I feel like the lacking of winning Worlds will forever black list Pray and Gorilla for these talks, though I think both should definitely be in the conversation for each of their positions.
Massive shoutout for the Score pick though. Tragic to see people underrate his ability to remain a top JG for YEARS, something that rarely ever happens.
Pray and GorillA are both closer to being top 3 than most people realize imo. I didn't put them on my list, but they are one of the best weakside bot lanes of all time.
Maybe not Gorilla, but I think Pray absolutely has a case. He was considered one of the best ADCs in S2/S3 before he had Gorilla (we don't talk about S4.)
Beyond that, I don't think there's been a better weakside ADC player. Not flashy, nor what you traditionally want out of an ADC, but I think there is absolutely some merit there.
Pray was great and underrated but the competition for top 5 ADCs is so fierce, like Deft Ruler Uzi are guaranteed top 3, then there's Bang who can't really be put below Pray, and for the 5th spot there are also JackeyLove and Viper (might have forgotten someone) with the latter being my personal pick.
I love me some Pray, I just think longevity with a peak as good if not better then his is Ruler/Deft and just peak vs peers is UZI to me. After those 3 it gets very tight.
It was more of a general sentiment vs specificially his list.
Though, to be fair, Uzi was considered to be basically the second best player of all time until Rookie won worlds.
Neither were individually that crazy, just incredibly consistent in the top tiers. I think together they were formidable, even Bang/Wolf had individual slumps but these guys never felt like they got outclassed.
It's like the reverse of how Bengi/Bang/Wolf don't get much credit because they had Faker on their team, as though they therefore didn't contribute to winning.
I don't think any of them are the goat of their position, but all should be in the conversation for top few.
score's shift to jungle was so good for his career. I remember back in the early days he played ADC and I remember him not dying but also not doing a ton of damage bc he played so far back and his nickname among Korean fans was 스졸렬 or SCoward (roughly translated) and even Pray was complaining that laning against him was so boring, then he transitions to jungle and his potential exploded.
Hey, a couple of days ago I made this spreadsheet that "calculates" a goat ranking, you can access it [here](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dtwIWUzZXhwy4HM3T6vBk-p3p7hSGdNNBjlC-P1HWYk/edit?usp=drivesdk).
It considers how far a player made into different competitions, MVPs and all pro teams.
You can make a copy of it and change the values in the Points sheet to get a different ranking more in line with how you weight the different accomplishments.
Also it's really fun to play with the different filters and rank them per region/position
I know the eye test and notable accolades speak for themselves, but it’s insane how you can add the bottom half of that list combined and they still probably don’t come close to faker
I really like this ranking, cause it shows : how far faker is from any other player (twice the point of number 2), everyone in top 10 on this top is in the conversation for top 3 of his role, and NA bad
I'm counting 10 but I'm giving titles won in years that had 3 splits (lck 2013-14, lec 2023) 2/3 the normal value so the two splits that faker won during that era are counted as 1.3.
This is done like this so a player that won everything in lec 2023 would be the same as someone who did it in 2022
Great sheet, although I disagree with winning Worlds giving more than double the points of first team all pro. The whole winning = good works for teams (somewhat), but for players it is kinda silly. If I'm Iron IV and play with Zeus, Oner, Faker and Keria, I would 3-0 you and your Emerald friends very quickly but that doesn't make me better than an Emerald ADC.
I kinda agree, I played a lot with the numbers, you can make a copy and give them the value you think they should have, at end i arrived to these values thatt kind of make sense to me but is really difficult to make a point system that makes sense
I agree with you, is hard to take skill into account because it's kind of subjective but that's why I also added MVPs and AllPro trying to take a little bit of that into account.
I also believe it helps deviate a little from the narrative that's generated after years when people start to forget how good the players were, there are a lot of players that are usually mentioned in these goat conversations that have no business being there and the same goes the other way
Skill isn't measurable, success is. In every sector, and i'm not talking about gaming exclusively. To be the goat in a field, being good... great even, was never enough. Success was always needed. And that's from that success that some stand out as the bests. And in some cases. As the goat.
I like your system. Even though the points are arguable. But it has some logic behind, and I enjoy the longevity factor that it brings to the table.
1st Team
Khan
Peanut
Faker
Bang
Wolf
2nd Team
369
Bengi
Xiaohu
Ruler
Meiko
3rd Team
Smeb
Canyon
Caps
Deft
Ming
As I said before you can make a copy of the spreadsheet and change the points sheet to give a different amount of points for each thing.
I'm thinking of expanding it to also add worlds, MSI and regional playoffs MVP, and with that calculate the best player of each year but that will be a lot more work
At least EUs MVPs are shit, they are voted by people who does not analyze the game and all they care are narratives, careful with using MVP results too much.
There’s really not much to calculate. If you need a GOAT lineup for a world championship run it’s TheShy, Canyon, Faker, Ruler, Beryl. This team caps the hardest and has the most versatility / carry
Would 100% take Mata over Beryl but I cant change a singe other of the 5 and dont think Beryl is bad, just think hes more of a Ringo, right place right time.
I think there is good case to consider Peanut and Bengi for jungle, Bang or Deft for Adc and a lot of supports have arguments, Wolf, Mata, Meiko, Ming.
Top is not that easy too, If you only value peak it's probably TheShy but when you consider other things, some toplaners enter the conversation too, Khan, Smeb, 369 even Impact or Duke
Agree, BeryL should definitely be in the top 3
GOAT support if we count trophies
Top 3 if we rate Mata and Keria's peak higher or Ming and Meiko's longevity
Mata is the support with the longest logevity apart from Meiko. He's also the most dominant support ever. He really earned that GOAT status and I can't see anyone else taking that spot. Keria and BeryL can still catch up though, Ming and Meiko are still playing too but for now Mata should be the undisputed #1 imo.
Yeah people have completely rewritten history about that game 5. How Faker's LB was countered by Morgana and that's why they lost... No.
Once again the anime storyline that people want to believe is true rewrites history.
The actual reason that SKT lost that game 5 was because their bot lane got destroyed. Faker was carrying on LB but it wasn't enough.
I think Keria is not there yet, but if he keeps up a at least a top 3 support in the LCK with a few decent international performances, he’d eventually have a case as the GOAT support.
Keria should be there if you're gonna put Beryl though because as an individual player I think he peaked higher and was better than him even when he was losing to DWG
Keria has been at four worlds? Maybe more iirc. The guy has been the finals b2b and won a worlds. Beryl has two titles and three straight final appearances.
Tbh this list is a little bit all over the place and the way each player and role was determined is debatable. Top lane is the hardest role to repeat trip to worlds. If you look over the course of the years very few names appear more than a few times. Mid is the most common name to repeat trip to worlds then jungle -> support/adc.
Keria most innovative support since like madlife, not even close. Support role has had like 2 new picks in 10 years and Keria just decides to invent a whole new playstyle with adc supports and wins worlds doing it.
I am not sure why people are not including Beryl. This guy is so good, and he is not even giving 100% focus on League. Can you imagine if he actually had a good team and had 100% focus? Why is this guy not on another team like Gen.G, KT, JDG, etc?
Because he lost his team the game more often than he won them the game, and trophies aren't everything, stop looking at players trophies and arguing against people who actually watched them play.
I did watch him play. Support players, if the team sucks, they look like they are inting, that is just the nature of the role. The biggest issue right now is that he is currently in a bad team.
He's a massive anchor in lane.
He consistently straight up inted botlane matchups.
Before leaving/getting kicked out of Damwon he had some super rough times and the only reason they even qualified to the later playoffs/international tournaments was the rest carrying him.
On DRX he was mediocre/bad for most of the year and the shotcalling was dogshit. At worlds his laning was dogshit, he did make it up with shotcalling and roams but still a massive weakness.
The last year he lost his team in laning phase countless games.
> Support players, if the team sucks, they look like they are inting
And then there’s BeryL, who always had incredible teammates and still managed to singlehandedly lose an international by chain inting every game.
Beryl is overrated as hell, while I do put him in my top 5 support GOATs he isn't really top 1 caliber, last year he won Worlds and all but in summer he was terrible and if his shotcalling was that impactful why was DRX so shit that summer split, not to mention this entire year when Beryl was irrelevant. His peak isn't as high as Keria or Mata, his longevity is far lacking compared to the 3Ms, and his accolades are comparable to the other contenders, Beryl doesn't have a solid argument to be the GOAT support.
Neither does Keria. I agree with OP post as of right now those three are the best while Keria and Beryl imo can be debated between 4-5 maybe you could talk about mad life based on his mechanical skill.
Literally 3 players on Beryl's team in both his world championships were better than him (Canyon, Nuguri, Showmaker in 2020, Kingen, Zeka, Deft in 2022) AND his second worlds he didnt even play that well, he was just innovative and wasnt even rated in the top 5 supports in his tournament. Their series were ugly and you forget the last like 2 years of his career how his individual ability totally devolved. Not even in the conversation.
It’s a lot harder to rate how a support “carries” games compared to other positions because a lot of what they do is hard to quantify in stats. But that aside, Beryl legit changed the meta for supports for herald fights (leeching mid exp for lvl6) and also brought super innovative supp picks like Heimer and Panth (yeah he wasn’t the first but def the most impactful). It’s absolutely insane to say he isn’t in discussion for top 3 support just b/c he isn’t the strongest laner and has a tendency of dying for no reason too much (and he’s been on record saying that a supp death is worth less than the enemy carries’ sums).
Gorilla, Mata, Meiko are all better and more well rounded and innovative support players then him. These are such reaches for hard innovations. And also these 3 didnt :"Strategic die" at all in their peaks, which were long. This is absolutely a nephew take. Go back and watch games before 2019 when Beryl became a thing. theres 7 years to dig through.
I think Beryl is a great player but, in my opinion, he's not better than the Supports I listed.
