Every week, Tyler "Fionn" Erzberger and James "Obscurica" Chen collaborate and deliberate on the power rankings for League of Legends. Here's how it shook down through Week 6.
No. 1-No. 10 - World Contenders
No. 11-No. 20 - Playoff Contenders
No. 21-No. 30 - Middle of the Pack
No. 31-No. 40 - Struggling
No. 41-No. 50 - Bottom of the Barrel
World Contenders
1. ROX Tigers
Record: 8-0 | League: LCK | +/-: --
Will the Tigers ever be knocked off its perch as the top team in the global power rankings? This past week's showdown with the second place Green Wings from Jin Air was supposed to be one of its biggest tests this season, but ROX proved beyond any doubt it's the best team in the world at the moment. If it can beat the winless SBENU this week, the Tigers will go through the first half of the season undefeated against all nine South Korean teams.
2. Qiao Gu Reapers
Record: 7-0 | League: LPL | +/-: --
The Reapers finally lost its first map of the season in a match against Vici Gaming, but it held on to keep its match record perfect. AD carry Peco has been unbelievable this season, keeping two-time Worlds runner-up Uzi on the bench due to his remarkable play. Watch out for the Reapers to be favorites heading into March's IEM Katowice World Championship tournament.
3. AHQ
Record: 7-0-0 | League: LMS | +/-: +1
There's only so many ways you can say "AHQ is the best damn team in Taipei" in a short blurb. But, basically, AHQ is the best damn team in Taipei. TPA had a strong early game, but AHQ is strong at all phases.
4. Immortals
Record: 12-0 | League: NA LCS | +/-: +1
Things got really nervous for the Immortals --for once-- when Renegades led off with a massive seven-kill lead against it. But IMT never actually lost control of the gold lead, and Huni's Quinntuple kill against Liquid washed the taste of that near-defeat right out (thanks for the pun, Phreak).
5. Jin Air Green Wings
Record: 6-3 | League: LCK | +/-: +3
LCK is the agreed-upon strongest region in the world, and the ROX Tigers are the undoubted best team on the planet now, but the fight for second place in the region is anyone's guess. For the time being, you'd have to give the nod to the Jin Air Green Wings who finished off its impressive first half of the season with a 6-3 record. Thing is, the Green Wings as an organization are famous for fast starts and sputtering finishes. Can that narrative change this spring?
6. Team Vitality
Record: 9-3 | League: EU LCS | +/-: +6
Vitality is definitely starting to pull ahead. A 2-0 week locks in a tie for first place against H2K and G2, but its looking better than either team. Cabochard's got reason to claim the title for best top in EU, at least for now.
7. Samsung Galaxy
Record: 6-3 | League: LCK | +/-: +7
The 2014 world champions endured its worst year as an organization last year when it went through a full rebuild. With the addition of veteran Ambition to the jungle and young players from last year coming into their own, Samsung Galaxy are on pace for the its first to the playoffs since hoisting the Summoner's Cup as Samsung White in Season 4.
8. Longzhu Gaming
Record: 5-3 | League: LCK | +/-: +5
The dragons of Longzhu might have finally gotten the chemistry and teamfighting needed to contend for the Korean championship. Its supposed "A-lineup" of Expession, Chaser and Coco had easily its best series of the split in a 2-0 blanking of the defending world champions SK Telecom T1. A round one finale victory against a struggling KT Rolster could see Longzhu make its way into the top five for the first time in global power rankings.
9. EDward Gaming
Record: 4-2 | League: LPL | +/-: -2
EDward Gaming got off to a strong start last week with a sweep against the wow-these-guys-were-Worlds-favorites LGD Gaming before falling in a makeup series from Week 1 against Invictus Gaming. While the Qiao Gu Reapers have distanced itself from the pack as China's strongest like the Tigers have done in Korea, the fight for No. 2 in the China region looks to be a bloodbath.
10. H2k-Gaming
Record: 9-3 | League: EU LCS | +/-: --
Mafia boss Ryu's back, and vacation's over for the rest of EU mid lane. The extremely one-sided nature of its match against Origen speaks for itself, as does the close grinder against Vitality -- the latter might have ended in a loss, but the hour-long match had it within 1k gold of each other until Vitality shifted momentum in its favor with one last Baron.
Playoff Contenders
11. G2 Esports
Record: 9-3 | League: EU LCS | +/-: -2
Unfortunately for G2, it's lagging a little behind on patch adaptation -- specifically, allowing Rekkles to get back into the game with Kog'maw was a massive mistake. The game was G2's for up to 21 minutes, but misplays at Baron cost it momentum.
