The LEC is back soon, and that means it's time to rank all the teams with absolutely zero context. OK, maybe some context for KC and G2. This year, the LEC format is exactly the same as it has been the past couple of years, the only exception the addition of the First Stand tournament at the end of the Winter Split.
So just like every other power ranking list we're going to put out, we're going to try and touch on a couple things about each team:
- What have they changed?
- Have they fixed the flaws they had last year and did they add any new flaws?
- Where are they, and will they even compete to go to the First Stand Tournament? spoiler: they probably won't
Without further ado, the rankings:
So SK Gaming and the next team on the list kind of fall into the same bucket: They're young. Like, really young.
Young generally doesn't have to mean bad, but I think this SK team is going to need time to figure out who they want to be. They've revamped basically the entire roster. Irrelevant, Nisqy, and Luon are gone.
In the top lane now is JNX, who played really well on BDS Academy in the LFL along with Reeker, the mid laner for that same team, who most recently played for Mad Lions.
Again, I don't think that this team is bad. I just think that for the first split, they're not going to be great.
Team Heretics went from one of the oldest teams in the LEC at an average age of 25.6 years old to an average age of 21.4, which according to LOGANSTATS™, that's the largest jump in a team age.
(Disclaimer: LOGANSTATS™ have 0 statistical backing).
On the roster side, they've rebuilt this team around Flakked. Wunder, Jankos, Zwyroo, and Trymbi are all gone from the LEC roster over the offseason. In the top lane is Carlsen, who got promoted from Los Heretics, while support is now Stend from Vitality Bee, the LFL roster.
The jungler is a proven entity. Sheo showed last year in BDS that he was able to facilitate on a team with plenty of lanes to play through.
The biggest question mark on this team is Kamiloo, who got brought up 2 divisions from LFL Division 2, straight into the LEC. The last player I can remember that did that in either Western league was Danny from EG, who while he was playing, was incredibly good.
Age obviously isn't everything in League of Legends, but when you get that much younger, you're obviously going for a roster that wants to build into something good over the course of the year. This roster is built not to fight for the First Stand tournament, but fight to make it into playoffs and improve as the year progresses.
Vitality ended at 8th place in my rankings because every other spot was taken. I have literally no clue how this team will actually do.
Carzzy and Hylissang are back from last year's roster. I'm still not sure if that's a good thing yet, as they don't ever seem to be the reason that Vitality win, rather they're often the reason they lose.
Lyncas is also back, though I'll reserve my thoughts on him because we only saw him in Summer split of last year, when I thought Vitality were basically a dead team anyway.
They've switched up the two solo lanes though. Gone are Photon and Vetheo, and in are Naak Nako (excellent name) and Czajek, both from their runner up academy roster.
These rookies look good, but I'm unsure if this team really has the firepower to do as well as the teams above them in these rankings.
ADAM! MALRANG! JEONGHOON! THIS TEAM IS FULL OF PSYCHOPATHS (and Larssen) AND I LOVE IT. But I don't love it enough to rank it that high.
In one season, Rogue have gone from a team that I refuse to watch, to a team that I will actively watch. They've gone from an incredibly stable team at the bottom of the standings, and became a team with the lowest floor and a top 3 ceiling.
Rogue have moved on from Finn (again) and brought in the most volatile top laner in the league, Adam, to pair with the most volatile jungler in the league, Malrang. Prepare for psychopathic level 1's.
Additionally, their bot lane has been revamped for 2025. Comp and Zoelys are out, and in are Patrik from GiantX, and Execute (formerly known as JeongHoon) from BNK FearX. You may remember Execute from when he was on Astralis as one of the only bright pieces on an otherwise disappointing roster.
This team will be incredibly fun to watch, as long as you don't ever expect Rogue to win. They're going to be the most aggressive team in the league and I don't expect it to be close.
I believe GiantX on average will be a worse team then Rogue. But as written above, I don't believe Rogue will ever be a team with a real average game.
GiantX took basically the only good thing from their roster last season, Jackies in mid lane, and built around it. They've moved on from Juhan and Th3Antonio from top and jungle, and replaced them with Lot from the LFL's Team GO, and Closer from Karmine Corp. According to Sheep Esports, Lot was selected using the same data model they found Jackies with last year.