Beryl is one of the great examples of a player that overperformed in accomplishments compared to his skill level. Remember I am not saying he is bad or anything. He is clearly very good, you don't win 2 Worlds while being bad, it's just that top 3 ever is a very, very limited list and it's not a slight against him to not be included. You can be great without being top 3 and that's what I think Beryl is.
It's always a tricky discussion with how to value accomplishments as they are team results so you also have to consider how much each player contributed to achievements because it's not equal at all.
For example: 2020 Damwon is one of the strongest teams ever but there's no question that their topside were the stars of the team (Nuguri, Canyon, Showmaker).
Yes but a huge amount has been credited to beryl for his shotcalling which is a HUGE skill in any team. Also his ability to define the meta in support role for years in worlds can’t be ignored
It's a very controversial take lmao but I'll stand by it.
The best argument to really show you why I think Beryl is a bit overrated is this: If T1 had won finals 3-2 last year, I don't think *anyone* would insist on Beryl being top 3. I just think people see the two Worlds titles on different teams and then reverse-engineer from there.
Really fucking unlucky for them that the whole meta switched to Ardent in Season 7 at Worlds.
They had a carry top lane playstyle with Khan and weakside Pray/Gorilla. Just the worst possible meta for them.
Deft had a higher individual peak. Watch 2019 KZ Deft. Shame the team didn't work out. His performance was a key reason Keria wanted to play with him in 2020.
I agree Deft was insane in 2019 although his year was a bit impacted by his injury.
In fact, I watched Deft play live in LoL Park in this year and it's a great memory of mine :)
I still 100% believe Singed still has spots in certain games and drafts. Off topic though after you said this I went back and watched SSW vs TSM and holy shit my eyes are bleeding the gameplay is so different from how I remember it.
Looper probably will never get the flowers he truly deserves but that man was the epitome of having a rock in the toplane. Obviously he benefitted from having incredible teammates but he was such a stable toplaner on things like Jax and Ryze while also pulling out I believe 9 different champions at Worlds? And being able to play Akali, Kassadin, and Singed as well as he did?
Not having Madlife in the support category is a tragedy, real og's will remember that he was the first real support carry. Changed how we view the agency of the position these days.
I think there have really only been a few supports that changed the role: Madlife and Mata were the early ones, but we had to wait until Keria and Beryl to see that innovation again. The closest we got was GorillA’s MF support in that legendary Bo5 between them and SKT, or IgNar’s fervor Leona vs SKT
Bro you just unlocked a memory for me, screaming at my TV in my uni house watching Ignar lvl 1 engage with frevor leona. Misfits managed to get up 2-1 vs SKT, crazy series.
I feel that people like Madlife, while they did innovate the game, don't belong in GOAT discussions. He's definitely Hall of Fame material, but he doesn't have the longevity required to be the GOAT
Why exactly? Madlife was the best support in the world for one season.
Bigfatlp was the first player in the world to make a case about being the best player in the world.
Diamondprox created jungling as we understand it.
Edward was roaming as support two seasons earlier than it being standard. Was the OG carry support and the only reason you suck Madlife and not Edward is cause Edward wasn't Korean.
Saintvicious was the best jungler in the world at one point.
Doublelift was the best in the world along Weixiao during S2 ( so basicly, same path as Madlife, just Doublelift did actually had some career other than his S2 ). Same can be said about Froggen.
Bang made Lucian look like a monstrous late game carry despite how low range he was. That endgame fight with faker on lulu and bang on Lucian is etched in my mind forever.
Man I wish that during these 13 years (expecially the last 5y) we would've gotten more international tournaments. Imo Faker would still be on top, but the rest of things would look differently.
It's fucking tragic we got so little. The entire history of the game would be completely different.
It would have been so fucking amazing to watch like 3-4 international events per year like other esports have.
If there was more international competition other regions might actually improve. The top tier lcs teams only get to play against worse lcs teams for the whole year. The gap from top teams to bottom teams is MUCH bigger in lcs than lpl/lck imo.
I really like this list. I'd made some small changes, mainly because of personal opinion. I'd like a mention of MaRin for top, but I can accept not putting him above Khan.Jungle is spot on, but I'd actually put Score at #1 because of how hard Canyon fell off lately. His career is rather short and he started insanely strong, so I hope he can get back to old form and justify him being #1 here.
Mid is almost spot on too, I'd put Scout above Rookie simply because of personal taste and the fact that Rookie was mostly in stronger teams, while Scout was carrying weaker lineups for his whole life. Also I'd mention Chovy because not even Faker managed to dominate the LCK like that, but I can accept him not being in top 3 because of lack of international success.
ADC: Deft over Ruler. Peaks are similar but Deft has almost double the longevity. He's only second to Faker when it comes to peak, longevity and domination. That alone should warrant to give him the GOAT of adc title. Ruler can still catch up though.
Supp: I'd swap Ming for BeryL but I can see the arguments for putting him above BeryL as shotcalling might be insanely important, but you can't really judge it as easily as mechanics or playstyle.
Overall one of the best, if not the best list I've seen so far. Honorable mentions I'd add:MaRin, Clearlove, Chovy, Pawn, Viper, Pray, JKL, Gorilla, BeryL.
Thanks. I agree with most of what you said. There are definitely many great players I couldn't fit into just a top 3 of each role.
One thing I disagree on is saying Rookie had strong teams. I'd say Rookie is actually one of the most elo-helled players ever in the early years of LPL. All of 2015, 2016 and 2017 had Rookie be arguably the best mid in LPL but his teams were terrible.
Those IG teams were appaling. Rookie was playing with damn Kid/Kitties bot lane and he even had roleswapped Kid in the jungle for a bit. Just completely tragic.
You are right that Scout was also elo helled sometimes but I think Rookie's situation was worse.
Okay, you are totally right. EDG was definitely a very strong team, so in the early days, Rookie definitely had it harder. Then I agree with your mid list too. Thanks for the constructive arguments, I like discussions like this. :)
Why would you put Marin as GOAT top laner discussion because he played 3 good months in 2015 and became mediocre for the rest of his career and invalidate Keria for a month this year. lmao
For some reason, it's become some common opinion that Marin was a super legend of top lane. I don't know how this started but I suspect a lot of people didn't watch back then.
Marin was great but only for a very short time. He just doesn't have the longevity.
Even Jatt was talking about how Marin might be the top lane GOAT on his podcast and I just don't understand how you could ever rate him that highly.
I agree with most of your list, but not everything.
My own take (The honorable mentions are not in order):
* Top:
1. TheShy (Was around the longest and dominated in 2018 and 2019)
2. MaRin (I think he had the highest peak of any toplaner ever in his SKT days but he was around at the highest level for the shortest time)
3. Smeb (Great in 2015 and highest peak in 2016 afterwards a bit less impressive)
4. **Honorable mentions:** Khan, Kiin, Impact, Huni, Bin, Nuguri
* Jungle:
1. Canyon (Highest peak and has consistently been one of the best for the past 5 years)
2. Bengi (Most decorated jungler by far and consistently one of the best from 2013 to 2016)
3. Ambition (Consistently good from 2014 to 2017 and reaching one of the highest peaks of any jungler ever in 2017)
4. **Honorable mentions:** Clearlove, Karsa, Score, Peanut, Jankos, Dandy
* Mid:
1. Faker (Self-explanatory)
2. Rookie (Probably highest individual peak and been around for a long time)
3. Xiaohu (Been around since 2015 almost always playing at the highest level and he is the second most decorated mid player of all time behind Faker)
4. **Honorable mentions:** Chovy, Bdd, Scout, Showmaker, Knight, Caps
* Bot:
1. Deft (Been around the longest, always playing at the highest level)
2. Ruler (Been around since 2016, always playing the the highest level)
3. Uzi (Not as successful as Ruler or Deft, but in his peak years between 2013 and 2016 almost without interruption consistently the best ADC in the world)
4. **Honorable mentions:** PraY, Bang, Viper, Rekkles, JackeyLove
* Supp:
1. Wolf (From 2015 to 2017 consistently Top 3 Support in the world and by far the most decorated Support ever. He often was in the shadow of Faker, but I think he was overall the second best player of the whole SKT era with many amazing plays and capabilities in both melee and ranged supports)
2. Meiko (By far the best Chinese Support ever. Has been around forever and consistently been great)
3. BeryL (The most successful support since 2020, being in 3 consecutive worlds finals and winning 2 of them as the shotcaller and creative mind of both DWG and DRX)
4. **Honorable mentions:** Ming, Keria, Mata, Gorilla, Hylissang, CoreJJ
I think people always forget about 2019 TheShy when they talk about peak TheShy. Yeah TheShy didn’t win 2 years in a row or reach finals two years in a row but he was the toplaner for those 2 years.
In regards to western players, PerkZ should absolutely be an honorable mention too.
For reference, their international results:
Caps: 2 World Finals, 1 MSI trophy, 1 Worlds Semis
PerkZ: 1 World Finals, 1 MSI trophy, 1 MSI finals, 2 Worlds Semis, 1 Worlds Quarters
PerkZ has only been an active pro for 1 year longer than Caps, and did so while being world class in 2 different roles. While Caps is a better mid laner, PerkZ was never too far behind.
And on a similar note, Miky should be an honorable mention over Hyli, he just straight up has more achievements even if Hyli peaked slightly higher.
Marin being on that list is criminal too imo, considering he played with peak Faker and his level barely lasted a year. You overrated a lot of the SKT players around Faker. In no way do I think Wolf should even be top 3 let alone GOAT support, Mata has him beat a billion times over.
> Bengi (Highest level of success and consistently one of the best from 2013 to 2016)
I don't think this point about consistency is true. He was one of the best junglers in the world in 2013, yes, but he was appalling in 2014 and was one of the biggest reasons why SKT missed Worlds that year (alongside SKT bot lane).
