2022 LCS Summer Split Power Rankings – Part 1
On June 17, The 2022 LCS Summer Split Begins!
It’s only been a couple of weeks since we saw Royal Never Give Up take the MSI crown, and we are already craving for more League of Legends action. The LCS Spring Split champions Evil Geniuses, had a decent performance during the MSI as they were able to take a game off the Korean representatives T1, but other than that, they didn’t manage to score significant wins. They couldn’t win a single game against Royal Never Give Up in the semifinals and if we are being honest, they never really had a chance to do so.
Now as we’re heading into the summer split, we saw a few teams make many significant changes to their rosters. We already talked about how Cloud9 completely revamped their roster, and teams like TSM and Immortals made enough moves to increase their chances of getting a better placement this split. Some other teams didn’t make a single change because they believe in the longevity of their projects. In the end, I think this upcoming split will be a very exciting one to watch, so without further ado, let’s jump right into it!
10th – Immortals
- Mohamed “Revenge” Kaddoura
- Shane Kenneth “Kenvi” Espinoza
- Tristan “PowerOfEvil” Schrage
- Noh “Arrow” Dong-hyeon
- Lawrence “Lost” Sze Yuy Hui
- Lee “Ignar” Dong-geun
There are two very important changes that Immortals made during the off-season. Kenvi is the replacement for Xerxe, the jungler that returned back to the LEC to test his luck with Astralis. Kenvi has been considered one of the best junglers there is in the North American Amateur scene, and finally, he’ll get his much-deserved LCS debut. The other big change is that Ignar is returning to the LCS after 1 split of inactivity, we last saw him play for Evil Geniuses during the last summer split and he put up a good performance.
The thing is that I don’t think these two changes are enough to give Immortals a chance of getting out of the bottom of the standings. I think that the other contender for last-place finish is Counter Logic Gaming, and being completely honest, their project looks more promising than the one that Immortals proposes. Revenge and the bot lane look too weak to compete against the rest of the competition, and unless Kenvi and PoE pop off, I don’t see this team putting up a good show.
9th – Counter Logic Gaming
- Thomas “Jenkins” Tran
- Juan Arturo “Contractz” Garcia
- Cristian “Palafox” Palafox
- Fatih “Luger” Güven
- Philippe “Poome” Lavoie-Giguere
Although they had an 8th-place finish, Counter Logic Gaming has decided to maintain their roster as they are focused on further developing their players. Throughout the past years, CLG has opted for having already proven and veteran players, and most of the time it didn’t end up working. But this year they have decided to try their luck with a roster made up of mostly rookies and players that haven’t reached their full potential yet.
I think the strongest point in CLG’s lineup was their bot lane because even if they finished at the bottom part of the standings, their bot lane was often considered one of the strongest in the league. If the CLG roster managed to improve considerably during the off-season, then it wouldn’t be too crazy to see them capable of a top-6 finish, but considering the changes the rest of the teams made, that would be very unlikely.
8th – Dignitas
- Noh “Gamsu” Yeong-jin
- Kim “River” Dong-woo
- Ersin “Blue” Gören
- Toàn “Neo” Trần
- Vincent “Biofrost” Wang
Dignitas only made one change, although in my books it’s still a very unclear one. They decided to drop Aaron “Fakegod” Lee and replace him with Gamsu, who was last seen playing in the amateur scene under the wings of 100 Thieves Academy. It’s been only 1 year since Gamsu came back to League of Legends after trying his luck in the Overwatch competitive scene. Now he’s ready to prove that he is worthy of being an LCS-level top laner in this split.
The rest of the Dignitas lineup remained, and to be fair, there wasn’t much need for a change. I think that River and Blue still have a long way to go, but they already showed a lot of improvement throughout the spring split. Neo and Biofrost are far from being the best bot lane in the league but they can put up a good fight. This Dignitas roster aims to stay away from a 10th-place finish and I think that they’ll be able to achieve that.
