Who are the best top laners in the NA and EU LCS scenes, and what champions they are playing most and best? Find out that -- and more -- after the break.
Hey everybody, guest-poster Gentleman Gustaf here once again for an analysis of top lane. I've started my own solo League of Legends website at http://gentlemangustaf.com, so feel free to stop by to see my other posts! I'm also working for Riot, and if you want to see my posts there, you can check them out here!
If you want to see this post as a full infographic, you can check it out at my post on Reddit!
Top laners are supposed to establish a team's consistency. In keeping with this, not a single team has changed their top laner. But what champions are they playing?
Top laners largely play bruisers or tanks, although mages and melee carries have snuck in on the wave of the Doran's Shield nerfs.
To some degree, success in top lane is defined by mastery of these champions, especially Renekton and Trundle, with Shyvana and Dr. Mundo largely relegated to North America, and Dr. Mundo avoided by the most dominant laners at that — Dyrus as a notable exception.
However, those are not the only champions played in top lane!
The champions who have seen the most success are Renekton, Trundle, Aatrox, Irelia, and Warwick. Champions like Rumble or Heimerdinger have also done well, albeit with low sample sizes. Finally, Shyvana has performed well in North America, but not in Europe.
With that in mind, let’s move on to analysis of players.
North America
Who are the top 3 North American top laners? If you ask me, there’s no other possible ranking than the following:
Balls is the sleeper hero of Cloud 9.
He maintains a KDA of 6.26, nearly double the NA average of 3.25, and second only to Dyrus’ 6.30. He has stuck largely to Renekton and Shyvana, preferring to bully enemy laners early. However, he has also earned a reputation for his favorite champion, Rumble.
Balls is an incredible playmaker who often roams down for early dragons (at least in standard 2v2 bot situations). As well, he is an incredibly stable top laner, with a league-low 2.75 deaths/loss. In fact, when Cloud 9 is losing, he is often the only stable element, upping his slice of the team gold to 23.51%, largely by farming almost75 cs more than average in losses (343 vs 274).
This can be sensed especially in his Rumble games. In many Rumble games, Cloud 9 is behind until Balls lands the perfect Rumble ultimate to win the game.
This game isn’t the perfect example, because Cloud 9 was already winning, but it gives a decent indication of the sheer impact Balls has compared to most top laners; can Renekton do something like that?
Dyrus is second only to Balls. He has a slightly higher KDA (6.30 vs 6.26), but that is largely due to his 12.80 KDA in games TSM wins (compared to the league average of 8.17), and especially his ridiculous performance on Renekton (5-0; 51.00 KDA). Of course, he’s not slacking elsewhere, as he has also displayed dominance on Shyvana (7-3; 5.94 KDA) and Dr. Mundo (7-1; 6.07 KDA).
He seems to struggle a bit when forced off of those 3 champions, going 3-2 with a KDA of 3.15.
Dyrus is known for not losing lane and not dying, with .91 deaths/game, the lowest for any top laner in North America. However, when he falls behind, he underperforms heavily, with a second-highest 4.33 deaths/loss. Given that 3 of TSM’s 6 losses are against Cloud 9, it’s hard not to see Dyrus’ poor performance in losses as reflecting upon Balls’ dominance; Balls is 11-2-15 in their head to head matchup, while Dyrus is 1-11-15. Even in TSM’s win, Balls maintained a 2-1-2 score, while Dyrus is 1-10-3 in losses to Cloud 9.
Quas is an unusual top laner. He has experimented with a lot of champions, being the only NA top laner to play Aatrox or Karthus top. Despite that, he is extremely stable, with the second-lowest KDA in wins (6.20) but the highest KDA (1.74) and highest kills (2.75) in losses, not to mention the second-lowest deaths in losses (3.18). He is what a top laner should be: consistent for his team.
After that, it gets pretty fuzzy due to the huge win gap.
