LCS Spring Split 2021 - Power Rankings (Week 5)
Dignitas have shaken up the upper half of the standings tying themselves with Team SoloMid at second place. Cloud9 still remain the number one team in the League of Legends Champion Series (LCS), but two losses versus Team Liquid have begun to sow the seeds of concern.
Week 5 wasn’t all too special, apart from Dignitas continuing their impressive play. Team Liquid still has the best early-game in the league but look shaky, and Evil Geniuses are completely disjointed. As for the rest of the league, it’s essentially the same; there is no specific team that has made leaps and bounds this late into the split.
With that being said, here are our power rankings for the fifth week of the LCS Spring Split’s regular season.
#1 Cloud9 (+0)
They started the week just like they have any other week with a strong win over FlyQuest. After that, it was all downhill from there. Cloud9 once again lost the battle against Team Liquid and had a major meltdown versus Team SoloMid — they had leads in both of these games. That Team SoloMid loss is especially horrendous seeing the massive lead they built for Robert "Blaber" Huang, as he and the rest of Cloud9 set Mingyi "Spica" Lu behind. It was a three-level gap lead for Blaber in the first five to six minutes of the game. There was ample opportunity to win that game, but they didn’t play towards their win condition and lost.
They tried new things, such as the Caitlyn put alongside a ranged support to create a pushing style which did gain them leads but couldn’t translate well later on. Luka “Perkz” Perkovic had a subpar series of games this past week, and the rest of his team wasn’t that behind either.
Hopefully, another late-season meltdown like last summer doesn’t occur again.
#2 Team SoloMid (+0)
Team SoloMid has a weak strength of schedule coming up, besides Evil Geniuses. Even though they have been up and down and their start to the split was lacklustre, they have massively improved. As opposed to Team Liquid, who’s under them in the standings, their early game is weak. This has led to a couple of losses on their record; it takes away from them being as dominant as they could possibly be. It’s no secret either; the players themselves talk about it on post-game interviews. This team is certainly deserving of their spot and don’t throw games like other teams, but they’re still missing a few tweaks.
Their drafting still needs to get there; they often draft losing matchups. Their match versus Cloud9 is a prime example of this as Cloud9 had priority essentially everywhere, but it ended up not mattering anyways.
#3 Dignitas (+1)
If it wasn’t for Team SoloMid having more wins against better teams, Dignitas would have gotten the second spot on this list. They have been and are impressive. This team is better than the sum of their parts. Throughout the season and the split, they have improved massively. Max “Soligo” Soong and Aaron “FakeGod” Lee are different players compared to the last time they were on the LCS. FakeGod used to lose the laning phase significantly, and now that’s no longer the case. Toan “Neo” Tran is playing well with Zaqueri ”aphromoo” Black down in the bottom lane, and aphromoo is having one of his stronger seasons yet.
The hype train that wasn’t even a train, and it’s moving on full speed ahead; they just keep winning. To be fair, the majority of their wins have been against teams under them, but they’re in second place. Dignitas haven’t beaten all of the top teams, but they are still deserving of their spot in the standings.
#4 Team Liquid (+1)
We know the potential of this team, and we’ve seen it. But there’s never stable ground; it’s always shaky. The gears aren’t always fully turning. There’s always a problem that can be spotted, be it individual mistakes, poor laning or even just all around poor team play. They are still the best team statistically in the early game, but that doesn’t matter when you have flubs along the way.
#5 100 Thieves (-2)
The Thieves subbed in Tommy “Ryoma” Le in place of Tanner “Damonte” Damonte, and it left much to be desired; the difference wasn’t discernable. He’s been fine, the losses weren’t his fault, but he also didn’t take over games, translating them into wins. This poses a significant problem for them. With Damonte, they had an identity, at least in the earlier portions of the season. Now with Ryoma, what is their playstyle? They certainly didn’t have those impressive early-game dives or strong lane presence; it was just all a passive early-game. Sure, Ryoma is better on the control mages compared to Damonte, but that isn’t enough. This team is just a lesser version of Team Liquid, and they don’t even have the tremendous ceiling that Team Liquid have.
#6 Evil Geniuses (+0)
They’ve been a little bit risky as of late, alongside having shaky games. You can also pinpoint Svenskeren specifically. His Dr Mundo and Hecarim games were certainly eyebrow raisers during the early game. They beat 100 Thieves and lost to both Immortals and Dignitas. 100 Thieves is narrowly above them and have been tied in the standings with them. While immortals have been quite a ways down in the past weeks. This is concerning.
#7 Immortals (+0)
This team still doesn’t have an identity, but they somehow have a decent number of wins under their belt. They’ve punched above, defeating Evil Geniuses last week, but that isn’t that big of a feat seeing Evil Geniuses’ current makeup. Like we said last week, no significant improvement and no significant decrease in play.
#8 FlyQuest (+0)
Although we did say they were improving in last week’s power rankings, there was a halt to that this past week. They claimed themselves one win against a Counter Logic Gaming who’s been below them all season and long and lost outright to Cloud9 and Immortals, who are just better teams.
#9 Counter Logic Gaming (+0)
Their last few games have been promising, even though they’ve been eliminated from playoff contention. Their hard work of constantly practising with little to no breaks seemed to pay off. Also, one factor that sometimes people rule out is Eugene “Pobelter” Park. This team is 1-8 without him but 3-3 with him, something to consider.
It’s a good sight to see this team begin to turn it around in the later stages of the split, and it just gets us excited for their upcoming performances in the Summer Split.
#10 Golden Guardians (+0)
Not much to say here, a team filled with young players and one veteran. They had an eyebrow-raising Pantheon pick in which they did nothing with and proceeded to lose all of their games this week. Only time will tell how this team will change.
Images via Riot Games