2017 NA LCS Spring Playoff Power Rankings

After Counter Logic Gaming’s unexpected second-place finish at the 2016 Mid-Season Invitational, North American League of Legends fans’ belief in the improbable has risen. Whichever of these six teams travel to Brazil under the NA banner, they will have the support of a self-deprecating region that always holds a small glimmer of hope in their hearts, however dire the situation may look.

This spring has been one of parity and uncertainty, where any team could take a series off another and it wouldn’t be shocking. With the way that NA has chugged along this season, any of these teams could wind up representing the region at the 2017 Mid-Season Invitational. Consider this a ranking of how likely it will be to see them there, presented in reverse order.

Sixth: Team Dignitas

In Week 1 of the 2017 NA LCS Spring, Dignitas looked well on their way to becoming a top-tier team. Their series against Cloud9, closing out the first week of competitive play this year, was the strongest of that week. Kim “Ssumday” Chan-ho impressed on one of his favorites, Maokai, and seemed poised to lead Dignitas with his strong initiation sense and teamfight targeting.

Unfortunately, it was not meant to be.

Dignitas’ opponents began to target Ssumday heavily both in draft and in lane. Neither mid laner Jang “Keane” Lae-young nor AD carry Benjamin “LOD” deMunck picked up the mantle of primary carry, and Dignitas faltered when Ssumday was unable to carry them.

Jungler Lee “Chaser” Sang-hyun has returned to his “Jin Air Chaser” form, meaning that he takes early-game risks to get his team or himself ahead, but falters in the mid game. Likely, a lot of this can be attributed to a lack of communication and the general, well-worn struggle of hybrid rosters.

However, some of this is simply Chaser himself. He still doesn’t always grasp where applying his pressure would do the most good, and seemingly doesn’t communicate with his team to set up cross-map plays. His risks also don’t always pay off. Sometimes they simply give advantages to Dignitas’ opponents, further hindering their progress come mid-game.

Dignitas will face Phoenix1 first, a team that, prior to swapping around their supports, looked like the best team in NA at times.Ssumday will face off once more against his former KT Rolster teammate Noh “Arrow” Dong-hyeon, one of the best players in the region. Although P1 seem to be having troubles of their own, Dignitas still doesn’t look organized enough to overtake them.

Fifth: FlyQuest

Relying on the core of former Cloud9 stalwarts An “Balls” Le, Hai “Hai” Du Lam, and Daerek “LemonNation” Hart along with former Gravity Gaming, NRG eSports, and C9 Challenger AD carry Johnny “Altec” Ru, FlyQuest’s roster was near-universally panned when it was announced. The prevailing sentiment was that, considering the money and backing of their new Milwaukee Bucks ownership, they could have inquired after better talent.

Instead, this was the FlyQuest roster, with jungler Galen “Moon” Holgate added in the eleventh hour to complete the starting five.

As if to prove their doubters wrong, FlyQuest started off 6-2 in the first four weeks of the split. However, the back half of the split told a different story. FlyQuest could rely on their strong communication and Hai’s direction to take them through the first half of the season — while other rosters were still sorting out their roles and comm systems — but teams inevitably caught up and surpassed them. In the final five weeks of the split, FlyQuest went 3-7 in series with a 30 percent overall win rate.

FlyQuest love to cheese their opponents. Support Maokai and Blitzcrank, bot lane Mordekaiser, mid lane Jarvan IV, and jungle Evelynn (a comfort pick for Moon) are a few of the unconventional champion choices that FlyQuest have trotted onto the Rift this split.

Cheesing isn’t a bad thing, and it’s something that can keep opponents at bay for a time. The difficulty of preparing for FlyQuest is something that upcoming quarterfinals adversary Zaqueri “Aphromoo” Black has lamented on several occasions.

However, the problem with this strategy is that a team has to have multiple cheese compositions or flex around their own unorthodox picks. FlyQuest has yet to showcase the flexibility required to win series on a consistent basis in best-of-threes. In a best-of-five, there’s more time for their opponent to adjust and overcome. Coupled with this is the fact that FlyQuest have been inattentive to their side lanes at times, and have been unable to make anything out of split pressure without sending Hai to a side lane rather than Balls.

FlyQuest aren’t a bad team, but they’ve likely gone as far as they can go. Even if they manage to overcome CLG this weekend, TSM will prove a much tougher adversary, one that they weren’t able beat in the regular season.

Fourth: Counter Logic Gaming

CLG took the opposite path of their quarterfinals opponent, FlyQuest. Having retained their entire 2016 roster, CLG was expected to have a similarly strong start and fade towards the end of the split.

Instead, they did the reverse.

The new meta did not suit CLG. Trevor “Stixxay” Hayes’ impact was muted on champions like Ashe and Varus while initiation duties were removed from Aphromoo and placed in the hands of top laner Darshan “Darshan” Upadhyaha. CLG were disjointed, awkward, and always bloody. Although they ended 2017 NA LCS Spring with the highest combined kills per minute of any team (0.83), they also regularly fell behind early with an average of a 674 gold deficit to their opponents at 15 minutes. They were one of the worst teams in the league to take down the first three outer turrets and had the worst (a meager 48.1 percent) jungle control of any team in the league.

Halfway through the split, the meta shifted enough for CLG to return to their preferred roles. The team has looked much better because of this; however, they still struggle with leveraging split pressure provided by Darshan without losing elsewhere on the map and also make risky calls in the mid to late game that cost them any early advantages.