Innox has played well despite his team’s general weakness, and he and Snoopeh carried EG through the super week.
ZionSpartan and Innox are similar players, but ZionSpartan has Shiphtur to carry him, so it’s hard to judge his skill. He has shined in split-pushing in a few games, but who doesn’t become unstoppable 1v1 on late-game jax?
Nien feels quite weak on CLG, perhaps because the team is made up of such superstars. Despite a strong winning record, his stats are disappointingly below average.
Cruzerthebruzer doesn’t die, but it seems like that’s all he does, with minimal kills and assists. He seems to step it up whenever Dignitas is losing, but I’d like to see more consistent carries from him.
I’d previously valued Benny quite highly, but he looked downright useless in super week, only performing well on Ryze, and only then because of how late the game went (dying 1v1 to Dyrus relatively early).
Europe
In Europe, my top 3 are:
Kev1n? But that guy’s on Millenium! You ever heard of the concept of Elo Hell? Well Kev1n is living it. He’s on the worst team in Europe, hands down, going 9-19. So you’d bet he’s doing horribly, right?
Nope.
#2 in KDA/game (3.96), #1 in KDA/win (10.92), #1 in KDA/loss (2.02).
#1 in kills/game (2.48), kills/win (3.67), and kills/loss (1.89)
#4 in deaths/game (2.04), and #2 in deaths/loss(2.39).
#3 in assists/game (5.59) and #1 in assists/win (10.89).
Oh, and kills + assists? #3 overall (8.07), #1 in wins (14.56), and #2 in losses (4.83).
And gold? He takes in more gold than any top laner but Darien in wins and Wickd in losses.
If that doesn’t tell you why this guy is a badass, I don’t know what will. He wins lane, he gets big, and he joins teamfights when need be.
Look at those rankings of sOAZ for awhile. Go on, I’ve got time. Did you find anything in KDA where he was ranked below 3rd? Didn’t think so. He’s a bit low on the gold, but sOAZ picks his laners for bully potential and team fights, not endless split-pushing and farming, and it shows from his stats.
The only area where he’s really lacking is in gold, and who needs gold when you have xPeke and Rekkles? You need to be in fights keeping them alive so they can work their magic, not top farming 6 creeps. Not that his farm is bad; it’s only 3rd.
That’s cheating, you say? Maybe it is. Wickd and Darien feel a bit like the same player sometimes. Always farming top? Check. Slippery and impossible to kill? Check. The main difference between the two?
Darien plays for Gambit Gaming, which means “see champion, kill champion”. He tends to rake in the kills and the deaths early and often, taking in the second-most kills + assists (8.15/game) of EU top laners, and trying to draw as much pressure top as possible.
Wickd, on the other hand, is often (especially on Irelia) simply trying to farm for the late game, and he does pull in the second-most farm (7.64/min) as a result.
After that, I’m pulling for Xaxus. ROCCAT has always reminded me of Cloud 9, and Xaxus reminds me of Balls; understated, yet always dependable. He has the fewest deaths of any EU top laner (1.68/game), and that boosts his KDA despite his low Kills and Assists.
From there on down, it’s pretty disappointing.
Mimer, YoungBuck, and fredy122 all fail to be particularly impressive. That’s a bit more disappointing for fredy122, given the high standings of SK Gaming; he feels a bit like the EU Nien. Sure, he’s there, and sure, he’s not feeding, but wouldn’t a better top shift the team into overdrive?
Overall
And if I’m combining the regions?
- Balls
- Kev1n
- sOAZ
- Dyrus
- Darien/Wickd
- Quas
I’ve never seen Kev1n and Balls face off, but I can’t put Kev1n in the #1 spot just on speculation. Balls is a proven, top-tier top laner, and as good as Kev1n is, we’ve yet to see him perform on a more solid team.
So what do you think? Who are the strongest top laners in the LCS and why?