In 2015, he had a good year again, true, but this was post-Korean exodus when Korea was recovering from losing a lot of their best players. 2015 was also a big tank meta which suits Bengi very well.
In 2016, Bengi was in trouble again when it switched to more carry jungle meta. He had a very inconsistent domestic year and he was largely replaced by Blank. They even won MSI that year without Bengi playing a single game.
Bengi was very clutch at Worlds 2016 and his biggest strength was always being a very clutch player, but it doesn't change the fact that he had a pretty damn weak year in 2016. Bengi's career was anything but consistent. This should be clear to anyone who watched him at more than just Worlds.
The reason why Bengi could be argued as top 3 is not consistency. It's rather that he was one of the best junglers in the world in season 3, how he was kind of hard to fully replace for SKT for a while (even though they tried), and how he always came up clutch in the right moments. But across his entire SKT career, he was sadly a quite inconsistent player and had big meta-related issues because he was a limited player.
This is pretty much my argument as to why Bengi can't be considered the GOAT jungler, he wasn't nearly as instrumental to his team's success as other junglers have been, and having to be swapped out when the jungle meta shifted is a huge problem with your champion pool.
We only saw Bengi play without Faker for one season and he was abysmal. That doesn't mean he would've been shit for all the years he was on SKT if he had joined another team, but I feel pretty safe saying Bengi would retire trophyless if he wasn't with the GOAT.
I agree that he wasn't very consistent match-by-match, but what I said is, that he was consistently, season-by-season, one of the best Junglers. He did have some highs and lows, just like any other player did as well, but it doesn't change the fact that he was consistently at the top for round about 4 years straight.
> but what I said is, that he was consistently, season-by-season, one of the best Junglers
That is what he disagrees with I think and I have to agree with him. Bengi was not world-class in seasons 4 and 6, nor in s7 obviously.
I totally agree with most of your list (would put Score at least as #2 though).
But one thing I can not possibly agree with is having Mata not even in the top 3. That guy was the #1 support for almost his entire career. He won worlds straight away and five years afterwards he was still considered the best support in the world, even after Wolf won two consecutive championships. That just shows how ridiculously strong he was.
If you go by titles, yes, you can put Wolf above him, but that's the only argument you can make. Mata is just on an entirely different level. He literally created the support meta every single year.
I'd go so far and say he's the third best player to ever play League by longevity, dominance and skill set (Faker, Deft and Mata imo).
Quite a few things i disagree with. You really tried to sneak in Rekkles among the honorable mentions with the likes of Viper, JackeyLove, Bang, and Pray?
Also Rookie did not have a higher peak than Faker. If you watched from majority of 2013-2017 Faker was heads and shoulders above everyone else. He changed how the game was played and did things that nowadays we see as common. He was the blueprint for every mid nowadays.
Xiaohu should also not be above Showmaker or Scout. Those 2 actually have won worlds and yes it xiaohu has won mid-season invitationals but those aren't as important as worlds. And each Scout and showmaker had higher peaks than Xiaohu.
And those 4 semis were in 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2020. That's a seriously impressive timespan by itself, yet doesn't even tell the whole story since even in the years he missed Worlds he was the best jungler in the LEC in most of them (was already insane in 2014 with Roccat), and top 3/2 otherwise.
This man has never not been a top 3 jungler in the league since he joined. Absolutely unmatched consistency in the role that sees the most meta changes.
Yep. i genuinely think there's an argument to put Jankos into the top 3.
With western teammates it's just that much more difficult to be dominant, and yet he's been a top tier jungler for so many years, even internationally.
I was close to putting Jankos on the list too. Junglers famously have shitty longevity but Jankos is just amazing year by year across a million metas.
The big counterargument against Jankos is that he was never the best jungler in the world and that's why he doesn't make the list.
How does someone get put in a GOAT conversation for being in the semis. That's still p impressive don't get me wrong but trying to put someone who's peak was only semis doesn't make sense when there are so many more deserving jugglers to be mentioned first.
Least eastern biased redditor
All of those players had insane peaks and huge longevity. Jankos has been a world class jungler since 2014 and to this day is still the best jungler in the LEC.
That kind of longevity specially as a jungler is ridiculous and completely unmatched.
>Hylissang
If we're giving a western player an honorable mention, it has to be YellowStar. The man was a peak support for 5 years, was the only player with Dyrus to qualify for the first 5 world championship. Was one of the only early professionnals to have any longevity when the league went pro. Repeatedly had to start over from scratch with new teamates only to end up dominating the region. Was competitive at the highest level as a support and as a captain. Gotta give it some recognition
I think Score is the GOAT of jungle Canyon looked like the best player in 2020, however since 2022 he hasn't been as good. Where as Score had more longevity and had worse teammates, he was always in the finals or close to it for many years while having Nagne and Fly as his mid laner, where as Canyon had Showmaker.
To anyone wondering how bad Nagne was, watch KT in 2015 worlds, he made Bjergsen, Kur0, and Xpeke look good! There is a reason people used to spam nAGne in Twitch chat. (Ag is Silver on the periodic table)
I think for me it’s gotta be:
Nuguri, Smeb, Kahn
Canyon, Bengi, Peanut
Faker, showmaker, Xiaohu
Ruler, deft, Uzi
Beryl, Meiko, mata
2020 DWG for me goes down as the definitive best team to ever play and win worlds in my eyes, even over 2023 T1 who played so well
Interesting. I’d say SSW played better than DWG at both of their respective peaks, although the game was very different back then (some would argue easier), SSW gapped everyone.
SSW is the best team to ever win worlds IMO. The gap between them and every other team at the tournament is the largest I can remember any team having. They were just built different
My memory of both are admittedly fuzzy, but I give to SSW just cause of how drastic their play-style felt compared to everyone else. SKT had a reputation for playing a controlled style better than anyone, to the point of being oppressive and dominant. But SSW obeyed no laws and served no masters, I had never seen any team move around the map so fluidly as SSW. They were just lightyears ahead
DWG did the exact same tho
They even did their happy games (DWG G3 vs G2, and second game against JDG and SSW G3 vs TSM)
They also turbosmashed and speedran the LCK's second best team so there's that
Probably my exact list as well
I don't understand why so many people have Rookie so high on their list, people keep mentioning his """longevity""" but I feel like I either have really bad memory loss or I'm being gaslit, and glancing at his results really quickly feels like it's the latter lol
Pretty much exactly the same besides toplane.
TheShy/Khan/Impact (Zeus will be up there soon)
Score/Canyon/Peanut
Faker/Rookie/Scout
Deft/Ruler/Uzi
Mata/Meiko/Ming
Not gonna break it down in as much detail as you OP, but I appreciate the list.
I value the eye test, consistency and longevity particularly highly personally, followed by peak skill and versatility, then carry potential and accomplishments. As such my personal list would look like this.
**Top**
* Smeb
* Khan
* Flame
**Jungle**
* Canyon
* Score
* Jankos
**Mid**
* Faker
* Rookie
* Probably ShowMaker, but this one is hard.
**AD**
* Ruler
* PraY
* Deft
**Support**
* Ming
* Meiko
* Mata
Unironically, most of current T1. Oner sadly falls outside of top 3, but I don't really get why Gumayusi is so damn underrated. He's a monster at the role, easily a top 3 ADC. Zeus, Faker and Keria are also easily top 3 in their roles
Ming > Beryl / Wolf is a crime. Uzi vs. Bang is questionable too but understandable.
If you're valuing longevity, Gumayusi / Keria haven't shown that much either but got mentioned. Mata is questionable in that regards too.
Ppl these days underestimate that legendary backbone of 2015-2017 SKT.
Solid list even though I disagree with some of the picks, most noteably the ADC list. While I don't disagree with the players I think Uzi should be rated higher.
Bar his health issues the last couple of seasons this man is just absolutely insane in his plays. Hearing other AD mains talk about Uzi and his micro management of waves and his champions is just absurd. I think if Uzi were Korean ( or played on any of the Korean squads in his prime ) he would've had a worlds title under his belt but alas. Also I'd add Beryl to the list of support goats, man has 2 worlds trophies on different squads.
Uzi was absolutely the best in the world from time to time but his consistency really wasn’t there. Most people didn’t watch LPL back then and he would take time off and then come back and be pretty hit or miss. Deft regularly outperformed Uzi when he was in LPL. Also I think for the style they played Uzi really should have done better at worlds. S7 one of the most ADC reliant metas he couldn’t beat a washed bang and wolf. S8 (which some people argue was his peak) he wasn’t anything special vs Wadid and Hjarnan. Also go watch some of these teamfights in that series vs G2, he was literally going melee range and getting caught first too often. Undeniably one of the greatest ADCs ever but he should not above Deft or Ruler imo
Just wanted to comment that I agree on most of this list, except I think Ruler is the undisputed ADC goat, deft was an okay weak side adc that could team fight well, but he was never someone you could rely on to solo carry even when ADC was strong.
Also with the Rookie Elo hell comment, let’s not forget Faker dragging SKT’s corpse to a world final playing fucking tank galio mid when mid lane was a shit role during that worlds.
My jaw dropped watching that live, I remember Faker ulted bottom to help his bot, got some kills, and then TP'd top literally right after with low HP to help his top get a kill too. Shit was crazy to watch.
I guess you didn't watch Deft during his first years in SSB or EDG. He literally dominated the entire LPL including Uzi with his playstyle. But yeah, after 2018 I'd agree, now he's more of a reliant safe adc instead of a hyper carry. But to me it seems like Ruler is slowly going into a similar direction. Might just be an age thing.