Funneling gold into Stixxay, especially on the likes of Lucian and Caitlyn, is always a safe backup for CLG. Stixxay receives the most of his team’s farm past 15 minutes of any AD carry in NA at 29.3 percent, nearly a third of his team’s available CS. CLG also have the benefit of playoff experience and strong communication. It wouldn’t be shocking to see CLG represent NA at MSI again, but it’s unlikely. There’s a higher chance that they’ll beat FlyQuest before falling to TSM in the semifinals.

Third: Phoenix1

A few weeks ago, Phoenix1 were in contention with Team SoloMid for the best team in North America.

Since then, they’ve experimented with their bottom lane — swapping William “Stunt” Chen for Jordan “Shady” Robison — while continuing to swap between William “Meteos” Hartman and Rami “Inori” Charagh in the jungle.

Now, many wonder if they’ll be able to knock off Dignitas in the quarterfinals.

P1 have swapped between their two junglers all split, first due to Inori flying home for a week (necessitating an emergency substitute in Meteos), then based on performance. Inori is a risk-taker, and when these risks don’t pay off, he falls further behind as he tries to right them by taking more risks. Meteos is a far more stable option and opens up carry opportunities for mid laner Yoo “Ryu” Sang-ook in mid, but lacks the same highs that Inori can have on damage carry junglers like Rengar and Kha’Zix.

Above all, P1 have been flexible. Top laner Derek “zig” Shao can pivot between carries and tanks with ease depending on what the team needs from him. Ryu’s experience makes him similarly flexible and he had some impressive Talon and Ahri games in the back half of the split. AD carry Noh “Arrow” Dong-hyeon has been the standout talent of the region, dazzling in skirmishes and teamfights, visibly carrying the team to victory at times. Their assembly of players allows P1 to execute a variety of compositions, choosing different lanes to carry each time. Ryu, Arrow, and Meteos all have significant competitive experience and are likely behind P1’s strong understanding of objective trading and cross-map movement.

Prior to their final week, P1 were the smartest NA team about where and when to apply pressure. Now, late-season roster moves and their winless Week 9 performance have cast significant doubt on P1’s chances. P1 could make it to the finals, or even take it all, but recent troubles against both TSM and C9 make that scenario less likely.

Second: Cloud9

Alongside Team SoloMid, Cloud9 are a staple of the NA LCS semifinals and finals. The only move that C9 made in the offseason was promoting Juan “Contractz” Arturo Garcia from their challenger side (now FlyQuest) to the starting jungle spot on their LCS team.

It was a good move. Contractz is a talented and aggressive jungler who shone in the first few weeks of the split. Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen continues to be a top mid in the region. AD carry Zachary “Sneaky” Scuderi is as steady as ever. C9 has swapped between top laners Jung “Impact” Eon-yeong and Jeon “Ray” Ji-won, and Ray’s coordination with the team has improved although Impact is still the stronger option.

Despite Contractz’s talent, he’s still a rookie and therefore makes a lot of mistakes. Some of these could be covered up with better mid and jungle synergy, something that Jensen and Contractz have struggled with throughout the split. Jensen is one of the strongest laners in NA, but he sometimes tunnels on the lane itself rather than coordinating pushes and vision with Contractz. On C9C, Contractz and Hai were a formidable duo of dive buddies, willing to make risky plays that usually paid off due to their synergy. Jensen is a steadier and more focused laner, which doesn’t always suit Contractz’s reckless nature.

This is why C9’s early game can sometimes look so disjointed, especially since both Contractz and Jensen have settled into farming patterns, leaving the team open to more proactive movements from their opponents. C9 usually make this up in their mid to late game movements, when they can fight their adversaries with Jensen’s farm and experience advantages.

Andy “Smoothie” Ta has actually been the breakout star of C9 this split. Although Jensen, Contractz, Sneaky, and Impact own the highlights, Smoothie’s smart engage sense makes C9 teamfights happen and his follow-up CC ensures that C9 wins.

If P1 hadn’t crashed in the final week of the regular season split, they may have taken over the second-place spot in this power ranking. C9 have many visible issues that can only be fixed with time. The question is whether two weeks preparation is enough.

First: Team SoloMid

Team SoloMid remain the favorite to move on to the 2017 NA LCS Spring Finals and represent the region at MSI.

Although TSM were heavily criticized for picking up former AD carry Jason “Wildturtle” Tran to take the place of Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng, there was little doubt that they would make playoffs, or even take a top-two spot in the regular season. The primary criticism of the Wildturtle choice was laziness, not a lowered expectation of their success.

TSM’s weakest link this split has not been Wildturtle as some may have anticipated, but Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen, whose uncreative pathing has made him an easy target for some of NA’s more aggressive junglers. Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg has mitigated some of the damage, but has also seemingly felt the strain of holding the mid lane in the few situations where TSM find themselves behind early.

This is where Kevin “Hauntzer” Yarnell comes in.

The 2017 NA LCS Spring Split has also been the split of Hauntzer, an overall MVP candidate for the season. Hauntzer has improved his 1v1 laning significantly — not being set behind due to botched laneswaps helps — and has often turned 1v2 dives from TSM’s opponents into favorable kill leads for himself. Finally, TSM seem to be happy diverting resources to the top lane. At 22.7 percent(tied for second with Wildturtle), Hauntzer received a larger percentage of TSM’s gold this split than any TSM top in 2015-16. Svenskeren has also played more towards the top side than TSM’s junglers have in previous seasons, allowing Hauntzer additional advantages and openings for TSM to completely take over the top side jungle.

As the season has worn on, TSM have improved by the week. This is bad news for teams looking to take them down, especially their future semifinals opponent CLG or FlyQuest. It’s not impossible for C9, P1, or even CLG or FlyQuest to beat TSM, it’s just improbable.

Emily Rand’s love of the 2013 KT Rolster Bullets will never die. Talk to her about League and more on Twitter @leagueofemily