LCK Spring 2022 Week 2 power rankings

As week two rolls down to an end, there’s no doubting that the promise of the most competitive season LCK (and its counterparts in other regions) has ever seen. Dozens of talented players competing under rivaling banners – what a better way to guarantee a fantastic season. Well, that’s about it for the intro; let’s talk about the real stuff.

LCK 2022 Spring Standings
	Team	Series		Games			Str
1	T1	4 – 0	100%	8 – 1	89%	+7	4W
2	Gen.G	4 – 0	100%	8 – 2	80%	+6	4W
3	Nongshim RedForce	3 – 1	75%	7 – 4	64%	+3	3W
4	DWG KIA	2 – 2	50%	6 – 4	60%	+2	1W
5	KT Rolster	2 – 2	50%	5 – 4	56%	+1	1L
6	Hanwha Life Esports	1 – 3	25%	4 – 7	36%	-3	3L
7	Fredit BRION	1 – 3	25%	3 – 7	30%	-4	2L
8	DRX	1 – 3	25%	2 – 6	25%	-4	1W
8	Kwangdong Freecs	1 – 3	25%	2 – 6	25%	-4	1L
8	Liiv SANDBOX	1 – 3	25%	2 – 6	25%	-4	3L

These are the numbers for the second week of the competition. As always, just raw data doesn’t tell the whole story if you ignore the context – but that’s what we’re here for! Let’s take a look at how all of these teams got their scars… I mean, their numbers.

T1

The poster boys of the region and the default favorites of most LCK watchers outside of Korea (me included, and I’m not ashamed), T1 sits proudly atop the list with the best map win rate among the LCK competitors. Entering the year with the 2021 roster almost unchanged has its benefits – and the players’ having enough opportunities for more efficient team building is very noticeable.

When you look at the current style of the LCK game plan, the heavy emphasis placed on the bot lane is the first thing that catches your eye. And historically, this is where T1 (formerly known as SKT T1) truly shines – and 2022 is no exception.

The fantastic duo of Gumayusi (T1’s botlane, or AD Carry) and Keria (the support) is the best fit for this kind of meta. Many analytics even place them at the number one spot in the region and a solid top-3 worldwide. No wonder – Keria was regarded as the best support in all LCK in 2021, and being the best is in Gumayusi’s blood. Fun fact: Gumayusi is the younger brother of an incredibly talented pro StarCraft player, INnoVation. Their mechanical prowess lets them dominate the fiercest competition, and so does their friendship: Gumayusi and Keria are also good friends outside of the game.

The rest of T1 is as formidable. T1’s toplaner, Zeus, has shown himself as one of the most versatile laners in the region – confidently bouncing back-and-forth from playing strong side to weak side and back again throughout a single series, Zeus can be the bait and the hook if his team needs him to be.

T1’s jungler, Oner, has already made an appearance in multiple highlight reels with his impressive Jarvan IV mechanics. And, about T1 Faker… He’s pretty good at video games.

But while T1’s record seems World Champion-worthy, it’s also worth noting that the matchmaking gods were kind to T1 so far: all their matches were against currently ranked bottom four teams in the region. Not to take away any of their accomplishments, of course: even the teams further down on the list have a bite. Just take a look at the match of T1 versus Fredit Brion! However, the biggest matchups are still ahead for the T1 roster. Let’s see if they can keep this record up.

Gen.G

Also rocking a 100% match win rate and only appearing second due to dropping one map more than T1, Generation Gaming is one of the favorites to win LCK (and, perhaps, the World Championship altogether) this year. Heavily reformed at the end of the 2021 professional season, Gen.G assembled a super team capable of impressive victories.

It’s no coincidence that they’re also a team with incredible bot lane talents. Gen.G’s Ruler and Lehends (the AD Carry and Support). In addition to having excellent mechanics – in LCK, that’s pretty much a given – the duo can throw real curveballs at their opposition. Lehends’ mad Singed support pick in the final map of the match against DWG KIA sent ripples through the community – and, most likely, inspired numerous support auto-fills to ruin my solo queue experience. The difference, however, is that Lehends actually won.