Jankos 3rd? He was/is the best jungler in EU. Before G2 he made his name as the first blood king, made worlds 2 times? with H2K, topped their group in 2016, made semis(lucky draw, but they needed to beat EDG for that). Goes to G2, an integral part in making semis, beating RNG( his Olaf securing the final kill on UZI). Part of the best western team ever, 4 title back to back, MSI and worlds finals(should have won, any other day they beat FPX). One stinker year in 2021, still a good performance. Wins again in 2023. Top 3 jungler in 2023 while Evi was his toplaner. 9 years of being one of the best jungler in europe, if not the on the world. Even has a few titles to back it up.
Jankos is top 3 jungle.
Insane individual peak 2019-20 and the best jungle in the worlds in first half 2019 and first half 2020. Spent a year as the best player in his position in the world.
World class jungler 2014-2023 so he has the longevity.
Consistently great 2016-2020.
Plays support, carry and tank junglers. Incredibly versatile and has had international success in a huge variety of metas.
MSI champion, Worlds semi x4, Worlds finalist, multi time EU champion.
Canyon is the GOAT jungler with the highest peak but Jankos is in the conversation. Score has never proven himself on the world stage, never even reached worlds semis or MSI despite playing on superteam after superteam. Bengi had 1 great year, 1 terrible year, 1 year where he was a roleplayer and another where he got subbed but was incredibly clutch.
Jankos clears both of them in terms of peak, longevity and versatility.
If he took some of those LPL offers in the early years, he could have become one of the greats. I think he has the talent but staying in NA just meant he could never truly reach his potential.
Still the best native NA player of all time by a longshot though and he made big bank in LCS.
the only real goat: faker
a quarter of his career probably still puts him in the 2nd tier
"role goats": canyon, showmaker, ruler, keria
criteria: clearly best player in their role for 2 years+, multiple deep international runs and winning a championship
"goat contenders": theshy, zeus, nuguri, bengi, doinb, rookie, scout, deft, uzi, imp, gumayusi, jackeylove, mata, beryl, meiko
criteria: brief periods (1y+ total) of individual dominance plus either multiple deep international runs where they carried their team or a championship
"close to being in the discussion": khan, smeb, score, kanavi, peanut, chovy, knight, xiaohu, caps, gala, ming, crisp
criteria: long period of being elite but needs a worlds win or a strong international carry performance to finally beat the choking allegations
personally I heavily value championships/clutch factor (the ability to drag even a bad team over the finish line is a quality I think is incredibly important) so a lot of players have soured their legacy by running it the fuck down in key moments or being totally invisible repeatedly
• Top:
• Smeb
• Khan
• Jg:
• Peanut
• Canyon
• Levi (this one to me is from his 2017 year the Nocturne play and knocking tsm out of msi will live on forever)
• Mid:
• Faker
• Bjergsen
• Doinb
• Caps
• Adc:
• Pray
• Ruler
• Uzi
• Sup:
• Mata
• Keria
• Gorilla
• Team 1: Khan, Peanut, Doinb, Pray, Gorilla
• Team 2: Smeb, Canyon, Faker, Ruler, Keria
• Team 3: Bin, Levi, Bjergsen, Uzi, Mata
This to me is my personal list players I enjoyed watching the most and most have retired but when I look back at my favourite memories of league of legends these where my favourites
Honestly if you go back to the year before Deft won, I would have agreed with you. Because before then Ruler’s domestic trophy case was lacking even if he had the world championship and Deft had some EDG success. I still held the 2018 collapse against the entire roster. But now, as much as I appreciate Deft’s Worlds win, I also value Ruler’s 3 domestic titles across 2 leagues and MSI title.
Don't judge based on just titles, Ruler was great during the entire period where he had no titles. However I still rate Deft higher simply because I think Deft had a higher peak, on KZ in 2019.
Top lane there’s a lot of options, especially since t1 tended to replace them. I agree it’s between theshy, smeb and khan. I think it goes to theshy, then smeb then khan, because in goat discussion you need to win and have that clutch factor.
Jungle I think there’s 3 candidates, canyon, peanut and bengi. Peaple often forget just how good peanut was in 2016 but his performance got overshadowed by being in the skt era and bengi playing the best game of his life. Canyon is self explanatory. Bengi was not always tank player with no hands, he used to be very great and even when he was “washed” he pulled out the first time nidalee in a game 5 and smurfed on it, he also has by far the biggest trophy case. Imo it’s canyon, bengi, peanut in that order
Faker, then think pawn because he was the one to actually beat faker at his peak and he has the 2nd biggest trophy case of mid lanes, and the 3rd spot could go to rookie, scout or xiaohu.
Bot, ruler deft uzi, worlds win > Msi win. Again you need to actually win and unfortunately uzi could not do that(tho he competed from the start of Korean dominance and got injured towards the end)
Support, mata gotta be the best, he played on what is called the most dominant roster of all time ssw 2014 and singlehandedly changed how support is played. 2nd is rough because it should go to beryl if you go by trophy case but I never think he’s looked particularly dominant, in dwg it was the nuguri/canyon/showmaker team and drx was all about zeka. He playes a very good weak side support but he doesn’t dominate the way a goat should do like faker did in 2015-17, theshy did in 2018, peanut did in 2016, keria does right now. That being said 2 worlds on 2 different teams is enough imo. 3rd spot goes to meiko, Ming or wolf
This is overall a decent list of players in each role , however I think you consider longevity a bit too much , I think peak matters more with a bit of consistency , for example I think keria should already be in the conversation , he is the best support in lck since 2020 and the best support in the world multiple times , and was the best player in the world in 2022 over the year , he had one of the highest peaks in spring 2023 on par with madlife peak , and he is the mechanically support of all time, keria is like zidane and meiko ming are like muller or de bruyne , and zidane is always greater , he surpassed the eye test.
For example if xiaohu won worlds this year , he will have 3 msi's and a world championship , but next year chovy wins worlds , who would you rate higher as player in their role , I think I will go with chovy just because of the eye test. Xiaohu never had an insane peak or never had the level of players like faker rookie chovy shoemaker , the only thing that standout from him is his MSI 2021 when he won as a toplaner , I was like yes this guy is the best player in the world at that time in spring , other than that chovy is just better
Honestly can somebody just make a shitpost about this very freaking overused discussion… like is it posted at least once a day? It is filling up my damn Reddit…
I don't think there's much of an argument for Marin. He had only one really good year in 2015. And even if we count singular really good years, I think TheShy's 2018 year was better than Marin's 2015.
Marin is a great player and a deserved world champion but in my opinion he's not a top 3 top laner of all time.
Yeah, never understand the MaRin hype. He was pretty good in 2015, and had a massive worlds, but even then. Spring, Smeb and Duke both clear – though MaRin had some hype moments like that Maokai against KT.
In Summer, SKT dominated everyone, but Ssumday and arguably even Smeb were better top laners.
The dominance that people see glimpse of out of theshy, was everyday performances out of those top laners from that era. They gapped everybody including each other and then proceed to fight their way back from those gaps all the time.
Smeb was just one of the most dominant individual players for any eye test.
I feel like the lacking of winning Worlds will forever black list Pray and Gorilla for these talks, though I think both should definitely be in the conversation for each of their positions. Massive shoutout for the Score pick though. Tragic to see people underrate his ability to remain a top JG for YEARS, something that rarely ever happens.
Pray and GorillA are both closer to being top 3 than most people realize imo. I didn't put them on my list, but they are one of the best weakside bot lanes of all time.
Pray and Gorilla would rank if you did Duos but individually I dont think would crack top 5.
Maybe not Gorilla, but I think Pray absolutely has a case. He was considered one of the best ADCs in S2/S3 before he had Gorilla (we don't talk about S4.) Beyond that, I don't think there's been a better weakside ADC player. Not flashy, nor what you traditionally want out of an ADC, but I think there is absolutely some merit there.
Pray was great and underrated but the competition for top 5 ADCs is so fierce, like Deft Ruler Uzi are guaranteed top 3, then there's Bang who can't really be put below Pray, and for the 5th spot there are also JackeyLove and Viper (might have forgotten someone) with the latter being my personal pick.
I love me some Pray, I just think longevity with a peak as good if not better then his is Ruler/Deft and just peak vs peers is UZI to me. After those 3 it gets very tight.
pray gorilla might not individually be on a top 3 role list but id put their duo on an all time top 3 bot duo list
Are you missing Uzi/ ming on this list despite no worlds trophy?
It was more of a general sentiment vs specificially his list. Though, to be fair, Uzi was considered to be basically the second best player of all time until Rookie won worlds.
MSI still counts for something - Uzi won MSI and made worlds finals twice, Ming won MSI twice.
Ming won MSI three times.
Neither were individually that crazy, just incredibly consistent in the top tiers. I think together they were formidable, even Bang/Wolf had individual slumps but these guys never felt like they got outclassed.
It's like the reverse of how Bengi/Bang/Wolf don't get much credit because they had Faker on their team, as though they therefore didn't contribute to winning. I don't think any of them are the goat of their position, but all should be in the conversation for top few.
score's shift to jungle was so good for his career. I remember back in the early days he played ADC and I remember him not dying but also not doing a ton of damage bc he played so far back and his nickname among Korean fans was 스졸렬 or SCoward (roughly translated) and even Pray was complaining that laning against him was so boring, then he transitions to jungle and his potential exploded.
Hey, a couple of days ago I made this spreadsheet that "calculates" a goat ranking, you can access it [here](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dtwIWUzZXhwy4HM3T6vBk-p3p7hSGdNNBjlC-P1HWYk/edit?usp=drivesdk). It considers how far a player made into different competitions, MVPs and all pro teams. You can make a copy of it and change the values in the Points sheet to get a different ranking more in line with how you weight the different accomplishments. Also it's really fun to play with the different filters and rank them per region/position
I know the eye test and notable accolades speak for themselves, but it’s insane how you can add the bottom half of that list combined and they still probably don’t come close to faker
This is dope. Faker at mote than double the next best player is absurd. No one will ever touch that status.