Related Articles
Life Without Doran’s Shield
Top Lane – Doran’s Shield Nerf
Giants of Top Lane
LCS Top Lane Analysis
Mattias "Gentleman Gustaf" Lehman is a big time nerd-gamer and mathcrafter who has ranked as high as Diamond 1 in solo queue and Diamond 3 in arranged 5s.
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Posted 4/12/2014 10:07:09 PMOverall I really liked it, but I do have one nitpick.
I think Doublelift summed up Nien nicely (and it possibly goes for freddy as well). They go full in on the role of playing a "team-focused" game. So they are always the one taking the hits for the team and generally getting shafted by the macro strategy, because it ultimately brings the team success. I don't think this makes them top three, but it is definitely worth noting. Especially since both teams have become so successful in the later half of the season.
I think this is reflected in what we saw from C9 last summer. Meteos, while undoubtedly a top player, did probably have his numbers boosted by the fact that he played a much more selfish game than most other NA junglers at the time. Likewise Sneaky tended to look less impressive statisticly than other NA bot lanners because he focused on playing a utility role and didn't get spoon fed by his team.
I really think stats, while important, can't tell the whole story, because you have to look at where the team focuses their macro power. Players will always look better when they are being granted the most power by the team, and players will always look worse when they are the "sacrificial lamb" for the team. Granted, players tend to receive that focus when they are better, so I don't think it would affect rankings too much, but I think for the more subjective parts of the analysis you have to take the stats with a grain of salt. It is really just a reverse of the Kevin situation. If a player has below average stats on a top team, I think it is really worth looking at why, instead of just writing them off.
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Posted 4/12/2014 5:43:38 AMI strongly disagree with how the analysis between Balls and Dyrus was approached, and the methodology of the article in general comparing stats without accounting for team factors, which have a massive influence on the stats. Using the example of Balls and Dyrus, Balls may be better, but not for the reasons highlighted, which I'll go through now.
First of all, Balls's performance is heavily based on his team. C9 makes excellent rotations because they almost always have map control due to Meteos aggressively claiming it and Lemonnation's timely roams mid to force 2v1 or 3v1 (Xpecial tends to only roam when their bot lane already won). C9 has many deep wards, constantly coordinate enemy jungle invades, and force all enemy lanes to play conservatively (this is Meteos's power). This is why Balls is usually free to roam bot for drag or secure advantages in lane. Balls having low deaths is also a result of C9's playstyle. They never fight bad teamfights. It's as simple as that. They will get pushed down to no inhibitors or a game-changing baron before they settle for a bad fight. He has high CS because C9 never regularly looks to snowball any individuals, so they split the farm around the team.
The decision to teamfight and rotate comes mostly from Meteos or Hai. That makes Balls's rotations look amazing. His performance on Rumble is good because his job is specifically to afk farm, so mid-game he can land a game-changing ult. That is Rumble's role in a nutshell. He is exceedingly good at landing this ult, because he is the best Rumble player NA.
Dyrus having high deaths when losing is related to TSM's playstyle. TSM usually loses when they don't win laning phase. When this happens, TSM can stall well, but they aren't particularly good at teamfighting to make a comeback. They often fail to finesse a favorable fight, and Dyrus is almost exclusively the tank. So, when they dive in, he dies. TSM also specifically tries to snowball Bjergsen and Turtle, leaving Dyrus often with the short end of the stick on CS; his CS score is actually incredible when you consider this. Dyrus's low score vs. C9 is because C9 always outpicks TSM, in every lane including jungle. In the match C9 lost to TSM, they still had a fairly even comp. In the other matches, C9 had pure lane power, which is all you need to beat TSM because if TSM loses lane, they have no fallback high level team play to carry them back. Furthermore, Meteos is a far better jungler than OddOne because he exerts much more pressure on the map with his team and has a better play-making champion pool. Also, C9 is much better at controlling the map overall, usually screwing OddOne with multiple 3-man jungle buff invades, making him useless and setting TSM lanes back.