The organization’s 2022 roster also features the “Generation Griffin”: Gen.G’s toplaner Doran, midlaner Chovy, and support Lehends all used to play under the tag of Griffin in 2019. Doran’s consistent ability to create top difference throughout the series is unmatched. Although most teams prefer to place increased importance on their bot side with a jungler consistently backing them up, Doran is good enough to be an unstoppable force when bolstered with his Gen.G’s jungler, Peanut. The latter is also a true veteran of the scene, having reached the grand finals of the World Championship while representing the SKT T1 banner in 2017.

Gen.G’s midlaner, Chovy, is widely regarded as one of the best midlaners of the region. Wreaking havoc on the midlane with his signature pick, Corki, Chovy draws in target bans more often than he does not – and he’s still ready to perform regardless.

For Gen.G, the opening matches were a lot more brutal than they were for T1 – which makes their track record even more impressive. Having dispatched the likes of DWG.KIA in a convincing manner speaks volumes about the team’s combat capabilities.

Nongshim RedForce

Tying up the golden top three, we have Nongshim RedForce sitting on a respectable score of 3-1 with a 75% win rate. A young organization in the fields of LCK, Nongshim entered 2022 by completely remaking its roster. In fact, what we have here is a brand new team – with new players and new ambitions.

Although the roster is spanking new, all the players on it are long-standing veterans of the scene: Canna and Effort used to play under SKT T1’s banner, Bdd and Ghost started their career in CJ Entus all the way back in 2015, and Dread is most known for his days in Afreeca Freecs. Each of these players… Hold on, we missed one: in a surprising turn of events, Nongshim actually swapped out their support player, Effort, for an upcoming star rookie Peter much to the amusement of the English broadcast talent as astrologists declared the week of Spider-Man puns. Anyway, except for Peter, who is impressive, but still a rookie, each of these players has made a name for themselves in the region by now.

Canna is known for his aggressive playstyle on the toplane. Mainly left to his own devices, he somehow manages to rack up solo kills like no tomorrow – only second to MaRin in this ability. Bdd, NS’ midlaner, is known for his unorthodox picks and devotion to the true emperor of Shurima, Azir. Back in 2020, it was his most contested pick – but he keeps on playing Azir even when he falls out of meta. He even picked it in the series against Hanwha Life Esports. Although NS would ultimately lose that match, Bdd’s Azir secured the map he was picked on. Not to mention, in the series against DWG KIA, he drew a target ban on Azir not once but twice!

Ghost is another example of a hyper-scaling talent. Steadily improving over the years, his performance eventually landed him squarely in the grand finals of the 2021 World Championship, where he narrowly missed out on the champion’s belt 2:3 against Edward Gaming.

DWG KIA

Another example of a heavily reformed team, DWG rebuilt their roster from the ground up in December 2021. Starting the season 2-2, the lineup immediately found themselves under heavy fire from the league’s best, so these numbers can be deceiving.

DWG’s most significant pick-up of the year has got to be ShowMaker. He is widely known for his mechanical skill in the fields of the Korean Challenger queue. Even the highest-ranking Korean Solo Queue player, Dopa/Apdo, who dominated the region’s matchmaking by landing at the very first ranking for eight years straight, admitted to losing the matchup more often than not when facing ShowMaker. Complimented by his jungler, Canyon, DWG’s mid and jungle are focusing on the midlane while other teams prefer to focus their attention on the botlane.

DWG’s toplaner, Hoya, began his professional career in team Griffin together with Chovy and Lehends. However, 2022 Spring wasn’t quite a good time for his former teammates so far. It seems that DWG’s toplaner is consistently underperforming, with DWG deciding to replace him with Burdol in some Week 2 games.

As for DWG’s botlane – now this is where the fun begins. Deokdam’s performance on his signature champion, Aphelios, is sure to land him squarely into target ban territory in Week 3, mark my words! Pretty much solo winning the match against Fredit Brion as an AD Carry was an impressive feat. Kellin + deokdam botlane is widely regarded as the powerhouse duo of LCK.