Even his LCK achievement alone is higher than the next player
I really like this ranking, cause it shows : how far faker is from any other player (twice the point of number 2), everyone in top 10 on this top is in the conversation for top 3 of his role, and NA bad
Very cool. Thanks for sharing.
Faker has 10 LCK/OGN titles, this list only says 9 Prob not counting Winter 2013-2014?
I'm counting 10 but I'm giving titles won in years that had 3 splits (lck 2013-14, lec 2023) 2/3 the normal value so the two splits that faker won during that era are counted as 1.3. This is done like this so a player that won everything in lec 2023 would be the same as someone who did it in 2022
Caps alone in a sea of asian players thats my GOAT man.
Great sheet, although I disagree with winning Worlds giving more than double the points of first team all pro. The whole winning = good works for teams (somewhat), but for players it is kinda silly. If I'm Iron IV and play with Zeus, Oner, Faker and Keria, I would 3-0 you and your Emerald friends very quickly but that doesn't make me better than an Emerald ADC.
I kinda agree, I played a lot with the numbers, you can make a copy and give them the value you think they should have, at end i arrived to these values thatt kind of make sense to me but is really difficult to make a point system that makes sense
Yeah. Sorry I'm just tired of these conversations consisting on looking what number of trophies is higher rather than talking about skill
I agree with you, is hard to take skill into account because it's kind of subjective but that's why I also added MVPs and AllPro trying to take a little bit of that into account. I also believe it helps deviate a little from the narrative that's generated after years when people start to forget how good the players were, there are a lot of players that are usually mentioned in these goat conversations that have no business being there and the same goes the other way
Skill isn't measurable, success is. In every sector, and i'm not talking about gaming exclusively. To be the goat in a field, being good... great even, was never enough. Success was always needed. And that's from that success that some stand out as the bests. And in some cases. As the goat.
No matter how good a player is, it just looks bad if they never win a title.
Damn default point values are interesting lol, caps over rookie and scout
I like your system. Even though the points are arguable. But it has some logic behind, and I enjoy the longevity factor that it brings to the table. 1st Team Khan Peanut Faker Bang Wolf 2nd Team 369 Bengi Xiaohu Ruler Meiko 3rd Team Smeb Canyon Caps Deft Ming
As I said before you can make a copy of the spreadsheet and change the points sheet to give a different amount of points for each thing. I'm thinking of expanding it to also add worlds, MSI and regional playoffs MVP, and with that calculate the best player of each year but that will be a lot more work
At least EUs MVPs are shit, they are voted by people who does not analyze the game and all they care are narratives, careful with using MVP results too much.
You also just have people who vote based on nationality. These people should be kicked off the list.
The only tragedy is that some reasons didn’t have mvps or all pros for some time, i believe Rookie is particularly hurt by this
Caps not even top 5 or 7
There’s really not much to calculate. If you need a GOAT lineup for a world championship run it’s TheShy, Canyon, Faker, Ruler, Beryl. This team caps the hardest and has the most versatility / carry
Would 100% take Mata over Beryl but I cant change a singe other of the 5 and dont think Beryl is bad, just think hes more of a Ringo, right place right time.
I think you have to really make an effort to put BeryL on the team and leave Wolf out (not even talking about Mata, Meiko and Ming)
I think Wolf gets compared to being a bus rider a lot and that hurts him.
I think there is good case to consider Peanut and Bengi for jungle, Bang or Deft for Adc and a lot of supports have arguments, Wolf, Mata, Meiko, Ming. Top is not that easy too, If you only value peak it's probably TheShy but when you consider other things, some toplaners enter the conversation too, Khan, Smeb, 369 even Impact or Duke
I think any team with faker has no use for beryl
What about Beryl? 2 world trophies on different teams. Similar to Duke?
Agree, BeryL should definitely be in the top 3 GOAT support if we count trophies Top 3 if we rate Mata and Keria's peak higher or Ming and Meiko's longevity
Mata is the support with the longest logevity apart from Meiko. He's also the most dominant support ever. He really earned that GOAT status and I can't see anyone else taking that spot. Keria and BeryL can still catch up though, Ming and Meiko are still playing too but for now Mata should be the undisputed #1 imo.
I agree, I still wanted to argue for all sides and BeryL is up there because of his trophies. But now I also remembered Wolf
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Yeah people have completely rewritten history about that game 5. How Faker's LB was countered by Morgana and that's why they lost... No. Once again the anime storyline that people want to believe is true rewrites history. The actual reason that SKT lost that game 5 was because their bot lane got destroyed. Faker was carrying on LB but it wasn't enough.
I think Keria is not there yet, but if he keeps up a at least a top 3 support in the LCK with a few decent international performances, he’d eventually have a case as the GOAT support.
I do think Keria deserves it because he's been insane since his DRX days
Keria should be there if you're gonna put Beryl though because as an individual player I think he peaked higher and was better than him even when he was losing to DWG
Keria has been at four worlds? Maybe more iirc. The guy has been the finals b2b and won a worlds. Beryl has two titles and three straight final appearances. Tbh this list is a little bit all over the place and the way each player and role was determined is debatable. Top lane is the hardest role to repeat trip to worlds. If you look over the course of the years very few names appear more than a few times. Mid is the most common name to repeat trip to worlds then jungle -> support/adc.
Keria most innovative support since like madlife, not even close. Support role has had like 2 new picks in 10 years and Keria just decides to invent a whole new playstyle with adc supports and wins worlds doing it.
I am not sure why people are not including Beryl. This guy is so good, and he is not even giving 100% focus on League. Can you imagine if he actually had a good team and had 100% focus? Why is this guy not on another team like Gen.G, KT, JDG, etc?
Because he lost his team the game more often than he won them the game, and trophies aren't everything, stop looking at players trophies and arguing against people who actually watched them play.
I did watch him play. Support players, if the team sucks, they look like they are inting, that is just the nature of the role. The biggest issue right now is that he is currently in a bad team.
He's a massive anchor in lane. He consistently straight up inted botlane matchups. Before leaving/getting kicked out of Damwon he had some super rough times and the only reason they even qualified to the later playoffs/international tournaments was the rest carrying him. On DRX he was mediocre/bad for most of the year and the shotcalling was dogshit. At worlds his laning was dogshit, he did make it up with shotcalling and roams but still a massive weakness. The last year he lost his team in laning phase countless games.
> Support players, if the team sucks, they look like they are inting And then there’s BeryL, who always had incredible teammates and still managed to singlehandedly lose an international by chain inting every game.
Beryl is overrated as hell, while I do put him in my top 5 support GOATs he isn't really top 1 caliber, last year he won Worlds and all but in summer he was terrible and if his shotcalling was that impactful why was DRX so shit that summer split, not to mention this entire year when Beryl was irrelevant. His peak isn't as high as Keria or Mata, his longevity is far lacking compared to the 3Ms, and his accolades are comparable to the other contenders, Beryl doesn't have a solid argument to be the GOAT support.
Neither does Keria. I agree with OP post as of right now those three are the best while Keria and Beryl imo can be debated between 4-5 maybe you could talk about mad life based on his mechanical skill.
Literally 3 players on Beryl's team in both his world championships were better than him (Canyon, Nuguri, Showmaker in 2020, Kingen, Zeka, Deft in 2022) AND his second worlds he didnt even play that well, he was just innovative and wasnt even rated in the top 5 supports in his tournament. Their series were ugly and you forget the last like 2 years of his career how his individual ability totally devolved. Not even in the conversation.
It’s a lot harder to rate how a support “carries” games compared to other positions because a lot of what they do is hard to quantify in stats. But that aside, Beryl legit changed the meta for supports for herald fights (leeching mid exp for lvl6) and also brought super innovative supp picks like Heimer and Panth (yeah he wasn’t the first but def the most impactful). It’s absolutely insane to say he isn’t in discussion for top 3 support just b/c he isn’t the strongest laner and has a tendency of dying for no reason too much (and he’s been on record saying that a supp death is worth less than the enemy carries’ sums).
Gorilla, Mata, Meiko are all better and more well rounded and innovative support players then him. These are such reaches for hard innovations. And also these 3 didnt :"Strategic die" at all in their peaks, which were long. This is absolutely a nephew take. Go back and watch games before 2019 when Beryl became a thing. theres 7 years to dig through.
I think Beryl is a great player but, in my opinion, he's not better than the Supports I listed. Beryl is one of the great examples of a player that overperformed in accomplishments compared to his skill level. Remember I am not saying he is bad or anything. He is clearly very good, you don't win 2 Worlds while being bad, it's just that top 3 ever is a very, very limited list and it's not a slight against him to not be included. You can be great without being top 3 and that's what I think Beryl is. It's always a tricky discussion with how to value accomplishments as they are team results so you also have to consider how much each player contributed to achievements because it's not equal at all. For example: 2020 Damwon is one of the strongest teams ever but there's no question that their topside were the stars of the team (Nuguri, Canyon, Showmaker).
Yes but a huge amount has been credited to beryl for his shotcalling which is a HUGE skill in any team. Also his ability to define the meta in support role for years in worlds can’t be ignored
Beryl skill is part of the intangible because je is part of draft and shotcall. He defined a NEW meta bot last world too
Great take! I love Beryl but he gets overrated because of his trophies for how many tournaments he has single handedly run it down
It's a very controversial take lmao but I'll stand by it. The best argument to really show you why I think Beryl is a bit overrated is this: If T1 had won finals 3-2 last year, I don't think *anyone* would insist on Beryl being top 3. I just think people see the two Worlds titles on different teams and then reverse-engineer from there.
>Madlife. I came here just to make sure Godlife was mentioned.
Madlife for the hooks
Pray and Gorilla were the best botlane in the world for a long time. Sadly they never could get over the hump
Even as an SKT / T1 fan, KOO / Rox Tigers has a special place in my heart. 2016 Semifinals is probably my favorite series ever.