12. Royal Never Give Up
Record: 5-2 | League: LPL | +/-: -1
Royal missed its chance to take a stranglehold of Group B when it dropped to Team WE at the beginning of the week. Luckily for RNG, the slump busters LGD helped it get back on track with 2-0 victory. Looper's Poppy could be the best in the world, and Mata is returning to the form that has made him one of the greatest in-game leaders in League history.
13. KT Rolster
Record: 5-3 | League: LCK | +/-: -7
KT Rolster is teetering on the edge of being a really good team and just a pretty good one. It started off the split hot, but its decimating loss to SK Telecom T1 set it back, and the 2-1 loss to the Jin Air Green Wings knocked it out of second place. Fortunately, it was able to sneak out a 2-1 win of its own against the middling CJ Entus to stay in the all-important top five of the standings for a playoff spot.
14. Counter Logic Gaming
Record: 8-4 | League: NA LCS | +/-: +6
The Immortals weren't the only team worried by Renegades' sudden early-game improvements this week, but CLG's map play remains one of the best strategic features of the NA LCS. Also, the team got far enough ahead versus Impulse for Xmithie to solo Rift Herald -- a feat unto itself, given how tanky it is.
15. Cloud9
Record:8-4 | League: NA LCS | +/-: +6
Between Hai's Black Shield setups for Jensen, and Rush single-handedly forcing Lee Sin to be a meta pick in the face of the current tanky jungler environment, things are actually looking great for Cloud9 (now tied for second place). Its reactive shotcalling might be the best in NA -- or it would be if Immortals didn't exist.
16. Flash Wolves
Record: 4-1-2 | League: LMS | +/-: --
The Flash Wolves are now solidly the second-best team in the circuit, thanks to a 2-0 over Machi 17 -- though game two was close. Much of its success was in the hands of rookie top laner Rins, who will be looking to challenge AHQ Ziv for best LMS top laner in the near future.
17. Team WE
Record: 4-2 | League: LPL | +/-: +7
Have we transported back in time to 2012 when Team WE was one of the best teams in the world? The revamped WE lineup has been one of the pleasant surprises of this season, and it had its biggest statement victory of the season this past week against RNG. If the red and yellow of WE can beat EDward Gaming and Vici Gaming this coming week, a top-10 spot or higher isn't out of the question.
18. Invictus Gaming
Record: 4-2 | League: LPL | +/-: --
Maybe we really are back in 2012 if Team WE and Invictus Gaming are back-to-back in the Top 20? Invictus Gaming and its AD carry-turned-jungler Kid have been another nice shock this season, beating the likes of EDG when the departure of KaKAO was expected to be a possible death knell to its postseason chances. iG would have been much higher if it hadn't flatlined in its 0-2 loss to Snake to close out the week.
19. Unicorns of Love
Record: 8-4 | League: EU LCS | +/-: -4
The Unicorns are at a crossroads in its season. At 8-4, it can either go two ways to finish out the year. Either, it can keep up with the 'Big 3' of G2, Vitality and H2k, forcing itself into first-round bye contention, or it can fall back into the pack like Origen and fight tooth and nail for its spot in the top six and playoffs. It will be using its fourth jungler of the split, loulex, formerly of H2k, as he will be replacing the extremely aggressive Rudy.
20. SK Telecom T1
Record: 5-4 | League: LCK | +/-: -17
Well, this is something we didn't expect last week. Sure, the loss to Longzhu Gaming wasn't the biggest stunner in history. Longzhu Gaming are a good team that is ultimately getting its act together. But a loss to the Afreeca Freecs? A 1-2 loss to a team that has had issues all season playing together as a team in the late-game? SKT T1 will right the ship -- or at least we think it will -- but last week and this first half of the season in general have been rough for a squad that barely lost in the part of 2015.
Middle of the Pack
21. Machi
Record: 3-1-3 | League: LMS | +/-: -2
Apex and Dreamer's strong early-game presence in game two is proof of life for the team, but BoBo getting outclassed vs. Rins in both games took the victory out of its hands. An argument can be made for it as the third-strongest team in Taipei now.
22. Fnatic
Record: 7-5 | League: EU LCS | +/-: --
It looked like following Fnatic's comeback win against G2 Esports that the five-time European kings were going to blast up the global power rankings. That's when it dropped a game to a bottom four team in Splyce and put itself back in the spot it found itself last week. Fnatic seem like it's only a few steps away from getting back to top three status -- but can it do it before the season hits the playoffs?
23. Snake eSports
Record: 4-2 | League: LPL | +/-: +3
Snake pushed itself to a 4-2 overall match record with a big win against iG in Week 6. The Snakes will try to bump even closer to the QG Reapers in Group A with games against the beatable Hyper Youth Gaming before having a massive clash against EDG.
