Welcome to the LCS Playoffs Power Ranking! Which team will make it through the grueling gauntlet and take the Summer Split? Which teams will make it to Worlds 2020? In this article, we will try to estimate the power of all the respective teams and highlight the key players.
“When Playoffs start, every player that’s there understands that everything is on the line…”
The 2020 #LCS Summer Playoffs begin tomorrow at 1PM PT / 10PM CEST!
🎵: “Push It (Remix) ft. @tinie & @PUSHA_T” by @WHOiSHi pic.twitter.com/mIdHoujQB9
— LCS (@LCSOfficial) August 12, 2020
1. Cloud9
Despite a weak second half of the split, C9 has looked the best when hitting their peaks. Their form at the start of the split showcased a level of aggression and control that isn’t often seen within the LCS, and if they can return to this form for playoffs they should be able to net themselves another Split victory.
Note for playoffs 📋 ✍️ #LCS pic.twitter.com/2dEhnvQKZb
— Cloud9 (@Cloud9) August 9, 2020
Their shaky play recently seems to be tied to Robert “Blaber” Huang having less of an early game impact. If they can utilize his aggressive playstyles and adjust their drafts to have more priority, they are still our favourites to take this and become back to back LCS champions.
2. Team Liquid
The winner of the regular Split, TL has looked reinvigorated as the split progressed. While initially it felt like they picked up wins just cause their opponents were nice enough to give them to them, they have come into their own playstyle and seem closer and closer to the behemoth they were previous to Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng.
Relying mostly on the star power of their support Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in and their playoff clutch player Jung “Impact” Eon-yeong, TL still has to convince me that that they have truly won back their position as favorites for the Playoffs.
3. Team SoloMid
Ah, TSM. The team that always finds a way to get hyped up, shows a little bit of promise, and then sinks back into a comfortable spot somewhere between 3rd and 6th place. For TSM fans, I hope that this season will be different.
We are better than we showed today, we will prove it in playoffs.
Thanks for following our journey ♥️
— Søren Bjerg (@Bjergsen) August 10, 2020
Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg is the player to watch here, combined with the return of ADC Doublelift. While slightly better than Flyquest in terms of ceiling, the fact that they are still seemingly very reliant on Bjergsen popping off.
4. FlyQuest
Flyquest is an interesting team to watch. While often falling short against the very strongest teams within the League, their players have been looking better and better, with veterans like Jason “WildTurtle” Tran and Tristan “PowerOfEvil” Schrage, as well as new up and coming talent Colin “Solo” Earnest.
While solid, I am not sure if they have the clutch factor to make it further than semi’s – they do seem somewhat reliant on snowballing games which will be harder against the top half of the bracket.
5/6. Evil Geniuses / 100 Thieves
An arguably more controversial placing, both Evil Geniuses and 100 Thieves suffer from pretty severe consistency problems. However, Evil Geniuses has shown in the Spring Split that they receive a pretty solid playoffs buff and the return of the dynamic duo Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen and Greyson “Goldenglue” Gilmer has proven extremely successful for them. Combine that with the experience of World Champion Bae “Bang” Jun-Sik, and I expect EG to make it at least through the first round.
Pre-game spirit bombs with the boys > pic.twitter.com/tzgf6ShtK2
— 100 Thieves (@100Thieves) August 7, 2020
100T on the other hand is a team where I see big ideas and talented players, but the execution can feel extremely haphazard and once things go south, they really implode (Philippe “Poome” Lavoie-Giguere and his 0/10 Nautilus game is a good example). However, we prefer coinflip high potential teams over the more stable, but less proactive ones.
7/8. Golden Guardians / Dignitas
GG has a lot of redeeming factors., despite their recent losses. Can “Closer” Çelik at his best can match some of the strongest junglers in the League, and the fact that no other team thought to give local talent Tanner “Damonte” Damonte a starting spot is a worrying sign for the LCS ecosystem as a whole. However, their drafts can be somewhat of a liability if they don’t snowball properly, and in recent head to heads against EG and TSM they didn’t look as convincing.
Our early-game was strong, but we couldn’t close it out before we got out-scaled. Rough game all around but we finish out the season 9-9. GGWP @EvilGeniuses.
We’ll be learning from these losses and we’ll see you all in playoffs. pic.twitter.com/wbmZh6BKwZ
— Golden Guardians (@GoldenGuardians) August 8, 2020
Dignitas does not have a lot of redeeming factors. The team has seem lost, not finding a specific playstyle that works for them, making repeated large scale macro mistakes and we are unsure whether their biggest enemy is the team they are playing against or Baron Nashor. While there seems upset potential for a lot of the other playoff teams, it feels like Dignitas is so far behind the rest that they are not expected to really perform during these playoffs.
That concludes our Power Ranking for the LCS Playoffs! Who do you think is going to end up with first place? Join the discussion on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or our Discord!
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