With the ending of the “Spring Split” regular season, many people have been talking about their top ten players for various roles in the LCS. This post will give my take on the top 10 LCS junglers going into Spring 2021 Playoffs.
How I Rank LCS Junglers
I do things a little differently than “proper” analysts. Most of my rankings are determined by watching each player play and the feelings I get from watching them. For junglers, I pay particular attention to their pathing, impact on the game, and mechanical skill.
Ranking an LCS jungler also goes beyond just looking at how good they play the game. I also pay attention to behind-the-scenes stuff, such as how each player affects the team environment and what kind of intangibles they bring to the team. Shot calling and leadership are also essential qualities that I assess.
10. Iconic
At number ten, I have Iconic from the Golden Guardians. Iconic hasn’t been the worst-performing member on Golden Guardians, but there is no jungler performing worse than Iconic.
It feels like Iconic does nothing. He farms the whole game and does nothing with the money. He doesn’t pull off successful ganks, and he hardly takes any objectives. The inexperience really shows.
9. Broxah
Broxah also isn’t looking good either. He’s another jungler who seems like he’s doing nothing the entire game. The upside for Broxah is that he is looking better and better with every game that passes.
Compared to Iconic, Broxah is more mechanically skilled and able to make clutch plays, so he’s at ninth place for me.
8. Closer
Ah, Closer… what a fall from grace. I used to think of Closer as a top three jungler. But it looks like Closer is relatively one-dimensional. When he’s not on carry champions such as Olaf with his teammates on enabler champions, he looks useless.
I’m hoping that he bounces back and shows that he can play an aggressive style on different champions with various players. But for now, I’m giving him eighth place.
7. Xerxe
I kind of like what Xerxe brings to the table. One of Immortals’ bright spots is that Xerxe makes proactive plays and consistently gets his team leads. He plays a very calculated and calm style.
Unfortunately, he’s one of the players that will only go for low-risk medium reward plays. He won’t go for any plays such as Baron steals or tower dives, limiting his impact on the game. If his team falls behind, Xerxe doesn’t do anything.
Great junglers can, or at least willing to make plays to get their team back into the game. Since Xerxe doesn’t do much unless he is ahead, I can only give him seventh place.
6. Svenskeren
Svenskeren is a pretty good jungler. He makes proactive plays and does his all to win games. But it’s too bad that he ints a lot. Svenskeren is one of those junglers who will invade randomly and die to the enemy in the invades. It’s a bad habit that he’s had since his days playing on TSM.
These invading mistakes often lose his team the game. Until he fixes his problem of getting caught out randomly, he’s sitting at sixth place for me.
5. Josedeodo
Josedeodo is a great player. The moment he got his visa and began playing in the Lock-In Tournament, FlyQuest looked instantly better.
Unfortunately, FlyQuest has had some other issues making it hard for Josedeodo to win games despite being a good player.
Josedeodo isn’t a player without issues, though. For the most part, he’s another farm-heavy jungler who doesn’t seem to make many plays. The main difference between someone like Josedeodo and Iconic is that Josedeodo often carries with his farm advantage and plays mechanically better.
4. Dardoch
“It’s not my fault no one wants Dardoch.” Well, Dignitas does. Dardoch has been one of Dignitas’ key performing players so far in this season.
He has not only shown a diverse champion pool, but success playing multiple styles and champions. If you have been keeping up with the LCS, you’ll know about the streak where Dardoch played a different champion every game.
The only thing about Dardoch is that we’re still questioning whether he’s reformed or not. Dignitas might be doing pretty good right now, but when playoffs come and if Dignitas loses super close games, can Dardoch keep calm? Until Dardoch proves that he’s reformed, it’s hard to push Dardoch even higher on this tier list.
3. Spica
Honestly speaking, Dardoch had an excellent chance to be a top-three jungler, in my opinion. I like Spica over Dardoch because of Spica’s clutch factor and his insane performances on champions such as Nidalee and Lilia. Spica’s also pretty good at every other jungler.
What I would like to see more out of Spica is his willingness to call and set up plays for his team, much like many other junglers on this list.
I think TSM’s early game problem could be fixed with Spica playing more aggressively with his team, but otherwise, he’s looking pretty solid.
2. Santorin
Santorin is a very good jungler. He’s super flexible and intelligent when it comes to his jungle pathing, allowing him to get advantages in creative ways.
Santorin has always been the type of jungler that prefers to gank over power-farming. On FlyQuest, he was always very good at ganking mid lane.
We haven’t seen that kind of synergy between Jensen and Santorin, but hopefully, the two players will develop more synergy over time.
I would also like to see Santorin get better at playing a carry playstyle, but he certainly isn’t bad at it by any means.
1. Blaber
Blaber is the best jungler in the LCS right now. He’s super aggressive and makes a ton of plays for his team.
Unlike what some people think, Blaber’s aggression is also pretty smart. Compared to Svenskeren and Closer, Blaber’s aggressive plays are winning plays that generate leads for his team more often than not.
Blaber also has a pretty diverse champion pool. He excels on carries and skirmishers, but he’s been decent as well on other champions. My only complaint about Blaber is that he doesn’t play Nidalee well, but that’s about it.
My Top 10 Junglers Going Into Spring 2021 Playoffs
And that concludes this list for my top 10 junglers going into Spring 2021 playoffs. What are your top 10 LCS junglers? Let me know in the comment section below.
Want more posts like this? See all my top 10 players going into the Spring 2021 Mid Season Showdown (playoffs) in every role below:
- Top 10 LCS Top Laners Going Into Spring 2021 Playoffs
- Top 10 LCS Junglers Going Into Spring 2021 Playoffs
- Top 10 LCS Mid Laners Going Into Spring 2021 Playoffs
- Top 10 LCS Bot Laners Going Into Spring 2021 Playoffs
- Top 10 LCS Supports Going Into Spring 2021 Playoffs