The competition is heating up as the LCS 2024 Summer Season — the largest League of Legends competition in North America — is set to begin on Saturday, June 15th at 13:00 PST. While Team Liquid remains at the top of the standings, several teams have significantly improved their rosters with exciting new additions. Discover Sheep Esports' Power Rankings for the LCS Summer Split, featuring contributions from our friend Arsh Goyal of NAmen.

1. Team Liquid Honda

There’s no question about it: Team Liquid are the best team in the LCS. For the LCS fans who blacked out after the TES series due to NA-choking PTSD, this might come as a shock. TL may be the reigning champions, but they only finished fourth in the regular season, and their crushing Spring Finals victory came off the back of an uncharacteristically weak performance from FlyQuest. Since then, every team around them has made impressive roster upgrades in pursuit of the trophy. Still, TL’s trend of improvement before and during MSI secures their spot at the top.

Their 3-1 victory against FNC and shockingly competitive series against T1 at MSI don’t paint the full picture of TL’s current level. It’s more about the specific players making that happen. Jeong "Impact" Eon-young definitely had a great tournament on K’Sante, but Eain "APA" Stearns and Sean "Yeon" Sung were on a different level. This tournament was, at long last, vindication for the TL pipeline that has spent years investing in these players.

APA finally proved that he’s an international-class threat, even when he’s not on his core champions. Yeon played the best western Lucian-Nami game I’ve ever seen. This team is scrappy, aggressive, and creative, and they finally have the consistent, serious threats they’ve lacked. In a split with so many moving pieces at the top of the league, where almost every team has a shot at the title, TL are still the clear favorite.

2. Cloud9

Heralded as a super team after securing the addition of Joseph Joon "Jojopyun" Pyun to its roster, Cloud9 ended its spring season early in third place, somehow missing out on an MSI appearance despite high expectations. While finishing third would be a great accomplishment for practically any other team, this result was far below what the organization expected to achieve in 2024. As a result, the team has now made two new additions to its roster: toplaner Park "Thanatos" Seung-gyu and head coach Bok "Reapered" Han-gyu. While these new additions may seem promising, it is too soon to tell if they will address the plethora of issues that plagued the team in the first half of the year.

Hyped by many as the next South Korean super top, Thanatos is entering the LCS with extremely high expectations as he is now set to fill the shoes of Ibrahim "Fudge" Allami, who had been with the squad since 2021. Though the toplaner should prove to be a fun prospect to watch in the upcoming LCS season, it remains unlikely that his addition will magically fix the team's other issues, notably amidst a streak of uncharacteristic underperformances from the team's ad carry Kim "Berserker" Min-cheol. Still, even if some doubts remain around the squad, it is easy to be swayed by the nostalgia of Cloud9 and Reapered's last tenure together. Having spent more than three years apart from one another, this reunion could indicate a return to the glory days of the organization. While Team Liquid are still rated highly due to their recent performances at MSI and in the LCS, Cloud9's chances at a championship have now risen tremendously after the spring season.

3. FlyQuest

Since their first-place finish in the spring regular season, FlyQuest have struggled to meet expectations. They first lost to Team Liquid in the playoffs finals and then disappointed North American fans at the MSI stage. The team appears to be in a slump, and while they are changing their midlane position, replacing a scapegoat rarely solves the underlying issues.

To be clear, Song "Quad" Su-hyeong was the best player in the NACL, and his promotion is well-deserved. However, the entire roster needs to step up to regain their momentum. Integrating a South Korean player adds another layer of complexity, making the path to the top even more challenging. Team Liquid and Cloud9 seem better positioned to improve for the Summer, particularly since the former made their player change much earlier in the offseason. Nonetheless, FlyQuest arguably has the most talented squad in the LCS. If they can address their issues, they have the potential to return to the top position.

4. 100 Thieves

100 Thieves are coming off a fairly convincing split, albeit at two speeds. The thieves first snatched 2nd place in the regular season with a record of 10-4 before getting caught in the playoffs. Relying on creativity, in the spring season, the squad often went full Ocean's Eleven style, springing surprises with unexpected strategies, thanks in particular to the huge champion pool of their midlaner Lim "Quid" Hyeon-seung. We've seen picks like Aatrox mid, Veigar, Yasuo, and even a Shaco jungle for Kim "River" Dong-woo. We also know that Rayan "Sniper" Shoura is an excellent Riven player and, as discussed in an exclusive interview with Sheep Esports, could very well be picked again in Summer.

The botlane was also very effective throughout the regular season, particularly Brandon "Meech" Choi, who didn't seem fazed in his rookie year, backed up by a convincing Bill "Eyla" Nguyen. Several 100T members were rewarded at the Season Awards: Quid as MVP, the coaching staff as the coaching staff of the split, River and Quid in the All-Pro Team, Eyla in the 2nd team, and Sniper in the 3rd.

