LoL Content Creator Power Rankings: Worlds 2023
Let’s face it – power rankings are hard. Regardless of which esport you follow and what scene you are a part of, making attempt to rank the teams/players participating in any gaming competition is grounds for heated debate.
So we at ESI decided to take a slightly different approach for the 2023 League of Legends Word Championship. League of Legends Esports is a constant hotbed of debate due to the depth and complexity of the game, but by aggregating the opinions of streamer Marc “Caedrel” Lamont, G2 Esports bot lane duo Steven “Hans Sama” Liv and Mihael “Mikyx” Mehle, freelance coach/analyst Jakob "YamatoCannon" Mebdi, and content creator Psychopathic Poro, we at Esports Illustrated hope to tackle the team power rankings conversation for Worlds 2023 with a different approach.
S – JD Gaming
It’s not a surprise to see JD Gaming at the top of this aggregate – the League of Legends Pro League squad crowned themselves kings of China in spring and summer and won the 2023 Mid-Season Invitational in between those achievements. They’re far from a perfect team, but when the stakes are high, no team has been able to match them on Summoner’s Rift this year.
“Any criticism that anyone has towards JDG is in games that are unimportant,” said YamatoCannon.
The results speak for themselves – JD Gaming has always come up big when it matters. Whether they will at Worlds has yet to be seen, but it’s fair to call them the tournament favorites heading into the main event.
A – LNG Esports, Gen.G, Bilibili Gaming, Weibo Gaming, T1
Tier A is, perhaps unsurprisingly, made up completely of teams from the LPL and South Korea’s League of Legends Champions Korea. MSI finalist Bilibili Gaming and LPL Summer Playoffs finalist LNG Esports highlight the group alongside T1, who, while settling for 2nd seed after losing the finals of the LCK Summer Playoffs to Gen.G, cannot be counted out with mid laner Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok at the helm.
4th LPL seed Weibo Gaming rounds out the tier, and with the team listed as Caedrel’s only S+ squad, it’s clear that they should be considered a dark horse to win it all.
B – G2 Esports, KT Rolster, Dplus KIA
B Tier features the rounding out of the LCK representatives in 3rd seed KT Rolster and 4th seed Dplus KIA, as well as the highest ranked western team in League of Legends European Championship 1st seed G2 Esports. Both South Korean representatives qualified through the 2023 LCK Regional Final this past August, while G2 Esports followed up a Winter championship and MSI appearance by reclaiming their domestic title in summer after a 4th place stumble in the spring post-season.
“The main reason I have so much faith in these guys is their MSI performances,” said Psychopathic Poro. “They essentially showed that their style works against Eastern teams and they were, in fact, the only Western team that could consistently keep up with the Eastern teams.”
G2 Esports has a clear style that differs from the rest of the teams in the tournament, and that aspect of their identity in addition to the high level of individual play from its players makes them the clear Western hope at this year’s World Championship.
C – Cloud9, Fnatic
It says a lot that Cloud9, after losing the finals of the League Championship Series Champion to NRG, is still ranked higher than the current champion of North America. Time and time again, C9 enters international competition as NA’s best hope regardless of their seed, and while recent results have left a lot to be desired, maybe entering an international competition as something other than the 1st seed in 18 months will be their ticket to success.
Hans Sama and Mikyx put C9 in their C tier alongside Fnatic and LCS champions NRG. “Despite the final, I think C9 is probably a bit better,” said Mikyx. “I don’t know, I just think that, player wise, they can probably do more at Worlds. I don’t have that much faith in NRG. They need to learn how to draft. Complete coaching gap in that one.”
Fnatic, on the other hand, surged in summer but ultimately settled for the 2nd seed after losing the finals of the LEC Summer Playoffs to G2 Esports. Like many Fnatic lineups before them, the ceiling of this roster is enough to boast the best in the west, but their consistency on the international stage will have to be proven first.
D – NRG, MAD Lions, Team BDS
Team BDS lands in this tier after defeating Golden Guardians in the World Championship Qualiifer, but they struggled mightily through the Play In on their way to qualifying for the main event of Worlds 2023. MAD Lions has the peaks to compete for the European domestic title, but they’ve almost constantly left a lot to be desired in international competition. NRG may have defeated C9 in the finals of the LCS Championship, but it’s telling that they’re almost universally evaluated as weaker than their runner-ups.
E – Team Liquid Honda
Team Liquid Honda’s year did not work out exactly as planned, but it did work. After finishing 8th in the 2023 LCS Spring Split, TL managed to finish top 3 in the LCS Championship to qualify for Worlds after a mid-split substitution of mid laner Eain "APA" Stearns. TL deserves all the praise for getting this far with a retooled organization approach after missing Worlds last year, but to expect them to go much further is optimistic, at best.
Photo by Christian Betancourt/Riot Games
F – GAM Esports
GAM Esports continued to establish themselves as the best Vietnamese team of all time by qualifying for the main event of Worlds 2023 through the Play-In, but their volatile style of play and inferior late-game shotcalling would see them landing anywhere but last in the Swiss Stage as a huge defiance of expectations.
How to Watch the 2023 League of Legends World Championship
For a full overview of the match schedule, stream links, and format details on Worlds 2023, check out our viewer guide.
Esports/gaming journalist since 2016. He's covered live competitive gaming events from coast to coast in the United States and is based in the esports epicenter of Los Angeles, CA. Over the better part of the last decade, he has developed a unique voice in the LoL Esports space as a columnist, built relationships with premiere organizations, told captivating stories through interviews and features and authored industry-shaking reports all the while maintaining razor-sharp understanding of the game at its competitive peak. He has published exclusively with Inven Global for four years and has been freelancing/writing independently since parting with the publication. If you need someone to tell a story, let's chat.