It is unclear whether the team’s placement was due to mediocre performance or simply unfortunate match seedings. After all, if a team can pull off this, surely they must be pretty good! Even if they still lost that match…

KT Rolster

The fan favorites for all the old-school viewers, KT Rolster have been historically known for taking the spectators for a real rollercoaster of emotions with their games, particularly when facing SKT T1. Unfortunately, what should’ve been an opening ceremony for LCK 2022 Spring was missed by organizers, so we are yet to see this matchup any time soon.

KT is yet another example of a team getting built from a blank slate pre-2022 professional season. Not trusting the rookies, the organization signed an impressive roster of SKT T1, Kingzone DragonX, and Gen.G veterans.

KT Rolster’s toplaner, Rascal, stays true to his name with his meta-shifting picks and aggressive plays. Single-handedly making Lee Sin toplane look like an overpowered pick, Rascal not only makes his lane opponent’s life a total nightmare but enjoys daring guerilla tactics during team fights, making each enemy check behind them constantly.

As for the jungle talent, Cuzz makes Jarvan IV looks easy. While not necessarily going for the flashy E-Q-Flash combos like Oner, Cuzz prefers defeating the enemy with superior macro-management skills, seemingly having an answer on every lane at once.

Rolster’s midlaner, Aria, is a relatively young player by the league’s standards. Known for his signature pick, Zoe, and some AP Assassins with pick potential like LeBlanc, it seems that Aria is still too young to take on the established giants of the scene. While pulling his weight and then some against the mid-tier teams, Aria’s struggling to stay relevant against midlane superstars like ShowMaker.

The team’s botlane seems solid. KT Rolster’s Life seems to be the only running previously notorious Support pick of Sett, which works wonders when you need a beefy engager support. Aiming is a veteran of the scene, most known for his Ezreal – which doesn’t stop him from styling on Kwandong Freecs with his crisp, clean Aphelios.

Hanwha Life Esports

Finally, a team that didn’t wholly rebuild itself at the end of 2021. Although sweeping roster changes did occur for Hanwha as well, its toplaner DuDu and support Vsta remained under the banner. It’s hard to keep rooting for a team when they change rosters altogether, so HLE decided to avoid that route.

Although the team’s standings seem very poor at the moment at 1:3, we have to take a step back and check which teams they had to play against. The algorithm was brutal to the team, placing them headfirst into the hellish meatgrinder among T1, Gen.G, Nongshim RedForce, and KT Rolster. Having to fend off the cream of the crop right away in a completely new environment of a new season will be a daunting task, even for the best of the best.

These matchups make it tough to make any overviews for the team’s gameplay besides one – HLE is not yet ready to take on the LCK favorites. As the majority of HLE’s roster are young players, they need time to grow to match their established superiors – and while diving headfirst into the wall of Gen.G and T1 might make for a good learning experience, it would be unfair to draw results from these encounters this early.

Fredit BRION

Now, this is the biggest surprise of the split for many. Despite rocking an unimpressive scoreline of 1:3 just like HLE, Fredit BRION has earned the attention of both the community and their opponents. As raw numbers can be deceiving, BRO was another victim of a sadistic match-making algorithm that put them into the same situation as Hanwha – and although the outcome was the same, the journey to it was way different.

One of the two teams to enter the split with their existing roster relatively untouched (the other one being T1), Fredit had faith in their players despite finishing 9th place the previous year.

Fending off Gen.G, T1, DWG KIA, and, ironically, Hanwha Life Esports, Fredit BRION’s first two weeks were supposed to be a mirror image of HLE’s. Yet every series they played was a close match from start to finish, even going as far as almost taking down T1 during week one, having the currently top-1 team at a match point with a 7k gold lead to their name.