This forces Dyrus to play more aggressively in lane to keep his team in the game, on a champion that is weaker than Balls's, and this is why he typically performs poorly in TSM vs. C9. You may have noticed in every match up against Balls, Balls is usually on Renekton and tower dives Dyrus at some point. It always comes down to a sliver of health, and it's not that Dyrus doesn't know Balls can dive him, but he feels compelled to risk staying in lane because, even though the stats don't show it yet, he recognizes the precursors of a C9 snowball and knows his team has no map pressure and lane disadvantage. If he backs off, the snowball will just continue. At the same time, while he persistently fights under tower, he can't extend into lane for fear of Meteos, a fear Balls doesn't have because OddOne is miles behind, usually playing a less-early-game-presence jungler, and has no map pressure. This is a huge advantage for Balls.
3 big factors in C9 vs. TSM match up:
C9 always outpicks TSM
C9 always has near total map control
OddOne is typically useless compared to Meteos.
That said, Dyrus and Balls are very close. In my opinion, if you take away C9's team advantage and map control, Dyrus is slightly better than Balls, but only because the meta favors Dyrus's champion pool. Balls has the broader champion pool, and will probably win any lane that doesn't involve Dyrus on Renekton, Shyvanna, or Mundo (barring a counter pick match up). Overall, I think this makes Balls slightly better, but it would depend on the team he is with. On a finesse team like C9, Balls is much better than Dyrus, where laning comes second to teamfighting ability and rotations; on a powerhouse team like TSM, they are probably about even. If OddOne were Meteos or Dexter, then Dyrus would be noticeably better for TSM.
The jungler meta is about map control and lane pressure, and OddOne's passive playstyle is actually quite poor here; it's just a testimony to the power of TSM's lanes that he's able to do well. TSM really does have a collection of the best individual players in NA. And by passive I mean, if he doesn't take Pantheon, he lacks early-game champions who pressure lanes (no Lee Sin, just Elise -- and I don't think he utilizes her full potential), doesn't have aggressive warding/invades, as well as damage builds/champions like Kha'zix whom he can play well to scale into the late game. Now, OddOne isn't bad, but this playstyle is. A passive jungler can only function optimally if his lanes win on their own, which is impossible against a strong competitive team like C9 or top Euro/Asian teams whose lanes are bolstered by the threat of an aggressive jungler (unless you're Bjergsen or a god-level player). You can't consistently countergank a lane that's losing, and you can't afford to farm your jungle if your lanes are losing, otherwise you get snowballed on by invades and loss of objective control.
The good teams in NA are C9 and CLG; C9 always comes out ahead after laning phase vs. TSM, and we will see more of that from CLG as Dexter has just been playing out of his mind with the pressure he exerts (although not fully convinced yet it's not a result of lucky overaggression). TSM needs to play smarter in this regard. Although, I guess if TSM outpicks the enemy team for laning phase, it's ok. But imagine how much better it could be. Imagine if C9 had Bjergsen mid instead of Hai. Hai is good, but that combo would be terrifying. TSM could be that team if they played smarter. And it's really unfortunate they don't optimize their laning phase because TSM out of the laning phase is lackluster compared to the best international teams (everything below CLG in NA sucks, and even CLG has more to prove). This is evident when you 2v1 them and remove their laning prowess advantage, then even average or mediocre teams in NA are able to challenge them, which should honestly never happen if you have hopes for the international scene.
I think TSM lacks smart coaching, and it shows. Monte took a lifeless CLG team and brought its strategy up to point in the current meta. Smart coaching took a losing team and made them good again. Regi is very good, but he's not smart (he was almost failing high school), and he's burnt out on the rigorous pace of the competitive scene. He can assess situations extremely well through sheer talent and experience, but he can't innovate or adapt, and TSM needs that if it's ever going to become an international presence. None of the original TSM can do this. I am hoping Bjergsen will fill this spot, but it's big shoes.