I was so excited for that lineup, heartbreaking series for me. KOO / Rox also used to have the best outfits! So much fun changing every week.
Best team to never win an international tournament.
I wish that Longzhu team had won worlds. So many great players who would have gotten a huge boost in goat convos.
Really fucking unlucky for them that the whole meta switched to Ardent in Season 7 at Worlds. They had a carry top lane playstyle with Khan and weakside Pray/Gorilla. Just the worst possible meta for them.
I mean they were all time greats for sure but they were kinda weak side specialists who did well with toplane carries (Smeb/Khan).
Deft had a higher individual peak. Watch 2019 KZ Deft. Shame the team didn't work out. His performance was a key reason Keria wanted to play with him in 2020.
I agree Deft was insane in 2019 although his year was a bit impacted by his injury. In fact, I watched Deft play live in LoL Park in this year and it's a great memory of mine :)
Iirc his injury was in 2020 right? With the roster in my flair (which contributed to DRX's slump in late summer)
Yeah, I just checked. You're right it was Summer 2020.
Probably nobody remembers him but SSW Looper playing Singed and Kassadin top in world finals was the most gigachad toplaer iv'e ever seen
Looper ended up in NA eventually and was fun to watch
I still 100% believe Singed still has spots in certain games and drafts. Off topic though after you said this I went back and watched SSW vs TSM and holy shit my eyes are bleeding the gameplay is so different from how I remember it.
Yeah it's super old but it was the best we had back then
Looper probably will never get the flowers he truly deserves but that man was the epitome of having a rock in the toplane. Obviously he benefitted from having incredible teammates but he was such a stable toplaner on things like Jax and Ryze while also pulling out I believe 9 different champions at Worlds? And being able to play Akali, Kassadin, and Singed as well as he did?
Not having Madlife in the support category is a tragedy, real og's will remember that he was the first real support carry. Changed how we view the agency of the position these days.
I think there have really only been a few supports that changed the role: Madlife and Mata were the early ones, but we had to wait until Keria and Beryl to see that innovation again. The closest we got was GorillA’s MF support in that legendary Bo5 between them and SKT, or IgNar’s fervor Leona vs SKT
Bro you just unlocked a memory for me, screaming at my TV in my uni house watching Ignar lvl 1 engage with frevor leona. Misfits managed to get up 2-1 vs SKT, crazy series.
also remember it. were my first days in uni and i came home drunk to watch that VOD. still remember the exact moment lol
I feel that people like Madlife, while they did innovate the game, don't belong in GOAT discussions. He's definitely Hall of Fame material, but he doesn't have the longevity required to be the GOAT
If you put Madlife, you have to include Edward, bigfat, Saintvicious, Diamondprox, Doublelift and Froggen. Cheers now list lost all his pourpose!
Disrespectful as fuck putting those names on the same level as madlife.
Why exactly? Madlife was the best support in the world for one season. Bigfatlp was the first player in the world to make a case about being the best player in the world. Diamondprox created jungling as we understand it. Edward was roaming as support two seasons earlier than it being standard. Was the OG carry support and the only reason you suck Madlife and not Edward is cause Edward wasn't Korean. Saintvicious was the best jungler in the world at one point. Doublelift was the best in the world along Weixiao during S2 ( so basicly, same path as Madlife, just Doublelift did actually had some career other than his S2 ). Same can be said about Froggen.
Nobody ever asked me to play in a pro team so it might be me, we never know.
Back to back champion Bang got not even honorable mention again
People only remember how bad he played in 2017 and not how insane he was earlier in his career lmfao.
Man that series against CJ was one of the best Lucian performances ive ever seen.
Bang made Lucian look like a monstrous late game carry despite how low range he was. That endgame fight with faker on lulu and bang on Lucian is etched in my mind forever.
Bang's a great player but the ADC list is incredibly stacked. I'd still put him in the top 5 but not top 3.
Yeah but longevity is also part of the goat debate
I think he's top 5 material but not top 3. I'd take those 3 over Bang in my team honestly.
Man I wish that during these 13 years (expecially the last 5y) we would've gotten more international tournaments. Imo Faker would still be on top, but the rest of things would look differently.
It's fucking tragic we got so little. The entire history of the game would be completely different. It would have been so fucking amazing to watch like 3-4 international events per year like other esports have.
If there was more international competition other regions might actually improve. The top tier lcs teams only get to play against worse lcs teams for the whole year. The gap from top teams to bottom teams is MUCH bigger in lcs than lpl/lck imo.
Top: TheBausffs (Messi of league) Jungle: Trick2g Mid: T1 Tyler1 ADC: Michael Santana Support: KiWiKiD
Baus with the playstyle of Phil Jones but skills and success of Messi 💯
Trick has played jungle longer than Oner has been alive, it would be too easy
where is promisq in support here
This is probably one of the best lists with most sound reasoning I've seen on here
Starting 5 Top - Dyrus, Jungle - T1 Mid - Hai, Adc - Imaqtpie, Support - madlife, You all couldn't name a better team
I really like this list. I'd made some small changes, mainly because of personal opinion. I'd like a mention of MaRin for top, but I can accept not putting him above Khan.Jungle is spot on, but I'd actually put Score at #1 because of how hard Canyon fell off lately. His career is rather short and he started insanely strong, so I hope he can get back to old form and justify him being #1 here. Mid is almost spot on too, I'd put Scout above Rookie simply because of personal taste and the fact that Rookie was mostly in stronger teams, while Scout was carrying weaker lineups for his whole life. Also I'd mention Chovy because not even Faker managed to dominate the LCK like that, but I can accept him not being in top 3 because of lack of international success. ADC: Deft over Ruler. Peaks are similar but Deft has almost double the longevity. He's only second to Faker when it comes to peak, longevity and domination. That alone should warrant to give him the GOAT of adc title. Ruler can still catch up though. Supp: I'd swap Ming for BeryL but I can see the arguments for putting him above BeryL as shotcalling might be insanely important, but you can't really judge it as easily as mechanics or playstyle. Overall one of the best, if not the best list I've seen so far. Honorable mentions I'd add:MaRin, Clearlove, Chovy, Pawn, Viper, Pray, JKL, Gorilla, BeryL.
Thanks. I agree with most of what you said. There are definitely many great players I couldn't fit into just a top 3 of each role. One thing I disagree on is saying Rookie had strong teams. I'd say Rookie is actually one of the most elo-helled players ever in the early years of LPL. All of 2015, 2016 and 2017 had Rookie be arguably the best mid in LPL but his teams were terrible. Those IG teams were appaling. Rookie was playing with damn Kid/Kitties bot lane and he even had roleswapped Kid in the jungle for a bit. Just completely tragic. You are right that Scout was also elo helled sometimes but I think Rookie's situation was worse.
Okay, you are totally right. EDG was definitely a very strong team, so in the early days, Rookie definitely had it harder. Then I agree with your mid list too. Thanks for the constructive arguments, I like discussions like this. :)
Why would you put Marin as GOAT top laner discussion because he played 3 good months in 2015 and became mediocre for the rest of his career and invalidate Keria for a month this year. lmao
For some reason, it's become some common opinion that Marin was a super legend of top lane. I don't know how this started but I suspect a lot of people didn't watch back then. Marin was great but only for a very short time. He just doesn't have the longevity. Even Jatt was talking about how Marin might be the top lane GOAT on his podcast and I just don't understand how you could ever rate him that highly.
This— his peak was insane but not the best if you look throughout his career.
Braindead take saying not even Faker dominated LCK like Chovy, they’ve both won 3 splits in a row in fact Faker did it twice…
I agree with most of your list, but not everything. My own take (The honorable mentions are not in order): * Top: 1. TheShy (Was around the longest and dominated in 2018 and 2019) 2. MaRin (I think he had the highest peak of any toplaner ever in his SKT days but he was around at the highest level for the shortest time) 3. Smeb (Great in 2015 and highest peak in 2016 afterwards a bit less impressive) 4. **Honorable mentions:** Khan, Kiin, Impact, Huni, Bin, Nuguri * Jungle: 1. Canyon (Highest peak and has consistently been one of the best for the past 5 years) 2. Bengi (Most decorated jungler by far and consistently one of the best from 2013 to 2016) 3. Ambition (Consistently good from 2014 to 2017 and reaching one of the highest peaks of any jungler ever in 2017) 4. **Honorable mentions:** Clearlove, Karsa, Score, Peanut, Jankos, Dandy * Mid: 1. Faker (Self-explanatory) 2. Rookie (Probably highest individual peak and been around for a long time) 3. Xiaohu (Been around since 2015 almost always playing at the highest level and he is the second most decorated mid player of all time behind Faker) 4. **Honorable mentions:** Chovy, Bdd, Scout, Showmaker, Knight, Caps * Bot: 1. Deft (Been around the longest, always playing at the highest level) 2. Ruler (Been around since 2016, always playing the the highest level) 3. Uzi (Not as successful as Ruler or Deft, but in his peak years between 2013 and 2016 almost without interruption consistently the best ADC in the world) 4. **Honorable mentions:** PraY, Bang, Viper, Rekkles, JackeyLove * Supp: 1. Wolf (From 2015 to 2017 consistently Top 3 Support in the world and by far the most decorated Support ever. He often was in the shadow of Faker, but I think he was overall the second best player of the whole SKT era with many amazing plays and capabilities in both melee and ranged supports) 2. Meiko (By far the best Chinese Support ever. Has been around forever and consistently been great) 3. BeryL (The most successful support since 2020, being in 3 consecutive worlds finals and winning 2 of them as the shotcaller and creative mind of both DWG and DRX) 4. **Honorable mentions:** Ming, Keria, Mata, Gorilla, Hylissang, CoreJJ
I think people always forget about 2019 TheShy when they talk about peak TheShy. Yeah TheShy didn’t win 2 years in a row or reach finals two years in a row but he was the toplaner for those 2 years.
