Get ready for Rift Rivals! The second installment of Riot’s inter-regional tournament is underway in Asia. Action in the LCS regions starts soon when Echo Fox faces Fnatic at 2:30pm CT today.
In honor of the wildly fun and entertaining event, we combined all 20 teams in EU and NA into one giant power ranking. We’re only going to see six of them play this week, but it’s just as much fun to figure out which of the bottom feeders is trolling the hardest.
Our voters assigned points to each team from 1 (worst) to 10 (best). We also asked them to not take things too seriously—20 teams is a lot!
What are you doing?
Usually, in the weekly edition of these power rankings, it’s not actually that bad to be ninth or tenth, especially early in the season. A couple wins—like what Splyce got last week—can vault them up the standings in a hurry.
But when there are 20 teams vying for spots, it really sucks to be at the bottom. These are the teams in both regions that are going nowhere fast.
20) H2k (eight points)
H2k let Splyce draft Lucian, Braum, and Aatrox last week. It went as well as you’d expect—terribly.
19) OpTic (14 points)
It’s crazy to think that just over a year ago, OpTic ADC Non “Arrow” Dong-hyeon won the 2017 Spring Split MVP award in NA. Then other teams figured out his lane phase sucks. The nadir may have come last week when he lost lane taking Varus and Tahm Kench into Swain and Fiddlesticks. But they’re still probably better than H2k.
18) GIANTS (16 points)
For weeks, GIANTS just wanted to get to the late game in an even game state and see if their macro play and shot calling could carry the day. They finally got there against ROCCAT last week and lost anyway because they gave up Baron pressure.
17) Cloud9 (17 points)
Cloud9 have proven that, no matter what the gold differential is, they can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Bringing back two starters was not enough to save them last week. Could we see the return of ADC Zachary “Sneaky” Scuderi soon?
16) Golden Guardians (22 points)
Golden Guardians’ focus this split is to beat the weaker teams in the LCS. After all, you just have to be sixth place out of 10 teams to make playoffs. But then their funnel comp fell apart against the power of FlyQuest mid laner Jang “Keane” Lae-young’s Galio.
The walking dead
Unlike the five teams at the bottom, the next few actually look awake. Some of them are even walking around. But it’s going to be a long climb back to relevancy.
15) Unicorns of Love (33 points)
What started as a split full of promise for UOL took a hit last week as they went 0-2. It’s no shame losing to Vitality and G2, but it also means they’re not a quality team.
14) FlyQuest (36 points)
FlyQuest are unexpectedly 3-3 after victories over Golden Guardians and CLG last week. And they may start jungler William “Meteos” Hartman, recently added via a trade with 100 Thieves.
13) FC Schalke 04 (41 points)
For one and a half splits now, Schalke seem like they’re on the brink of being good. And they just can’t pull it all together. They just can’t step up to the plate.
12) Splyce (43 points)
The good news for Splyce? They just picked up their first two wins of the split in a clean 2-0 week. The bad news? Those wins came against weaker EU LCS teams, and now they have to play against the best teams in NA.
So you’re saying there’s a chance
These teams are sitting in playoff position now, and could make some noise there if they make it. But that’s a big if with a lot of games left to play.
11) ROCCAT (47 points)
ROCCAT gave back a lot of momentum by losing to Splyce. You saw some good things, like them splitting Splyce and taking a free inhibitor. But a botched—and unnecessary—Baron call did them in.
10) CLG (53 points)
CLG also gave back a lot of momentum by losing to FlyQuest. They could have gone to a tie for first place with a 4-2 record and wins over 100 Thieves and Clutch Gaming. Instead, they suffered a big step backwards.
9) Clutch Gaming (58 points)
Unlike last split, Clutch have posted some wins over quality teams. They have a chance to do well, especially if 100 Thieves falter after Rift Rivals.
Getting closer
These teams are close to being championship-level and all went undefeated last week. But making the leap into the next tier is incredibly difficult.
8) Vitality (67 points)
Vitality recovered nicely from an 0-2 week two in which they fed at nearly every position. But at least Erberk “Gilius” Demir is having a better split after playing like one of Europe’s worst junglers last spring.
7) 100 Thieves (70 points)
100 Thieves have also recovered from a bad start, but it’s anyone’s guess where the team goes after trading away Meteos. The good news is that Meteos was not a mechanical god anyway, and better chemistry could actually lead to stronger on-stage performance.
6) TSM (73 points)
TSM’s week was not nearly as clean as the other teams in this tier. Only a catastrophic late game from C9 allowed them to win their first game. They continue to get picked apart in the lane phase like they’re playing solo queue. But skipping out on Rift Rivals means they won’t get picked apart by yet another international team.
Worlds material
5) Fnatic (82 points)
Fnatic played a pretty good game vs. G2’s funnel comp last week, but one mistake handed the game over. They’ve come the closest to dethroning G2 so far. But can they beat some of their NA LCS foes this week? We’ll see starting today.
4) Echo Fox (83 points)
Echo Fox look like a team that is still trying to reinvent itself after an early playoff loss following the Spring Split. It’s not just top laner Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon moving positions—it seems like they’re still trying to find their optimal combination of players and champions.
3) Misfits (94 points, one first-place vote)
Misfits are on a tear through Europe after missing the playoffs last split. Now they get a week off to prepare for a first place showdown with G2 in week four. And they look more comfortable with themselves than Echo Fox right now.
2) Team Liquid (94 points, one first-place vote)
Like Echo Fox, Liquid feel like they’re playing with their food a bit. Last week’s win over Echo Fox showed how talented they are, but we don’t think they can stand up to how coordinated G2 look at the moment.
1) G2 (97 points, three first-place votes)
G2 are the best team in either region. They even have teams banning support Braum away from jungler Marcin “Jankos” Jankowski. What is this meta?
