English language commentary's LPL awards

The League of Legends Pro League 2017 Spring season has concluded, and playoffs are underway with massive upsets in the first round. On the first day of playoffs, QG Reapers’ Kim “Doinb” Taesang received the MVP award for leading a team of rookies to several wins and dealing a large amount of his team’s damage.

Riot Oceania’s English language LPL broadcast team and Yahoo Esports’ Kelsey Moser took the opportunity to look back on the regular season. Using the NA and EU LCS awards as a guideline, we assessed the split’s best performers taking only the regular season into account. Because there are only four contributors — Indiana “Froskurinn” Black, Barento “Razleplasm” Hohammed, Zack “Rusty” Pye, and Kelsey — only one individual was rewarded in each category, but votes by each contributor are made visible.

All LPL Team

Kelsey and the casters all voted for three candidates in each category and tallied the votes, weighted by first, second, and third.

Top Lane: Invictus Gaming’s Lee “Duke” Hoseong

Although Invictus Gaming found themselves eliminated in the first round of playoffs, Duke contributed an astounding 21.5% of his team’s damage, acted as a consistent side-laning threat, and brought a heavy champion pool to the forefront. One of his greatest strengths came through in team fight flanking, and he almost always seemed to build a lead over the opposing top laner because of his dedication to split-pushing.

“Although iG would have issues in teamfights,” Razleplasm said, “Duke was a shining light in how they were set up. It feels as if there were no comms errors.”

It’s worth noting votes were somewhat divided. Duke only barely edged out ahead of QG Reapers rookie Kan “Kabe” Homan, whose Shen struck surprising fear into the hearts of his opponents.

Jungle: Team WE’s Xiang “Condi” Renjie

The jungle vote was one of the few easy choices. Condi’s ability to identify and play around pressure lanes, come up with creative jungle starts, and consistently act as a terrifying threat in mid and late game teamfights made him the unanimous first pick for best jungler in the LPL.

Condi finished with an impressive 68.6% kill participation and counterjungling repertoire. WE’s key to success was drafting strong solo lanes to give Condi the opening to invade; that will continue to be the case in playoffs.

The runner-up jungler also ended up being a unanimous decision. With a single roster change, Chen “World6” Yutian set Oh My God on track to place second in their group and claim a semifinal bye. World6 deserves a mention for his aggressive and intelligent play.

Mid: Invictus Gaming’s Song “Rookie” Euijin

It’s obvious from the votes below that mid lane was the most difficult position to rank. Winning this award means a great deal, as mid lane was probably the most stacked role in the LPL this split.

In weighted vote, Rookie and EDward Gaming’s Lee “Scout” Yechan received an equal number of points, but Rookie received two votes for first place, and Scout only received one, yielding the award to Rookie.

Rookie has performed well above his competition in the LPL for more than a year now, intimidating his opposition in lane. He is ranked second among mid laners for percentage of team damage at 29.8% and accrued a staggering 416 Gold Per Minute. Invictus Gaming relied upon Rookie heavily to keep them in the top six of the league, and their junglers tend to look for opportunities to gank his lane and let him carry.

Scout has become the star of EDward Gaming in the wake of Kim “Deft” Hyukkyu’s departure and Ming “Clearlove” Kai’s absence. He consistently transitions his mid lane advantages into bottom lane ganks to open the map and start EDward Gaming’s fast-paced turret-taking game.

ADC: Oh My God’s Han “S1mlz” Jin

Having spent several splits in AD carry limbo, performing well in laning phase, but struggling with teamfight positioning and contributing to consistent carry threat, Smlz has risen to the top. He has finally lived up to the hype.

Whether it’s Kog’Maw or a utility carry, Smlz can play it. Oh My God got the most out of pairing Smlz with kill-lane oriented supports and snowballing, giving them the bot-centric identity they never had at their peak. Smlz is famous in the scene for a lack of outward expression. He makes up for it in his ability to take over a game.

All contributors to the ranking agreed on the main high performing AD carries, but the order was notably split. Jian “Uzi” Zihao and Jin “Mystic” Seongjun both stood out in laning and teamfighting, but perhaps lost points because they weren’t the stars of their teams in the same way Smlz was.

Support: EDward Gaming’s Tian “Meiko” Ye

When Clearlove took a step back, Meiko took the reigns. As the new captain and leader of EDward Gaming, Meiko has helped reform a team with less star power into a squad that remains in contention for yet another LPL title.

