molding his new teammates, especially Deftly, into carry potential players. Never count the man out.

Contractz has synergy with Hai, having played on Cloud 9 Challenger before they became FlyQuest. With Hai’s shot-calling, and a world class jungler in Contractz, it would absolutely be these two to carry Golden Guardians across the finish line. While they may have a slow start, it’s very possible that with the efforts in and out of game between the two of them, they could finish well above last place.

6 - Conclusion

There is a lot of volatility in the power rankings and many teams are within each other’s grasps. However, it seems that the original four will be at the top of the standings at the end of split. There’s no doubt that this will be the most competitive split in NA LCS history, so regardless — as a League Of Legends fan — I’m extremely excited for when split starts on January 20th. #C9WIN