2023 LCS Spring Split Pre-Season Power Rankings

2023 LCS Spring Split Pre-Season Power Rankings

An overall look at the power levels of all ten LCS teams in Spring Split.


There are some big broadcast changes coming into the year. The league switched the gamedays from weekends to weekdays, Wednesdays and Fridays during regular weeks. Also, some broadcast members won’t be appearing as regulars, with James “Dash” Patterson parting ways with Riot as the regular show host and David “Phreak” Turley retiring from casting LCS.

The split itself will kick off on January 26 with the Week 1. The Spring Split Finals location also has been revealed ahead of the opening day, which will be held in PNC Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina on April 8-9.

This power rankings list will be updated throughout the split with each week of games, and readers can find the full schedule for the 2023 LCS Spring Split here.

10. Immortals

  • Top lane: Mohamed “Revenge” Kaddoura
  • Jungle: Shane Kenneth “Kenvi” Espinoza
  • Mid lane: Nicholas Antonio “Ablazeolive” Abbott
  • AD Carry: Edward “Tactical” Ra
  • Support: Kadir “Fleshy” Kemiksiz

It’s getting harder and harder to get excited about Immortals with each split. This will be the third split in which they are building around Revenge, but he still hasn’t shown enough improvement. This is especially worrying since both Ablazeolive and Tactical also suffers from the same fate. Once regarded as one of the better prospects in their positions, neither player took the next step into LCS stardom. With the other two players on the team being relatively inexperienced, I don’t have any significant expectations for Immortals once again.

9. TSM

  • Top lane: Colin “Solo” Earnest
  • Jungle: Lee “Bugi” Seong-yeop
  • Mid lane: Huang “Maple” Yi-Tang
  • AD Carry: Toàn “Neo” Trần
  • Support: Jonathan “Chime” Pomponio

TSM put together one of the most strange rosters I’ve seen in the LCS in recent years. They don’t seem to have a clear direction and just stuck with players who helped them avoid disaster last split. I’m happy that players like Chime and Solo are getting a chance on a roster, but I’m not sure how this specific one should be functioning. They don’t necessarily have strong laners or star players, and the team hasn’t been together long enough to beat people with the power of friendship. Maybe they can get an upset here and there, but TSM fans shouldn’t expect too much more.

8. Golden Guardians

  • Top lane: Eric “Licorice” Ritchie
  • Jungle: Kim “River” Dong-woo
  • Mid lane: Kim “Gori” Tae-woo
  • AD Carry: Trevor “Stixxay” Hayes
  • Support: Choi “huhi” Jae-hyun

The first try at the River experiment didn’t go that well for Golden Guardians. He was single handily carrying Dignitas’ playoffs hopes in Spring 2022, but couldn’t show the same performance last split. But I have some hopes for 2023, with Gori joining the lineup. I think he will be one of the best signings of the Spring. He is coming into the LCS as the reigning MVP of the PCS, and he has experience playing in LPL and LCK. If Stixxay can keep up his play from last Summer Playoffs with huhi behind him, they might make a push for the playoffs.

7. Dignitas

  • Top lane: İrfan Berk “Armut” Tükek
  • Jungle: Lucas “Santorin” Tao Kilmer Larsen
  • Mid lane: Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen
  • AD Carry: Trevor “Spawn” Kerr-Taylor
  • Support: Lee “IgNar” Dong-geun

There are two endings for the 2023 Dignitas roster. The budget super team, or the retirement home. Nearly all players on this roster, with the exception of the rookie Spawn, are players who played on championship contenders and who won trophies. But they also either didn’t have the best 2022 or have been very inconsistent. Well, apart from Santorin who was trying to drag Team Liquid on his back. So it’s hard to say whether they will be a good playoff team or just crash and burn. I’m just hoping it’s the former for the sake of Santorin, but not too optimistic.

6. Counter Logic Gaming

  • Top lane: Niship “Dhokla” Doshi 
  • Jungle: Juan Arturo “Contractz” Garcia
  • Mid lane: Cristian “Palafox” Palafox 
  • AD Carry: Fatih “Luger” Güven
  • Support: Philippe “Poome” Lavoie-Giguere

Counter Logic Gaming is the only team that did not make any changes coming into the 2023 Season, thankfully so. They were the most exciting team to watch the last split, and the hope is they can continue playing their style. But unfortunately, I don’t think they can repeat their performance performance-wise. The 2022 Summer Split was a very weird one, with multiple teams struggling to find their form and peaking only toward the playoffs like Cloud9. Combine this with teams like FlyQuest making significant upgrades, they might be a little left behind. Still, CLG fans still have a lot to cheer for as their team is at least guaranteed to play with everything they have.

