Top of the League — Top 25 Players in the World in different stat categories
Looking at the Top Players across the Globe in different stat categories, and looking at Champion picks as well. By Tom Searfoss
If you haven’t seen the Top N Players Tableau dashboard that I tweeted out a little while ago, it’s a handy tool that auto-updates daily that you can use to look at the Top Players across a ton of stat categories! As of writing this article, the database has been last refreshed at July 12th at 1:23AM PT.
You can adjust the number of games played and the number of rankings you want to look at in addition to the Regions you wish to compare. Using this visual, we’ll be taking a look weekly at how players stack up across the globe using a few key filters: Top 25 Players with at least 4 games played. Since most Regions have teams playing at least 2 games per week, this filter catches all players that have at least 2 weeks of pro play under their belts.
Without further ado, let’s get Stats-y!
Comparing Major Regions Only
A Major Region is defined by their having 2+ seeds at Worlds. So for this exercise, the LPL, LCK, LEC, LCS, PCS & VCS are Major Regions.
Top KDA (All Roles)
Now that Victory Five (V5) has stated playing with Jungler XLB they haven’t dropped a game. In doing so, XLB has only died 6 times while putting up great numbers and good performances on the Rift — netting him the top KDA slot in the Major Regions (EN: XLB’s KDA is even higher at 19.5 in 6 games, but the database has not updated this match yet).
One of the more interesting players to see is Evil Genius (EG) Jungler Inspired holding on to a 10.81 KDA. EG sit in 1st place of the LCS but also have the longest average game time in the Region at 35:38 — a whole 2:58 longer than the region’s average.
The breakdown of roles leans towards Mid Laners and Supports, with the roles having 14 of the 25 spots together. Sadly, there are no Top Laners to be seen here.
Champions are more set up to favor the Bot Lane picks — both carry and Support. The Champions with less games are skewing higher thanks to a smaller sample size, but popular picks such as Yuumi and Zeri still crack the Top 10.
Top DMG/M (All Roles)
Not surprising to see 24 of the 25 top DMG/M roles going to Bot and Mid laners. As the usual carry roles, you expect that to have the most damage. The stand out is Weibo Gaming (WBG) Top Laner TheShy — who breaks the Top 10 with his most played Champion being Kayle on 7 plays, with another 4 as Jayce and Gnar.
Danny might be surprising to see as the #1 spot in DMG/M, but his Champion choices of Ezreal and Miss Fortune rack up the damage with poke and burn builds. Danny’s 4 games of Ezreal average for just over 1,000 DMG/M.
As mentioned above — poke Champions tend to have high DMG/M numbers. Corki, Ezreal, Miss Fortune (with Liandry’s/Make it Rain) and Jayce are all in the Top 5 for DMG/M. None of these poke Champions can out damage the late game menace Kog’Maw though — who just barely makes the charts with 4 total games played.
Akali is the sole assassin Champion that makes it into the top 25, while Mordekaiser clocks in at 22nd. Neither of these Champions are late game scaling carries like most Mid/Bot Champions are, and they also don’t have the large AoE teamfight power that picks like Kennen or Vladimir have — so it’s interesting to see them on the list.
Top CS/M (All Roles)
Note: The LPL does not have data for timed CS/GOLD stats such as CS@15 — so we can not compare all Regions using these stats sadly.
Inventor of the mid lane grand canyon himself, Chovy is the player you’d expect to see at the top of any CS related stat. He does so on 7 unique Champion picks, including 2 games as Melee carries Sylas and Yone.
While Fasting Senna picks mess up a lot of CS-related stats, Bot Laners that opt out of the stylistic choice continue to dominate CS/M with 12 of the slots in the top 25. Top Laners have 3 of the top slots — which speaks to a distinct team style of play. While Top Laners may have large CS Differential numbers in the early game, they often do not get given late game resources due to being Tanks or secondary carries to the Mid and Bot lanes. To note, all 3 top laners are from LCS teams.
8 of the Top 10 CS/M Champions are Bot Lane carries, the other 2 are mid lane carries. The Top 2 CS/M Champions are also later game scaling picks. Kayle and Gangplank are the two main Top Laners on the list — while Yone as a Flex pick makes 17th on the list.
WP/M (All Roles)
Giving the Supports a bit more love — all Top 25 slots in Wards Place per Minute go to Supports. Only one player, Astralis (AST) Support JeongHoon cracks an average of 2.00 or higher. Other players are close, with all Top 25 being over 1.50 WP/M.
Champion choice is the biggest influence on WP/M in competitive games. Supports (and other roles) that can fully utilize Zombie Ward or Ghost Poro are higher in the Vision Game. Likewise, picks that can roam early are able to clear more wards, place more wards, and buff their vision game. Bard and Rakan are perfect at both of those roles, which places them in the Top 2 spots. Unsurprisingly, while still ranked 14th — Yuumi is the lowest WP/M Support on the list. Turns out, being attached to a carry doesn’t open you up to roaming a lot!
Comparing Worlds Qualifying Reasons
A Worlds Qualifying Region is defined by their having 1+ seeds at Worlds, and a Region that qualifies for MSI.
Top KDA (All Roles)
The big changes in Champions between Major Regions to all Worlds Qualifying Regions is the surge in Poppy, Yuumi, Akali and Shyvana in KDA. Ashe steals the top spot from Veigar (who falls to 24th with more games in more Regions).
Major Regions make up 10 of the Top 25 slots, which is 40.0% of the rankings. The often lopsidedness of Wildcard Regions tends to create large gaps between the top teams and the rest of the League, which creates huge stat markers such as these.
Top DMG/M (All Roles)
Adding in the rest of the Worlds Qualifying Regions gives TheShy some extra Top Lane company in the DMG/M Rankings — but no one unseats Danny at the top spot. As far as Champion choices go — Bot laners get kicked out of the top spots in favor of Mid Laners. The Corkis and Viktors of the Wildcard Regions seemingly have more carry agency than the Bot Lane scaling picks.
Top CS/M (All Roles)
Note: The LPL does not have data for timed CS/GOLD stats such as CS@15 — so we can not compare all Regions using these stats sadly.
More Bot Laners make the Top 25 list as the top Champions are relatively unchanged after adding in all the Worlds Qualifying Regions. Bwipo stands as the sole Top Laner in a sea of Bot/Mid carries.
WP/M (All Roles)
Pyke jumps to the top of the WP/M chart when you add in the rest of the Worlds Qualifying Regions. As mentioned above, using Ghost Poro or Zombie Ward effectively helps boost WP/M stats as you can get more vision down than other Champions. Pyke being able to use the Umbral Glaive even better than most Champions catapults him above even Bard in just 6 games played.
On the Players end, Rascal Jester (RJ) Support Secret takes the top spot, being just the 2nd Support over 2.00+ WP/M. Although it’s a surprise to see 0 games of Pyke for Secret (although he does have a game as Bard).
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