Cloud9’s new top lane star Summit has won the 2022 LCS Spring Split MVP award for his outstanding play during the regular season, Riot Games announced today.
The 23-year-old made his competitive North American debut this past spring when he was picked up alongside two new players on C9’s revamped League of Legends team. The offseason represented a fundamental shift in the team’s roster-building philosophy after having signed only European and NA-born players since 2016.
In a short amount of time, Summit became one of the most feared players in the league with his destructive laning prowess. He led the league in multiple early-game statistics, according to Oracle’s Elixir, including average gold difference, experience difference, and CS difference at 15 minutes. His consistent ability to gain early leads for himself allowed him to snowball into advantages in the later stage with the rest of his teammates.
In fact, even though C9 had the second-highest collective average gold difference at 15 minutes, Summit was the only player in the lineup with such dominant early-game stats. Unfortunately for C9 fans, this reliance on Summit’s early game became a crutch that teams began to take advantage of in the playoffs.
In both series that C9 lost, Summit was the focal point of Evil Geniuses’ and 100 Thieves’ game plan. They threw multiple ganks at him from the first minute onward, and as a result, C9 had no answers besides in the bottom lane with their new AD carry Berserker having some moments of brilliance.
Related: Evil Geniuses head to Houston after eliminating Cloud9 from 2022 LCS Spring Playoffs
Summit ended with the second-most deaths of any player in the playoffs so far, and C9 had the lowest average gold difference at 15 minutes of any team in the postseason. It was a sobering experience, but now, C9 must consider what it plans to do during this long break before the 2022 Summer Split.