Meiko’s ability to control the lane and open up teamfights with playmaking champions made him a unanimous choice for best support in the LPL and an easy contender for MVP of the entire league. Razleplasm referred to him as “absolutely oppressive in lane.” With EDG’s early turret takes, it’s hard to disagree.

Rookie of the Split: Royal Never Give Up’s Shi “Ming” Senming and QG Reapers’ Kan “Kabe” Homan

Rookies flew in and out of starting lineups throughout the regular season as teams moved to flesh out identities, but two very obvious candidates took to the LPL like they were born for it. RNG’s Ming fills Cho “Mata” Sehyeong’s shoes as near-completely as one can fill the shoes of one of the game’s legends.

He complements Uzi in the laning phase, makes unconventional picks like Leona work, and has taken over the shot-calling role of the team with only a year of experience in the Secondary Pro League. Under his leadership, Royal Never Give Up topped their group.

Kabe gave the LPL much-needed top lane depth. He rubbed shoulders with the most dominant in the role in his rookie season and became the undisputed best Shen player in the league. QG’s struggles came from trying to play around Kabe with an inconsistent bottom lane and poor side lane control, but the shortcomings didn’t seem to arrive through Kabe’s individual play.

Teamplay Assessment

Rather than provide a “Coach of the Split” award like the LCS voting has chosen to do, we decided to award teams for a few strategic elements more holistically. These awards come to teams based on what can be observed in game rather than forcing us to guess at what contribution coaches provide without a full picture.

Best drafting: Royal Never Give Up

Part of Royal Never Give Up’s success in topping their group came from understanding their strengths. As a lane-dominant 1-3-1 team, RNG get the most out of strong lane matchups, which they manage to gain consistently.

Outside a fluke Week 1, RNG also adapt well between games, understanding what they have to change up. They’ve managed to execute a variety of different compositions and understand their win conditions well.

Best surprise: Oh My God

While many of the casters didn’t expect Royal Never Give Up to wow Group A as much as they did, Oh My God’s year spent with two splits ending in the Promotion Tournament made them the larger shock. One single roster change in the jungle for ex-Vici Gaming’s World6 finally allowed OMG’s long-term investment to pay off, and the team rocketed to second place in a more competitive group.

Most adaptable: Royal Never Give Up

What really tipped the scales is the champion pools RNG’s players boast. With a wide arsenal of champion choices, RNG have played an array of compositions, tailoring strategy after losses and bringing out picks that counter what the opposing team wants to do.

RNG also bounce back well after losses. Perhaps their biggest failing in adaptation comes from an inability to adapt in game when they lose an advantage on Liu “Mlxg” Shiyu or are unable to snowball lanes properly.

Of course, their biggest sign of adaptability came when they subbed out two of their stars, Uzi and Mlxg, and barely skipped a beat.

Some contributors also took the mid season turnarounds made by teams like QG Reapers, I May, and Snake Esports into an account as a factor for adaptability.

MVP: QG Reapers’ Kim “Doinb” Taesang

Given how divisive and how important this particular category is, each contributor provided his own justification. Doinb, Condi, and Meiko all tied in point totals, but with two votes for #1, Doinb took the spot. Razleplasm and Kelsey favored more in-game impact, while Froskurinn and Rusty inspected statistical contribution and leadership role.

“On a team that struggled against the elite,” Froskurinn said, “DoinB took almost every MVP when given the chance. He is the heart and soul of QG and through his play and shotcalling has lead them by the hand to a possible first place finish.”

“Number 1 at their roles” Razleplasm said, referring to his top three candidates, “but team and game impact is what separated the three. Condi went above and beyond at creating leads and keeping them in a game with game-saving baron steals that would forgive past team transgressions.”

“DoinB, MVP meaning most valuable,” Rusty said. “Without DoinB there is no QG in its current state, and they’re winning!”

For Kelsey, Meiko has been the key playmaker of EDward Gaming for more than a year. His vision setups facilitate the duo lane’s transition between lanes and jungle invades. He roams mid to snowball Scout. Taking over the leadership role from Clearlove and keeping a downgraded roster competitive for first place is only the window-dressing that cements him as MVP of the league.

You can follow Kelsey Moser on Twitter @karonmoser.