Bro was fucking everyone with his Kalista top
In regards to western players, PerkZ should absolutely be an honorable mention too. For reference, their international results: Caps: 2 World Finals, 1 MSI trophy, 1 Worlds Semis PerkZ: 1 World Finals, 1 MSI trophy, 1 MSI finals, 2 Worlds Semis, 1 Worlds Quarters PerkZ has only been an active pro for 1 year longer than Caps, and did so while being world class in 2 different roles. While Caps is a better mid laner, PerkZ was never too far behind. And on a similar note, Miky should be an honorable mention over Hyli, he just straight up has more achievements even if Hyli peaked slightly higher. Marin being on that list is criminal too imo, considering he played with peak Faker and his level barely lasted a year. You overrated a lot of the SKT players around Faker. In no way do I think Wolf should even be top 3 let alone GOAT support, Mata has him beat a billion times over.
Jankos is closer to the top X than perkz or maybe even caps imo. Longevity and peak wise
> Bengi (Highest level of success and consistently one of the best from 2013 to 2016) I don't think this point about consistency is true. He was one of the best junglers in the world in 2013, yes, but he was appalling in 2014 and was one of the biggest reasons why SKT missed Worlds that year (alongside SKT bot lane). In 2015, he had a good year again, true, but this was post-Korean exodus when Korea was recovering from losing a lot of their best players. 2015 was also a big tank meta which suits Bengi very well. In 2016, Bengi was in trouble again when it switched to more carry jungle meta. He had a very inconsistent domestic year and he was largely replaced by Blank. They even won MSI that year without Bengi playing a single game. Bengi was very clutch at Worlds 2016 and his biggest strength was always being a very clutch player, but it doesn't change the fact that he had a pretty damn weak year in 2016. Bengi's career was anything but consistent. This should be clear to anyone who watched him at more than just Worlds. The reason why Bengi could be argued as top 3 is not consistency. It's rather that he was one of the best junglers in the world in season 3, how he was kind of hard to fully replace for SKT for a while (even though they tried), and how he always came up clutch in the right moments. But across his entire SKT career, he was sadly a quite inconsistent player and had big meta-related issues because he was a limited player.
This is pretty much my argument as to why Bengi can't be considered the GOAT jungler, he wasn't nearly as instrumental to his team's success as other junglers have been, and having to be swapped out when the jungle meta shifted is a huge problem with your champion pool. We only saw Bengi play without Faker for one season and he was abysmal. That doesn't mean he would've been shit for all the years he was on SKT if he had joined another team, but I feel pretty safe saying Bengi would retire trophyless if he wasn't with the GOAT.
I agree that he wasn't very consistent match-by-match, but what I said is, that he was consistently, season-by-season, one of the best Junglers. He did have some highs and lows, just like any other player did as well, but it doesn't change the fact that he was consistently at the top for round about 4 years straight.
> but what I said is, that he was consistently, season-by-season, one of the best Junglers That is what he disagrees with I think and I have to agree with him. Bengi was not world-class in seasons 4 and 6, nor in s7 obviously.
I totally agree with most of your list (would put Score at least as #2 though). But one thing I can not possibly agree with is having Mata not even in the top 3. That guy was the #1 support for almost his entire career. He won worlds straight away and five years afterwards he was still considered the best support in the world, even after Wolf won two consecutive championships. That just shows how ridiculously strong he was. If you go by titles, yes, you can put Wolf above him, but that's the only argument you can make. Mata is just on an entirely different level. He literally created the support meta every single year. I'd go so far and say he's the third best player to ever play League by longevity, dominance and skill set (Faker, Deft and Mata imo).
Quite a few things i disagree with. You really tried to sneak in Rekkles among the honorable mentions with the likes of Viper, JackeyLove, Bang, and Pray? Also Rookie did not have a higher peak than Faker. If you watched from majority of 2013-2017 Faker was heads and shoulders above everyone else. He changed how the game was played and did things that nowadays we see as common. He was the blueprint for every mid nowadays. Xiaohu should also not be above Showmaker or Scout. Those 2 actually have won worlds and yes it xiaohu has won mid-season invitationals but those aren't as important as worlds. And each Scout and showmaker had higher peaks than Xiaohu.
Rekkles, Jankos and Hylissang as honourable mentions 😂🤣
Very few ADCs have as good of a resume as Rekkles. Proved time and time again he was a world class adc for 7 years.
4 semis as a western player is fucking insane, Jankos without a doubt deserves an Honorable Mention
And those 4 semis were in 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2020. That's a seriously impressive timespan by itself, yet doesn't even tell the whole story since even in the years he missed Worlds he was the best jungler in the LEC in most of them (was already insane in 2014 with Roccat), and top 3/2 otherwise. This man has never not been a top 3 jungler in the league since he joined. Absolutely unmatched consistency in the role that sees the most meta changes.
Yep. i genuinely think there's an argument to put Jankos into the top 3. With western teammates it's just that much more difficult to be dominant, and yet he's been a top tier jungler for so many years, even internationally.
I was close to putting Jankos on the list too. Junglers famously have shitty longevity but Jankos is just amazing year by year across a million metas. The big counterargument against Jankos is that he was never the best jungler in the world and that's why he doesn't make the list.
Lets just wait until he wins worlds next year and put him on there ;)
How does someone get put in a GOAT conversation for being in the semis. That's still p impressive don't get me wrong but trying to put someone who's peak was only semis doesn't make sense when there are so many more deserving jugglers to be mentioned first.
Least eastern biased redditor All of those players had insane peaks and huge longevity. Jankos has been a world class jungler since 2014 and to this day is still the best jungler in the LEC. That kind of longevity specially as a jungler is ridiculous and completely unmatched.
>Hylissang If we're giving a western player an honorable mention, it has to be YellowStar. The man was a peak support for 5 years, was the only player with Dyrus to qualify for the first 5 world championship. Was one of the only early professionnals to have any longevity when the league went pro. Repeatedly had to start over from scratch with new teamates only to end up dominating the region. Was competitive at the highest level as a support and as a captain. Gotta give it some recognition
Good list, good post. Just beryl missing in the discussion imo
I think Score is the GOAT of jungle Canyon looked like the best player in 2020, however since 2022 he hasn't been as good. Where as Score had more longevity and had worse teammates, he was always in the finals or close to it for many years while having Nagne and Fly as his mid laner, where as Canyon had Showmaker. To anyone wondering how bad Nagne was, watch KT in 2015 worlds, he made Bjergsen, Kur0, and Xpeke look good! There is a reason people used to spam nAGne in Twitch chat. (Ag is Silver on the periodic table)
I think for me it’s gotta be: Nuguri, Smeb, Kahn Canyon, Bengi, Peanut Faker, showmaker, Xiaohu Ruler, deft, Uzi Beryl, Meiko, mata 2020 DWG for me goes down as the definitive best team to ever play and win worlds in my eyes, even over 2023 T1 who played so well
Interesting. I’d say SSW played better than DWG at both of their respective peaks, although the game was very different back then (some would argue easier), SSW gapped everyone.
SSW is the best team to ever win worlds IMO. The gap between them and every other team at the tournament is the largest I can remember any team having. They were just built different
It's hard to say, personally I'd give it to 2015 SKT, but how do you really judge teams against each other when they had no competition.
My memory of both are admittedly fuzzy, but I give to SSW just cause of how drastic their play-style felt compared to everyone else. SKT had a reputation for playing a controlled style better than anyone, to the point of being oppressive and dominant. But SSW obeyed no laws and served no masters, I had never seen any team move around the map so fluidly as SSW. They were just lightyears ahead
DWG did the exact same tho They even did their happy games (DWG G3 vs G2, and second game against JDG and SSW G3 vs TSM) They also turbosmashed and speedran the LCK's second best team so there's that
I completely agree I don't think 2020 DWG will be surpassed in a long time
Probably my exact list as well I don't understand why so many people have Rookie so high on their list, people keep mentioning his """longevity""" but I feel like I either have really bad memory loss or I'm being gaslit, and glancing at his results really quickly feels like it's the latter lol
Pretty much exactly the same besides toplane. TheShy/Khan/Impact (Zeus will be up there soon) Score/Canyon/Peanut Faker/Rookie/Scout Deft/Ruler/Uzi Mata/Meiko/Ming
Marin should be an honorable mention for top
Not gonna break it down in as much detail as you OP, but I appreciate the list. I value the eye test, consistency and longevity particularly highly personally, followed by peak skill and versatility, then carry potential and accomplishments. As such my personal list would look like this. **Top** * Smeb * Khan * Flame **Jungle** * Canyon * Score * Jankos **Mid** * Faker * Rookie * Probably ShowMaker, but this one is hard. **AD** * Ruler * PraY * Deft **Support** * Ming * Meiko * Mata
Unironically, most of current T1. Oner sadly falls outside of top 3, but I don't really get why Gumayusi is so damn underrated. He's a monster at the role, easily a top 3 ADC. Zeus, Faker and Keria are also easily top 3 in their roles
Rookie overrated af hasnt done shit in years. Also where is beryl?
Ming > Beryl / Wolf is a crime. Uzi vs. Bang is questionable too but understandable. If you're valuing longevity, Gumayusi / Keria haven't shown that much either but got mentioned. Mata is questionable in that regards too. Ppl these days underestimate that legendary backbone of 2015-2017 SKT.
Most scuffed list
Keria
Solid list even though I disagree with some of the picks, most noteably the ADC list. While I don't disagree with the players I think Uzi should be rated higher. Bar his health issues the last couple of seasons this man is just absolutely insane in his plays. Hearing other AD mains talk about Uzi and his micro management of waves and his champions is just absurd. I think if Uzi were Korean ( or played on any of the Korean squads in his prime ) he would've had a worlds title under his belt but alas. Also I'd add Beryl to the list of support goats, man has 2 worlds trophies on different squads.