However, it was probably the lack of experience of some of the players and the best-of-five format that caused 100T to fail their heist in the playoffs, finishing in 4th place despite beating NRG and losing to C9 and TL. In our opinion, the Thieves will have a tougher time in this Summer Split due to the new best-of-three format, which could restrict the team's ability to surprise their opponents as they could in best-of-ones. The teams we place ahead of them in our Power Ranking look more experienced in longer series and have also played internationally recently, which is why 100T might find themselves locked in the middle of the pack. Let’s see if they find a way out.

5. Dignitas

Easily the biggest story of the offseason, DIG has assembled the infinity stones of teamless LCS superstars — somehow, the perennially memed org picked up four incredible talents and positioned itself as a real title contender. Isles is the only player to remain on the roster from Spring, and while he was the best individual player on the team, the limited tier 1 spots in NA mean that the promising replaced players — especially Lawrence Lin "eXyu" Xu and Frank "Tomo" Lam — are out in the cold. That’s not to take anything away from this roster, though; if everything works out, they can win the LCS.

If this roster had been constructed at the start of the year, it would be universally power-ranked second or third on name brand alone. Eric "Licorice" Ritchie was the best toplaner in the LCS in his most recent split, Jesper "Zven" Svenningsen was a top ADC and consistently gets respect for understanding the game at an incredibly high level, and Mingyi "Spica" Lu, whom Sheep Esports recently interviewed, is still the best thing the modern LCS ever got from TSM. Still, even if Nicolaj "Jensen" Jensen can prove that FLY was wrong about him, this roster only has a matter of weeks to catch up to six months of prep and team building for every other roster in the league. On paper, these players seem to mesh well — now they just have to prove it.

6. NRG

Summer is here, and it's time for another NRG miracle run!... Or is it? The former champions of the LCS are back after a disappointing first half of 2024, hoping to repeat the miracles of last year. Unfortunately, despite high expectations for the squad at the beginning of the competitive year, NRG fumbled and completely missed the mark so far. Part of a lineup that has remained largely untouched ever since joining forces in 2022 under the now-defunct banner of CLG, Cristian "Palafox" Palafox and his teammates have struggled to make a lasting impact in the LCS after their surprising 2023 Summer & Worlds run. Still, underperformance in Spring is not a surprise for the squad, as was discussed with the team's midlaner in an exclusive interview at the start of the year.

Suffering from a wide array of issues, it is unclear if NRG's break after ending the spring season in a shared 5th place will help the squad rise beyond their limitations once more. Though the team does not boast the most mechanically gifted players in their region, the team play of this squad stands above most other competitors in the LCS. While the road to Worlds remains possible for NRG, saying that they are coming into the Summer Season as favorites would be a large overstatement. Having now kept the same core lineup for about three years, the squad will be under immense pressure in the summer season, as it is very likely that NRG will have to make difficult decisions heading into 2025 if its players are unable to re-enact their past results.

7. Immortals

Despite a willingness to improve, Immortals remains far from its pre-franchising glory days. With the addition of promising South Korean solo laners Cho "Castle" Hyeon-seong and Lee "Mask" Sang-hun, the team hoped to make a dent in the Spring Season and entered with bravado before ultimately finishing in last place in the league. Despite this disappointing result, Immortals has shown slow improvements and is now striving to move past its difficult history. In the words of the team's new head coach Nicholas "Inero" Smith, Immortals now finds itself behind most other teams in the LCS and must find a way to catch up on fundamentals.

Though lacking in team play, the team's strength lies in decent individual talents who could very well impress the league if coached correctly. Immortals' road to redemption will be a difficult one, but if things go as planned for the squad, it is not unlikely that they could contend for lower playoff spots and upset some of the weaker teams in the upper half of the league. At this time, Immortals is still expected to rank below most other teams in the league and, with no changes to its starting lineup, should theoretically slot outside of playoff contention.

8. Shopify Rebellion

The Rebellion might stand at the bottom of this list, but that doesn’t mean this team lacks potential — it’s just a testament to how competitive the LCS is this year. In Spring, Ju "Bvoy" Yeong-hoon stood head and shoulders above the rest of his team, earning first-team All-Pro despite the team’s abysmal 5-9 record in the regular season. Having spoken to other LCS pros about him, it’s clear that every ADC in the league respects him as one of the strongest contenders in the role. However, against a surging Yeon and a potential Berserker comeback, it won’t be easy to stay #1. With the promotion of Tomio Phanlith "Tomio" Chan — an incredibly promising rookie jungler reminiscent of Blaber and Spica — to the starting spot, the rest of this team is all about living up to their potential.

After single-handedly carrying games with his ocean of pocket picks last year, David "Insanity" Challe proved that he’s capable of being one of the best midlaners in the league. This year’s tank midlane picks, however, have been underwhelming. For years, Aaron "FakeGod" Lee has demonstrated his remarkable potential as a player in the tier 2 scene but has yet to live up to that hype on the LCS stage. Tristan "Zeyzal" Stidam, with years of experience behind him, hopes to reclaim some of that DSG magic alongside FakeGod and Tomio to lead his team in defying every expectation. Shopify Rebellion is so chock-full of potential that they’re practically choking on it — they may be at the bottom of this list, but they could just as easily be a dark horse to go to Worlds.