24. Taipei Assassins
Record: 3-2-2 | League: LMS | +/-: +3
Normally, losing to AHQ wouldn't necessarily make a team look bad -- it's not as if anybody else is beating it. But for all of TPA's brilliant early-game plays, some dangerous weaknesses were exposed this week -- namely, Jay and Bebe's horrendous positioning costing them a potential upset.
25. Hong Kong Esports
Record: 2-4-1 | League: LMS | +/-: --
All it took was one bot lane fight 10 minutes into game one for Hong Kong Esports to completely crumple in the face of rookie team XGamers. Game two was desperately close as well. If the team can't figure out how to play around lost leads, its in for trouble come playoffs.
26. Team SoloMid
Record: 7-5 | League: NA LCS | +/-: -9
It's looking a lot like last week's gameplay improvements were a fluke, as TSM was outmatched badly this time. It's defaulting to old CLG strategies of protect-the-Doublelift-but while he might have a solid early game, the ace ADC is also proving susceptible to late-game ambushes, removing the majority of TSM's accumulated gold from critical fights.
27. Origen
Record: 6-6 | League: EU LCS | +/-: +2
Only three weeks are left in the season, and we've fully gone past the point where we can call Origen's so-so record a 'slow start.' It's fully in a battle for the playoffs now, and it'll need to at least keep its stagnant pace going and not dip any worse if it wants to fend off the likes of Splyce and Elements from stealing a playoff spot from it.
28. Echo Fox
Record: 5-7 | League: NA LCS | +/-: +7
Echo Fox is now up on a four-game win streak, Froggen is untouchable and Keith won't be short of his pick of duo queue partners after that quadrakill on Team Liquid. It's up a tier, and that might still be short-selling this team.
29. Afreeca Freecs
Record: 3-6 | League: LCK | +/-: +8
Wait a minute -- could this be the revival of the Freecs? We started piling dirt on its grave last week with a 1-6 record, but it came firing back in Week 6 with a win against CJ Entus and a huge upset versus SK Telecom T1. It has been good in the early-game all year but failed to capitalize on its advantages in the macro game. If Afreeca starts clicking as a five man unit, watch out, because it can be dangerous in the second half of the split.
30. Vici Gaming
Record: 3-4 | League: LPL | +/-: --
VG now has the honor of being the first squad to take a game off the QG Reapers this split, but it still lost the series. On the bright side, it did get a match victory in its game against M3. We still believe that VG is a solid team, but don't know how far it can go in an extremely competitive LPL.
Struggling
31. NRG eSports
Record: 6-6 | League: NA LCS | +/-: --
Against Dignitas, NRG proved why it's a major threat: decisive map movements that cracked open the bot inhibitor turret just eight minutes in, and GBM delivering a nuclear winter via Karma's Mantra-empowered Soulflares. Against Cloud9's better team play, it was a bruising fight that NRG ultimately lost. Not the worst result for the week, but it'll be a hard grind back to the top.
32. XGamers
Record: 2-2-3 | League: LMS | +/-: +1
The scrappiest rookies of the LMS keep climbing expectations -- a 1-1 trade against HKE was unexpected by all but its most die-hard fans (which it probably doesn't have too many as yet). Top laner Nexus's Rammus had an OK performance.
33. CJ Entus
Record: 3-5 | League: LCK | +/-: -10
CJ Entus' small surge with its makeshift starting lineup appears to have been a fluke instead of something long-lasting. Kramer is an impressive AD carry, and Madlife has shown he is timeless at the support role, but CJ need Bdd to come into the lineup and give it another spark in the lineup that isn't in the bottom lane. Sky and Bubbling simply aren't cutting it at the mid and jungle positions.
34. OMG
Record: 3-4 | League: LPL | +/-: +5
While OMG's lineup probably isn't going to come out of nowhere and win it all like the golden days, its fans have something to smile at with the emergence of rookie mid laner known as Icon. He's been great so far this season, and even if OMG need to switch out some other positions to be contenders once again, Icon could be the perfect piece to build around this summer to contend for an unlikely Worlds spot.
35. Team Liquid
Record: 5-7 | League: NA LCS | +/-: -7
It's been a rough week for Team Liquid, as it was the springboard for two other teams' highlight moments -- Keith's quadrakill and Huni's pentakill. Lourlo's finding it hard to fight back against the rest of the top laners.
36. Splyce
Record: 4-8 | League: EU LCS | +/-: +5
That's more like it for the YamatoCannon-coached team. Splyce picked up its biggest win in organization history against reigning EU champions Fnatic, and it is now only two games back of Origen for a playoff spot. With six games left in the season can the rookies make a mini-miracle occur?
37. Dignitas
Record: 4-8 | League: NA LCS | +/-: +5
Dignitas' early game is still really weak -- NRG should not, by any logical means, have gotten so far into its bot lane at just eight minutes, and giving Doublelift four kills by 18 minutes would've been a disaster if his positioning wasn't so mercurial. But there's evidence that the team knows what it is doing in mid-game teamfights, at least. Kiwikid's Alistar, in particular, is great fun to watch.