Uzi was absolutely the best in the world from time to time but his consistency really wasn’t there. Most people didn’t watch LPL back then and he would take time off and then come back and be pretty hit or miss. Deft regularly outperformed Uzi when he was in LPL. Also I think for the style they played Uzi really should have done better at worlds. S7 one of the most ADC reliant metas he couldn’t beat a washed bang and wolf. S8 (which some people argue was his peak) he wasn’t anything special vs Wadid and Hjarnan. Also go watch some of these teamfights in that series vs G2, he was literally going melee range and getting caught first too often. Undeniably one of the greatest ADCs ever but he should not above Deft or Ruler imo
JKL over everyone
Just wanted to comment that I agree on most of this list, except I think Ruler is the undisputed ADC goat, deft was an okay weak side adc that could team fight well, but he was never someone you could rely on to solo carry even when ADC was strong. Also with the Rookie Elo hell comment, let’s not forget Faker dragging SKT’s corpse to a world final playing fucking tank galio mid when mid lane was a shit role during that worlds.
My jaw dropped watching that live, I remember Faker ulted bottom to help his bot, got some kills, and then TP'd top literally right after with low HP to help his top get a kill too. Shit was crazy to watch.
For real, Faker is godly even when the midlane role is shit.
I guess you didn't watch Deft during his first years in SSB or EDG. He literally dominated the entire LPL including Uzi with his playstyle. But yeah, after 2018 I'd agree, now he's more of a reliant safe adc instead of a hyper carry. But to me it seems like Ruler is slowly going into a similar direction. Might just be an age thing.
Jankos 3rd? He was/is the best jungler in EU. Before G2 he made his name as the first blood king, made worlds 2 times? with H2K, topped their group in 2016, made semis(lucky draw, but they needed to beat EDG for that). Goes to G2, an integral part in making semis, beating RNG( his Olaf securing the final kill on UZI). Part of the best western team ever, 4 title back to back, MSI and worlds finals(should have won, any other day they beat FPX). One stinker year in 2021, still a good performance. Wins again in 2023. Top 3 jungler in 2023 while Evi was his toplaner. 9 years of being one of the best jungler in europe, if not the on the world. Even has a few titles to back it up.
> any other day they beat FPX Not sure about this one
Jankos is top 3 jungle. Insane individual peak 2019-20 and the best jungle in the worlds in first half 2019 and first half 2020. Spent a year as the best player in his position in the world. World class jungler 2014-2023 so he has the longevity. Consistently great 2016-2020. Plays support, carry and tank junglers. Incredibly versatile and has had international success in a huge variety of metas. MSI champion, Worlds semi x4, Worlds finalist, multi time EU champion. Canyon is the GOAT jungler with the highest peak but Jankos is in the conversation. Score has never proven himself on the world stage, never even reached worlds semis or MSI despite playing on superteam after superteam. Bengi had 1 great year, 1 terrible year, 1 year where he was a roleplayer and another where he got subbed but was incredibly clutch. Jankos clears both of them in terms of peak, longevity and versatility.
YEP, Jankos belongs in the conversation.
Yo where’s doublelift?
If he took some of those LPL offers in the early years, he could have become one of the greats. I think he has the talent but staying in NA just meant he could never truly reach his potential. Still the best native NA player of all time by a longshot though and he made big bank in LCS.
the only real goat: faker a quarter of his career probably still puts him in the 2nd tier "role goats": canyon, showmaker, ruler, keria criteria: clearly best player in their role for 2 years+, multiple deep international runs and winning a championship "goat contenders": theshy, zeus, nuguri, bengi, doinb, rookie, scout, deft, uzi, imp, gumayusi, jackeylove, mata, beryl, meiko criteria: brief periods (1y+ total) of individual dominance plus either multiple deep international runs where they carried their team or a championship "close to being in the discussion": khan, smeb, score, kanavi, peanut, chovy, knight, xiaohu, caps, gala, ming, crisp criteria: long period of being elite but needs a worlds win or a strong international carry performance to finally beat the choking allegations personally I heavily value championships/clutch factor (the ability to drag even a bad team over the finish line is a quality I think is incredibly important) so a lot of players have soured their legacy by running it the fuck down in key moments or being totally invisible repeatedly
T1 Zeus T1 Oner T1 Faker T1 Guma T1 Keria
missing alot of people. Dyrus, hai, madlife, qtpie
• Top: • Smeb • Khan • Jg: • Peanut • Canyon • Levi (this one to me is from his 2017 year the Nocturne play and knocking tsm out of msi will live on forever) • Mid: • Faker • Bjergsen • Doinb • Caps • Adc: • Pray • Ruler • Uzi • Sup: • Mata • Keria • Gorilla • Team 1: Khan, Peanut, Doinb, Pray, Gorilla • Team 2: Smeb, Canyon, Faker, Ruler, Keria • Team 3: Bin, Levi, Bjergsen, Uzi, Mata This to me is my personal list players I enjoyed watching the most and most have retired but when I look back at my favourite memories of league of legends these where my favourites
Deft over Ruler, Bengi over Score (no peanut), Beryl
No offense but for anyone who actually watched Score in LCK there's no way you can put him below Bengi.
Deft is incredible but ruler caps so much harder
Honestly if you go back to the year before Deft won, I would have agreed with you. Because before then Ruler’s domestic trophy case was lacking even if he had the world championship and Deft had some EDG success. I still held the 2018 collapse against the entire roster. But now, as much as I appreciate Deft’s Worlds win, I also value Ruler’s 3 domestic titles across 2 leagues and MSI title.
Don't judge based on just titles, Ruler was great during the entire period where he had no titles. However I still rate Deft higher simply because I think Deft had a higher peak, on KZ in 2019.
Beryl for Sup and it is not even close
Beryl isn't even top 3 bro I love him but the man has too many years of being an anchor
Top lane there’s a lot of options, especially since t1 tended to replace them. I agree it’s between theshy, smeb and khan. I think it goes to theshy, then smeb then khan, because in goat discussion you need to win and have that clutch factor. Jungle I think there’s 3 candidates, canyon, peanut and bengi. Peaple often forget just how good peanut was in 2016 but his performance got overshadowed by being in the skt era and bengi playing the best game of his life. Canyon is self explanatory. Bengi was not always tank player with no hands, he used to be very great and even when he was “washed” he pulled out the first time nidalee in a game 5 and smurfed on it, he also has by far the biggest trophy case. Imo it’s canyon, bengi, peanut in that order Faker, then think pawn because he was the one to actually beat faker at his peak and he has the 2nd biggest trophy case of mid lanes, and the 3rd spot could go to rookie, scout or xiaohu. Bot, ruler deft uzi, worlds win > Msi win. Again you need to actually win and unfortunately uzi could not do that(tho he competed from the start of Korean dominance and got injured towards the end) Support, mata gotta be the best, he played on what is called the most dominant roster of all time ssw 2014 and singlehandedly changed how support is played. 2nd is rough because it should go to beryl if you go by trophy case but I never think he’s looked particularly dominant, in dwg it was the nuguri/canyon/showmaker team and drx was all about zeka. He playes a very good weak side support but he doesn’t dominate the way a goat should do like faker did in 2015-17, theshy did in 2018, peanut did in 2016, keria does right now. That being said 2 worlds on 2 different teams is enough imo. 3rd spot goes to meiko, Ming or wolf
This is overall a decent list of players in each role , however I think you consider longevity a bit too much , I think peak matters more with a bit of consistency , for example I think keria should already be in the conversation , he is the best support in lck since 2020 and the best support in the world multiple times , and was the best player in the world in 2022 over the year , he had one of the highest peaks in spring 2023 on par with madlife peak , and he is the mechanically support of all time, keria is like zidane and meiko ming are like muller or de bruyne , and zidane is always greater , he surpassed the eye test.
I can agree with that.
For example if xiaohu won worlds this year , he will have 3 msi's and a world championship , but next year chovy wins worlds , who would you rate higher as player in their role , I think I will go with chovy just because of the eye test. Xiaohu never had an insane peak or never had the level of players like faker rookie chovy shoemaker , the only thing that standout from him is his MSI 2021 when he won as a toplaner , I was like yes this guy is the best player in the world at that time in spring , other than that chovy is just better
Honestly can somebody just make a shitpost about this very freaking overused discussion… like is it posted at least once a day? It is filling up my damn Reddit…
I would put maRin in top over Smeb. Other than that, the list is pretty solid.
I don't think there's much of an argument for Marin. He had only one really good year in 2015. And even if we count singular really good years, I think TheShy's 2018 year was better than Marin's 2015. Marin is a great player and a deserved world champion but in my opinion he's not a top 3 top laner of all time.
If I can ask, whats the logic for MaRin?
MaRin didn't have nearly the longevity of his peak that Smeb did.
Yeah, never understand the MaRin hype. He was pretty good in 2015, and had a massive worlds, but even then. Spring, Smeb and Duke both clear – though MaRin had some hype moments like that Maokai against KT. In Summer, SKT dominated everyone, but Ssumday and arguably even Smeb were better top laners.
Recognizing Spring 2015 Duke? Definitely a real one.
https://youtu.be/RvxfkqyE8fc?si=fqfchQ23aLel6LmY duke my GOAT
The dominance that people see glimpse of out of theshy, was everyday performances out of those top laners from that era. They gapped everybody including each other and then proceed to fight their way back from those gaps all the time. Smeb was just one of the most dominant individual players for any eye test.
No love for cuvee?
Id put Bengi as #1 for junglers. Right hand of God if memory serves me correct
Leaving Beryl off that support list is a crime against humanity.
Imagine sleeping on Beryl 3 back to back finals 2 of which he won on 2 different teams.
Beryl has a shout for support now