The LCS is truly in full swing. With six games plus the Lock In tournament, the true identities of many of the LCS teams are starting to show through. It is safe to say that week two brought plenty of surprises with it including two teams that unexpectedly 3-0’ed their weekend. There are also no undefeated teams heading into week three. It feels like the parody of the league is certainly starting to come about. That or the LCS really is full of clown fiesta teams. For many LCS fans, they are hoping for the former.
With that, The Game Haus has decided to put the teams into tiers instead of power ranking them. Context will still be provided as per usual but the hope is that it will help to explain which teams are more even than the rankings might have shown before.
[Related: LCS Power Rankings Week 2: Living on Cloud9]
While it may be weird to have a tier with no teams here, for S Tier, teams really need to be at the top of their game. Even the best of the LCS are not in this tier. At least, not yet. This is reserved for the teams that truly belong and can prove that they will be able to maybe find success outside of the LCS. For now, this will remain empty but there may be weeks that teams make it up here. The question will be, can they stay?
Cloud9 even with a loss to Evil Geniuses still sit at the top of the LCS and for good reason. They will drop games here and there but their play has been pretty solid overall. They also finally started to see the Perkz that everyone was hoping for this past weekend. His Zoe was on point and a big reason why they were able to hand 100T their first loss of the season. If there is a team that can make it to S Tier, even by next week, C9 are that team. Once all the pieces are truly comfortable and working in tandem, this will be a team that sets the standard for the rest of the LCS.
Even with a loss to Cloud 9, 100 Thieves still deserve to be here. They have played really well so far this season and even though their games can be a bit chaotic, it feels almost like a controlled chaos. There are those who are a bit worried about Ssumday, but do not worry friends. This man is still amongst the league leaders in laning stats and he is playing weak side. Instead, they should be happy, this is what Ssumday fans have been hoping for, he doesn’t have to do all the carrying to win the game. Right now 100Thieves are all about the bot side and FBI and Huhi are living up to the challenge to carry. While they are not the most polished team, they are certainly fun to watch and their talent is really starting to show.
After a terrible start, many started to worry that TSM might be in for a pretty long Spring split. Well, almost overnight this team went from possibly being one of the worst in the LCS to one of the best. All it seemed to take was cleaner comms, clearer goals and much better drafting. Fans shouldn’t forget that the Golden Guardians game was still closer than it should have been but TSM seem to be finding their rhythm. What they will have to do to make it up to the top three though is show that they can do it consistently. Having one good weekend does not make up for the first week and the Lock In tournament. This coming week will be an important one for TSM as they have EG, 100T and DIG. If they can sweep again then TSM fans can really get excited. If they even go 1-2 then it is back to the drawing board.
What a surprising weekend for Team Liquid. They were thought by many to be the best team in the LCS and then back to back losses to TSM and 100Thieves and a random drop to Immortals stopped that train of thought right in its tracks. As the Lock In tournament winners, there was an expectation that they would continue to get better. Instead, they are having weird draft mistakes and have struggled to find a counter to teams learning to keep Tactical and CoreJJ in check. If this keeps happening then they need Jensen to show up. Going 2/6/21 in three games is not getting it done. Team Liquid are a good team but they need to show the ability to adapt better than they have, otherwise they will get to sit in the middle of the pack.
If someone had asked what an NA rebuild should look like they may have picked FlyQuest or Golden Guardians but probably not Dignitas. As the only all NA team, Dignitas are showing everyone what giving NA talent a chance can do. So far FakeGod, Soligo and Neo are absolutely showing up, Neo especially. Maybe it is because aphromoo is god-tier at helping young bot laners like he did with Johnsun? Maybe DIG are great at finding young bot lane talent? Whatever it is, they are looking like they are two for their last two. This team is on a mission to prove everyone wrong. They were thought to be the worst or one of the worst teams coming into the season but that chip on their shoulder is driving them towards the top. Dignitas still need to be consistent in beating higher tier teams but their win over Evil Geniuses was certainly a step in the right direction.
When a team can take down Cloud9 like EG did, people start to take notice. When they do so and then lose to Immortals and Dignitas, people start to wonder what is going on? Evil Geniuses may truly be the coinflip team and if that is the case then it is hard to trust them. The sad thing is they seemed to actually be restraining themselves from taking too many bad plays. Their talent is clearly there but without restraint, they do things like die to tower randomly or knock people to the wrong area of the map or just take bad fights in general. EG can be a good team that is consistent but until they get rid of some of the bad habits all of their players have, they will continue to be a coinflip team.
Of all the teams in the LCS, Immortals have probably had the hardest schedule to start the season. That said, they are Golden Guardians only win, in a game that they threw. Yet, they have both of their wins against TSM and Evil Geniuses. After their game against 100Thieves, their schedule will finally get a bit lighter as they have FlyQuest and CLG. They need to get wins against those teams to prove that they are at least in the middle of the pack. Losses to either or both will be worrying for IMT fans. One of the best things for Immortals though is that Insanity seems to be the real deal. He is not getting nearly the credit he deserves and if nothing else he has shown that he is the piece this team needs to be built around.
When this team wins they do so in a very convincing fashion. The problem is that when they lose, they get blown out. Many expected FlyQuest to be a much stronger team than what they are showing. They have strong individual talent but it is nowhere near coming together yet. They are constantly getting beat in lane and their drafts have been pretty suspect, to say the least. When FlyQuest are able to play comps with clear goals they are able to win. Right now many of their comps don’t have that and teams are just punishing them for it. Licorice in particular is just getting the worst of it as teams know that if they keep him down the rest of the team struggles. FlyQuest are a team that clearly needs more time and it is nowhere near time to panic for them. Until they can start showing more improvement they get to stay in D tier.
Getting a win against Golden Guardians is a win but not one that is going to move this team up much. They have shown that with Broxah will likely be able to improve. His leadership and voice in the team alone will probably help them quite a bit. Other than that there have been some solid individual performances out of Finn, Smoothie and rjs. In particular, rjs may be someone to watch. He has played well above what many expected and could become an important piece for the team moving forward. Other than that CLG will need to continue staying in games and try to pull off some upsets. If Broxah does not arrive soon, then they should start looking towards the Summer as Spring playoffs are already nearly out of the picture for them.
It is sad to see but this team just looks absolutely lost right now. Their drafts have been weird, they are constantly losing lanes and their solo lanes are getting absolutely wiped in most fights. For Niles and Ablazeolive it is clear that they have talent but the rest of the team is not doing much in the way of being able to help them. Teams are just focusing Niles and while he is clearly out of position in many situations, the team is also doing nothing to help or take advantage of four players being in the top lane. This is an experimental team and they are going to take their lumps. Anyone who is trying to give up on these players at this point would be foolish. Give them the full split and if no improvements are being made, then they can start to looks for other options. For now though, the goal is to see who they can build around for the future. It takes much more than the 12 games this team has played so far for people to really see who they could become.
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