Finally, GiantX have brought in Fnatic's former bot lane, replacing Patrik and Ignar with Noah and Jun. While Noah (and Jun to a degree) floundered in playoffs and Worlds, they will be a huge in-season upgrade and should get this team into the playoffs.
All in all, GiantX have made upgrades over the offseason, but I don't think enough of an upgrade to bring them into the top 5.
This BDS roster is in a weird transitional place. I think I might be ranking them too low, but I'd rather be wrong for Winter and get it right in Spring.
BDS have brought back nuc and Ice from last season, who both played really well. The rest of this team though? Could be upgrades, could be side-grades, could be straight downgrades.
Adam is out, which vaguely makes sense according to all of the leaks we've heard about the behind-the-scenes. The replacement is Irrelevant, who probably was a Top 2 top laner last season. This change makes the BDS top lane go from highly volatile to extremely stable.
Since Sheo's moved over to Team Heretics, BDS have brought in 113. He's probably best know for his stint on Astralis a couple years ago, and for spamming as many emotes as possible while clearing his jungle camps. He's my hero.
Finally, Parus is the new support, in for Labrov (who we'll talk about later) from the BDS Academy team. He was really good in LFL, but we've seen plenty of LFL players not transition all the way to the LEC.
This team on the surface looks good, but the teams above them are more likely to have more starting success, especially in the Winter Split.
Gone are the days where Karmine Corp are the worst team in the league. The Blue Wall fans have hope this year, as the player who's been heralded as the next best AD Carry, Caliste, finally makes his debut on the LEC stage.
Canna, Vladi and Targamas are back for KCorp as well, with the only other new addition being the former G2 jungler, Yike. At this point, I rate every player here pretty highly, with the exception of the bot lane.
It's not because I don't think this bot lane will be good, we just haven't seen Caliste play an LEC match yet, and Targamas was middling last year. Everything we've heard and seen from the LFL points us to the conclusion that this bot lane is the real deal.
I don't expect them to win this first split, but they can deal serious damage as the split goes on.
Movistar KOI made just one move in the offseason to remove the 1 non-Spanish speaker on their roster... for another non-Spanish speaker. Fresskowy, who no one seemed to rate particularly high, has been replaced with a former competitive Fortnite player who dominated the LCS's mid lanes for 3 years: Jojopyun.
There are some concerns with Jojo. According to IWDominate, Jojo was late to work at least 43 times, and due to that, his contract with Cloud9 was terminated. If his work ethic can be fixed though, Jojo's talent in the server is incredible. Surround that with Myrwn's insane top lane picks and Elyoya's jungling, the top side for Movistar KOI looks incredibly deadly.
The bot lane of Supa and Alvero flickers between a top 3 lane in the league and a bottom 3 lane in the league, but if they start getting everyone on the same page at the same time, this team could go quite far in the playoffs.
This offseason, Fnatic made 2 moves. I am not convinced either of them matters.
The entire top side of the map is the same, with Oscarinin, Razork and Humanoid all returning. The bottom side though, is completely new. Upset is back on Fnatic and Mikyx is his pair in the bot lane. Both of these players should provide some safety and consistency in the bot lane.
The problem is that this team hasn't been particularly bad during the LEC, but that it's failed during international competition. With these changes, I'm not confident that it fixes this teams biggest weakness. Humanoid seems to always be making the wrong decisions in those games, and once we get to the top, these international issues make a difference.
Of course G2 are ranked in the top spot. Did you really open this article and expect them not to be ranked as the number one team this season?
Yes, they've moved on from former MVP support Mikyx, as well as Yike, but the real core of the current G2 roster lives on. Caps is in the mid lane, BrokenBlade in the top lane, and Hans Sama remains in bot lane. They've acquired basically the best available support in Labrov after a really good season on BDS, and brought in the best LFL jungler in SkewMond.
There may be some issues to start, as SkewMond and Labrov haven't played with this group yet, but judging how G2 has integrated new members into their roster over the last couple years, I see almost no reason why G2 won't be Europe's representative at the First Stand tournament.