Well, sorry for the side track and wall of text, but some closing words on the original point: I think focusing on factors like CS, deaths/loss or kills/win etc. is really difficult to compare between teams, because you can't normalize for different team factors. For example, high CS in certain cases can be impressive, but it's also possibly a sign that the rest of your team is much worse and either ceding farm to you or fell behind early so they can't farm, leaving more for you to clean up. In some cases, high CS might even indicate poor play; AFK farming is a solo-queue mentality (mentioned by many pros) and while it buffers your CS score stat, it can come at the expense of being in the right place at the right time to help your team. This possibility is extremely difficult to pick up on because it's hard to watch a match and say "what would have happened" had this player gone somewhere else 3 minutes ago rather than to a lane to afk farm. Hell, just knowing where he needed to be to make the right play is hard to say. Anyways, these are all things that are hidden in your CS analysis, which is why using CS as a standard is useless in cases where players are close. Other stats follow similarly. Things like champion pools, current meta, and team playstyle all are important here. Unless you consider all of these external interactions, you can't just flip stats around and expect them in any close scenarios to achieve anything beyond coincidental accuracy. Sorry, I don't want to knock on you too hard, I really enjoy the articles you write which is why I read them and why I stopped to post this.
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Posted 4/11/2014 7:11:30 PMI really love this that your doing, Gustaf! :D
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Posted 4/11/2014 12:05:47 PMIsn't fredy122 the best farmer in the top lane? I've seen him pull incredible numbers in some of his games. However, he's still unimpressive in other aspects of the game.
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Posted 4/11/2014 9:35:42 AMI would say you massively over rate Xaxus. The guy only does decent because Overpow roams top all day long, he has a tiny champion pool and only ever goes even, I never see him win a lane.
He has very little impact on how well Roccat does as a team.
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Posted 4/11/2014 7:02:05 AMGreat article, love the infographics. Only slight complaint concerning the pie charts and the other pretty pictures though: I find it hard to recognize the champions at first glance, especially when the images get smaller.
I think readability would significantly improve if you would just use a champion's base skin for these graphics. Perhaps even stick to the in-game portraits for examples like the one with 12 different champions. These are the portraits we're used to when picking/banning champions and will be instantly recognizable instead of 'oh, that looks vaguely familiar - is that Twisted Fate (Yasuo) / Akali (Irelia) / Rengar (Warwick)?'.
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Posted 4/11/2014 12:52:54 PMHmmm....that's fair; I've been playing since Beta/play a lot, so I saw them as easily recognizable, but I'll try to clean that up. Because of the white font, I was biasing my skins towards the darker ones, but I'm sure I can find another way around it.
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Posted 4/11/2014 5:20:14 AMmeh karma top counter them all
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Posted 4/10/2014 6:53:05 PMYou failed to mention the sacrificial Darien play Gambit do in just about every game.
Darien deliberately pushes the lane and lures the jungle (and sometimes the mid too) for a gank, surviving long enough to allow Diamond to gank bot and take Dragon.
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Posted 4/10/2014 9:58:25 PM"trying to draw as much pressure top as possible."
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Posted 4/10/2014 5:36:14 PMWickd is the toplaner with the least impact on any pro-team. He hardly ever has any impact on the game, one way or the other. He's just a solid player, but nothing spectacular. Ranking him as a top sololaner, when you haven't even mentioned Fredy122 is just downright wrong.
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Posted 4/10/2014 5:44:50 PMTop lane is very rarely an impact role in the current meta. It is precisely his stability that makes him so valuable, especially with the potential for a late-game pick (Irelia) that most top laners don't have.
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Posted 4/11/2014 4:39:08 AMi didnt undestood your comment well.
late game pick that most top laners dont have? but trundle shyv and mundo are better than irelia late game,more or less,in the worst case they re even late.and they re somewhat usual picks.