5. Team Liquid

  • Top lane: Park “Summit” Woo-tae
  • Jungle: Hong “Pyosik” Chang-hyeon
  • Mid lane: Harry “Haeri” Kang
  • AD Carry: Sean “Yeon” Sung
  • Support: Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in

Dubbed TLCK by the fans online, Team Liquid build a full Korean-speaking roster with two big imports after a year where they get burned by them. It will be interesting to see if their strategy pays off, but fans should temper their expectations. We know Summit himself can carry a team to the top during the regular season, he is the 2022 Spring LCS MVP for a reason, but other top laners should be more ready for him this time around. They also promoted two Academy players to the roster, which means TL intends to invest some time in this project. I can see them making some noise in Summer after Haeri and Yeon adjust to the LCS level, but it’s hard for them to come out the gate at the level of some of the other squads.

4. 100 Thieves

  • Top lane: Milan “Tenacity” Oleksij
  • Jungle: Can “Closer” Çelik
  • Mid lane: Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg
  • AD Carry: Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng
  • Support: Alan “Busio” Cwalina

Not only Doublelift returns to professional League of Legends, but he is once again reunited with Bjergsen. We saw this duo win multiple titles before, but his time their job will be a lot harder. Not only is Doublelift coming off of a two-year break, but the team will also need to integrate two rookies in a very fast fashion. Luckily for them, both Busio and Tenacity have enough talent to speed up the process, but most of the time winning takes time.

With just the name value, a team comprised of Closer, Bjergsen and Doublelift sounds like a title contender. But unlike the last half-decade of LCS, the league’s mid lane pool is in a good state and Bjergsen had some games where he struggled to impact the game. If we get the Bjergsen/Doublelift duo from 2020 Summer, and Closer from any of the last three splits, 100 Thieves can be the title favorites in the Summer Split. But Spring might be too early for their rookies.

3. Cloud9

  • Top lane: Ibrahim “Fudge” Allami
  • Jungle: Robert “Blaber” Huang
  • Mid lane: Dimitri “Diplex” Ponomarev
  • AD Carry: Kim “Berserker” Min-cheol
  • Support: Jesper “Zven” Svenningsen

Reigning champions are coming in at the number three, even though they only made one roster change. I think there is a big chance Diplex might be an improvement over Jensen as the latter wasn’t consistent enough on carry champions for Cloud9. But even with the possible improved roster, the worry is that their Summer Playoffs victory was too reliant on the meta at the time, with Berserker dominating other bot lanes on Zeri plus enchanters. We are still seeing Zeri getting played in other regions, but with nerfs on the horizon, C9 fans should hope he broadened his champion pool.

There were also big consistency issues for Cloud9 in Summer. Fudge, Blaber and Zven had games they looked like the best players in the league, and then played like it was their first time as a team. They are in third place with the expectations of them improving their communication problems, and Zven getting comfortable on more champions. Sure, there are a lot of caveats, but these players have proven themselves time and time before.

2. FlyQuest

prince flyquest

prince flyquest

  • Top lane: Jeong “Impact” Eon-young
  • Jungle: Mingyi “Spica” Lu
  • Mid lane: Lee “VicLa” Dae-kwang
  • AD Carry: Lee “Prince” Chae-hwan
  • Support: Bill “Eyla” Nguyen

What an off-season it has been for FlyQuest. After chasing playoffs with a limited budget roster for two years, the organization finally build a roster that can legitimately challenge the LCS trophy. While they have a very young core, all of these players showed they could play at a very high level for at least a season before. The only exception to this is Eyla, but even he has a small sample size of games from last year when he subbed for TL. So the expected floor for this five-man roster is pretty high, they should at the very least finish top-three. And if all five players come into the season firing at all cylinders, well the league might be in trouble.

Although I’m not expecting them to do that from the start. Both VicLa and Prince might need some time to adjust to NA and to communicate in English on the Rift. Still, it’s almost certain that they will be one of the championship favorites once the playoffs start.

1. Evil Geniuses

  • Top lane: Kim “Ssumday” Chan-ho
  • Jungle: Kacper “Inspired” Słoma
  • Mid lane: Joseph Joon “jojopyun” Pyun
  • AD Carry: Victor “FBI” Huang
  • Support: Philippe “Vulcan” Laflamme

Losing Impact and Danny for 2023 has been a significant blow for Evil Geniuses, but if I had to choose two players to replace them, I would probably choose Ssumday and FBI. It’s arguable who’s better between the two top laner, probably changes with each match-up. And even though FBI may not have the same late-game teamfight presence as Danny, he is still one of the best bot laners in the league, not to mention he is a better laner. He might also be a better fit with this jungle/support duo as well. Both Inspired and Vulcan are very active players in the early game, so an ADC who will contribute to this activity might give EG access to another playstyle.

Of course, this will also be the second year for Jojo, and there is a big expectation to see him take another step forward. He already showed he can be a great team player who will roam the map last split, mainly after the MSI, but this Spring I’d like to see him play more traditional carries as well. A combination of star power and a preexisting synergy of their three core players makes Evil Geniuses favorites to win their second Spring Finals in a row.


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