While the team’s core is composed of younger players, they have all grown massively as talents compared to last year. Fredit’s toplaner, Morgan, is the prime example of this. His ability to play for the team’s strong side completely stumped T1 in their Week 1 encounter, completely obliterating T1’s Zeus with Morgan’s Camille and Lava’s Galio.

Seeing the team’s impressive performance against the strongest opponents so early, it is fair to say that given some more time, BRO will be in good enough shape to tackle the playoffs. The only issue seems to be the team’s mental – going through hell Week 1 can impact it, so let’s see if the squad can recover in time.

DRX

Once a serious contender for the highest prize of the international scene, Kingzone DragonX, now known as DRX, has seen better days. Fielding three new players for the 2022 season, one of them being the legendary AD Carry Deft, was the team’s shot at greatness.

Being a DRX fan means being a Deft fan. And being a Deft fan means nothing but pain. Widely regarded as one of the greatest ADC players of all time, Deft is known for two things – his mechanical ability to squeeze every possible bit of damage potential from his champion and never winning Worlds. And if DRX continues playing like this, Deft’s last dance will not change anything in this regard.

It seems that the team’s weakest links are its toplane and its jungle. And while toplane diff can be worked around with “sacrifice Dyrus” strats, having a subpar jungler means certain doom in the current meta. DRX’s match versus Liiv Sandbox was the perfect example of this, as the opposing team heavily diffed both Kingen and Pyosik. Let alone the match against Gen.G – that was a hard-to-watch massacre by the GEN’s toplane.

DRX’s botlane of Deft and BeryL seems to be the team’s only saving grace, but as teams figured out and optimized the way to use the Rift Herald, giving up half the map is no way to play the modern-day League.

Kwangdong Freecs

Oh, boy. Now we’re getting to the point where the stats match the results, and it ain’t pretty. If you would’ve told me that two of the best AD Carries of 2018-2019 would end up dead last in their region in 2022, I would’ve called you crazy. But you’d be right.

Heavily reforming the team pre-2022, the Freecs exchanged four players ahead of the new season, leaving only their toplaner, Kiin, as part of the new roster.

Speaking plainly, every game of Kwandong Freecs so far has been a fiesta. For sure, having to face T1 in your debut match of the season can be painful, but compared to teams like Hanhwa Life Esports and Fredit BRION, the Freecs had it relatively easy. But still, the score’s the same.

You can take Freecs out of Afreeca, but you can’t take Afreeca out of Freecs, and their match against DRX was a timeless example of this. Drawing out the game to 50 minutes. Taking all the Drakes and losing to an Elder flip… twice. Playing so passively with a lead that even Bob Ross will begin flaming you. Yep, it sounds like Afreeca, alright.

While the team possesses start talent in the form of Teddy, AD Carry is a bit of an odd role to solo carry games even despite its name. In the case of Freecs, trying to find a scapegoat is pointless – it seems that the team lacks cohesion, and all their troubles begin from that factor alone.

Liiv SANDBOX

Liiv SANDBOX was entering the year as the underdog team destined for greatness, yet they leave Week 2 as just the underdogs.

As the organization entered 2022, its game plan seemed to foster new talent. Watching their games reveals that the talent is indeed there as the players are mechanically sound, yet the team is missing adequate calls and cohesion required for all the individual pieces to connect and click. Liiv SANDBOX’s match versus T1 was the biggest indicator of that – even with T1 making silly mechanical mistakes that Liiv punished, Liiv was unable to fully utilize their advantage and close out the game’s in their favor. Yet when the reverse happened and Liiv made a mistake, T1 clung to it like demons, never letting Liiv forget their mistakes.

Still, it was entertaining to watch the Clozer versus Faker matchup. T1 teaching their opposition themselves to then learn from facing them seems to be the legendary organization’s plan for the LCK, and so far, it seems to be working out just fine.

It seems the organization needs some time to adjust to the realities of LCK. However, doing so might be a daunting task as the current meta seems to be swapping out players before they can actually team build with their teammates. I hope to see Liiv avoid this pitfall, but only time can show if they truly will.