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Posted 4/11/2014 5:54:19 AMMundo, Shyv, and Trundle are kitable late-game try and do that to a Irelia, I dare you. Those 3 are more like an indestructible wall that can deal good damage. Irelia can destroy carries and handle these walls at late game.
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Posted 4/11/2014 6:50:24 AMthe indestructible wall of pain are the kind of bruisers that scales the hardest, and trundle is the only one even more kitable than irelia, mundo is also highly mobile,you have an easy time reaching a target and even more important STICKING at the target.and shyvanna is...well she really goes where she pleases.
irelia dmg is not higher,irelia is not really better at rush squishlys,and ofc they add to the team the same lvl of utility (almost 0) irelia can be ignored or focused as needed.
the only one not outshining irelia by far late game is trundle,but just cause he is about duel the frontline but hes not worse.
she is prolly worse than late game aatrox.and both got outscaled by the final boss type of bruiser(mundo shyv trundle nasus heca volibear etc...)
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Posted 4/11/2014 12:54:02 PMNobody plays Dr. Mundo anymore, and Shyvana is much more common a pick in NA than EU. Renekton is by far the dominant pick in EU since the Doran's Shield changes.
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Posted 4/10/2014 4:09:34 PMI feel its really sad that NA top laners outside of C9 and TSM have to be so unimpressive.
I love Quas but every now and then he ends up doing something mind numbingly stupid like back when he was playing Zac top and engaged a 3v5 onto the enemy team which had just taken out Saint.
Cruzer doesn't respect the enemy jungler and makes bad calls way too often. I don't know how often on Mundo he died because he didn't respect his enemy laner had just hit 6 and he was still waiting on exp while the jungle mysteriously didn't contest dragon with his team around the same time. Honestly, I don't know why they were so eager to replace Kiwikid in top lane if the best top laner they could find played just like Kiwikid.
Nien is rather lackluster from the top lane but I do think he has the basics down and while he isn't flashy he does give his team a valuable support tank which until people figure out how to turn those bad stats into wins I think is enough.
Zion plays like he's in solo queue way to often. I feel like more than any other team Coast just refuses to play as a group.
Innox is a good top laner but he can't carry as hard his team needs especially when his bot-lane under performs as often as they do.
Benny is just MIA. I don't know where he went but since he renamed himself from Sycho SId he has just not performed. How a team that went to worlds is doing so bad is beyond me.
Europe tends to be much better as far as top laners go. Darien is still my favorite even if Gambit is under performing but then the fact he isn't allowed to play his favorite champ apparently indefinitely because Riot doesn't feel like fixing the Aatrox bug is worth looking into is pretty infuriating for me.
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Posted 4/10/2014 5:43:54 PMI agree: the overall talent level of European tops is much higher, but the best tops are from NA.Same goes for junglers. You have Meteos vs Amazing/Diamond/Jankos, then everybody else. In general, the NA scene seems like that, where you have a few dominant players who outshine their EU counterparts, but then you have a bunch of lower-level players who just look outclassed. I think Millenium would probably beat out EG/XDG, and probably Coast as well, just because there's no way Innox snowballs vs Kev1n.
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Posted 4/10/2014 5:57:21 PMYeah Millennium could probably win against all NA teams outside of the big 3 depending on what Curse and Dig teams show up. The sad irony of EG is that Innox or Pobeltor have to snowball to win because they are being dragged down by EU players. Snoopeh has improved since the start of the split but the EG botlane just dissapoints me game after game consistently losing 2v2s and weighing the team down, which is weird because they have had the longest time playing together of any botlane combo so you think they would have that synergy that can't be beat.
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Posted 4/10/2014 8:31:17 PMMilenium would be around 4th at NA LCS. Theyve beaten CLG 2-0 in battle of atlantix which is the third place team in na. yea sure they were new and all with their setup, but so was milenium.