38. Energy Pacemaker.All
Record: 2-4 | League: LPL | +/-: +5
EPA isn't going to win the World Championship (really hope this statement doesn't come back to bite us in 10 months), yet it is still a pretty interesting team. It beat the hapless HYG in a battle of the two minor league turned premier league teams, and the weaknesses of LGD and M3 mean Pacemaker might even make the playoffs. Wow, Group A is soft.
39. Midnight Sun
Record: 1-2-4 | League: LMS | +/-: +6
Its current lowly rank is only because it hasn't yet gotten a chance to toss rookie support player Kaiwing against anybody decent yet -- beating COUGAR hardly counts for anything. But that Leona -- that bot lane's showing some serious potential. Add Wulala's recent growth, and you've got a contender developing.
40. Elements
Record: 4-8 | League: EU LCS | +/-: -4
Last week's spurt might have been an anomaly for Elements. It returned to mediocrity in Week 6, and Splyce's better form means that Elements is in a lot of trouble in terms of relegations if it can't put together something substantial in the last six games.
Bottom of the Barrel
41. Masters 3
Record: 2-5 | League: LPL | +/-: -9
Masters 3 is one of the biggest chores to watch in the LPL. It doesn't have a rookie standout like OMG's Icon to keep it interesting, and it's less fun to watch than last year when it had Dade and Looper anchoring the squad. The only silver lining in all of this is that it is in the same group as LGD Gaming, so its weak results look like nothing compared to the firestorm happening there.
42. e-mFire
Record: 1-7 | League: LCK | +/-: -2
This will be the last weekend we will be seeing the e-mFire name and logo. The team was sponsored this past week by Kongdoo and rebranded the Monster. We'll see if the Kongdoo Monster can put better results on the board than e-mFire when it plays its first game in new colors against CJ Entus.
43. Team Impulse
Record: 4-8 | League: NA LCS | +/-: -9
Impulse's 15 minutes of dreaming are over, and it has come crashing down back to Earth as one of the region's weakest teams. The resurgence of Echo Fox and upsets from Dignitas mean that Impulse needs a few victories in the last six to avoid playing in the relegation tournament.
44. Giants Gaming
Record: 2-10 | League: EU LCS | +/-: +2
If you pretend the first four weeks of the season didn't happen and just focus on the past two, Giants Gaming is 2-2 and aren't doing too shabby. It might only be taking games against other bottom of the table peers, but those are the games Giants needs to win if it wants to keep its spot in the European LCS safe.
45. ROCCAT
Record: 2-10 | League: EU LCS | +/-: +2
ROCCAT stopped its losing streak! Splyce has been doing relatively well lately, but the Cats stopped its momentum by picking up its first win in what seemed like forever. Playoffs are pretty much out of the question, so it's time for it to buckle down and try to get out of the relegation zone with six games remaining on the schedule.
46. SBENU Sonicboom
Record: 0-8 | League: LCK | +/-: -2
Unlike the renamed Kongdoo Monster, the LCK last place SBENU Sonicboom doesn't have a name change to turn things around. It has been able to steal a few games off of better teams, yet it's all been for naught. Playoffs are a pipe dream now with the top five of the league looking so strong, and it's about time it starts selecting which players need to get transferred out for the second half of the season to try and get at least one match win. Oh, and it has the ROX Tigers next on the docket. Good luck, Sonicboom.
47. Renegades
Record: 1-11 | League: NA LCS | +/-: +1
To its credit, the team is definitely improving. Renegades has a stellar early game on lock now, and demonstrated as such against two of the top three teams in North America. It's just everything afterward that's still so dismal.
48. LGD Gaming
Record: 1-6 | League: LPL | +/-: -10
This isn't sandbagging. This isn't waiting for the summer split. This isn't a slump. What is going on at LGD Gaming is something that has gotten to the core, and it's going to need some massive changes if it wants to turn things around and become a respectable team again. The Rise and Fall of LGD is a storyline that could have books written about it in a few years with how drastic its drop to the bottom of the ladder has been.
49. Hyper Youth Gaming
Record: 0-6 | League: LPL | +/-: --
No real change for the rookies from HYG. It lost to EPA, and it only has one map win in 13 tries. If LGD keeps its slide down the rankings, though, HYG might at least find itself as not the worst team in the Chinese region in the Global Power Rankings.
50. COUGAR E-Sport
Record: 0-0-7 | League: LMS | +/-: --
After losing 0-2 to Midnight Sun, it is conclusively the worst team in the LMS -- and in these power rankings. As such, no logo yet.