Join me as I take a closer look at the North American standings after three weeks of competitive play in our 2019 LCS Summer Split week 3 recap! Each team has played six games, which is more than enough to give us more insight into their innate potential and strength. So are we satisfied with what we’ve seen? Will the LCS landscape finally change after multiple splits of the same old story?

Has the LCS Evolved?

Well, yes and no. It’s quite obvious that most teams are playing on a somewhat level playing field, but that’s not exactly because they’re all exceptional. Instead, they’re all taking games off of each other because they’re painfully inconsistent. Just a single decision in game is all it takes for a team to lose. And they can have a seismic gold lead as well — it really don’t matter in the late game. The current meta, as flexible as it is, simply doesn’t allow any mistakes. If a team loses even a single member, it could cost them dearly. There’s always something that can be taken on the Rift, and if a team is quick to react, they can attain quite a sizeable lead through intelligent calls and rotations.

And North American teams, in particular, have shown a tendency to make all kinds of plays and decisions, for better and worse.

Because of this, predicting the outcome of any game in the current split is pretty much a fool’s errand. There are just too many factors at hand, and we simply can’t grasp the bigger picture right now. So many teams are neck and neck when it comes to strength and potential, and the slimmest of margins often end up being the determining factor. A single call, one bad movement, a misclick is all that is needed in order to turn the game on its head.

And when you pit two inconsistent teams against one another, absolute chaos tends to ensue. The outcome is always up in the air, and you just can’t tell who’s stronger than whom. Certain teams to certain things better than others, but we’re talking about nuances here.

Last week gave us a better read into most teams, but it’s still too early to judge any competing contender with confidence. Most of them rose to the occasion, others failed to mount an offensive. But there were a couple of surprising twists and turns. 100 Thieves got their first win, Echo Fox failed to do the same even though they had all the right tools in order to do so, Clutch Gaming improved and FlyQuest declined much more than anyone anticipated.

Overall, everything is basically a mess, but if you’re a long-time follower of the LCS, then this is far from a surprise. We didn’t know which team fully belonged in the Top 6 last split up until the eighth or ninth week of competitive play. This will probably be the case yet again, and that’s not such a bad thing. It keeps everything much more exciting and unpredictable.

2019 Summer Split LCS Week 3 Recap — Standings

Still, we’ve seen enough from all ten teams in order to judge them based off of their play. So without any further ado, let’s look at the standings in our 2019 LCS Summer Split week 3 recap!

Tied for First — Cloud9, Counter Logic Gaming, Golden Guardians, OpTic Gaming, Team Liquid, Team SoloMid (4W-2L)

Much like with the LEC, there’s a huge clump of teams tied for just a single spot, and it’s hard saying who really belongs at the top right now.

On one hand, we can confidently surmise that Cloud9, Team Liquid, and Team SoloMid once again define the LCS pantheon. They’ve shown the most out of all ten teams, and they’re titans of the LCS for a reason. Then again, they’re fairly inconsistent (some more than others), and have shown shoddy play on more than one occasion. Still, they have the most potential and will reach it much faster than any of their competitors.

Below them, however, is where things get incredibly interesting. We have teams like Counter Logic Gaming and the Golden Guardians, both of which have shown incredible growth over the last couple of months — Counter Logic Gaming especially. They have pretty much been in a rut for multiple splits now, but after signing a brand-new top laner and promoting their Academy jungler into the starting position, they’ve been infused with new life.

They’re far more versatile and aggressive, they can play different team comps and still find success, but perhaps most importantly — and we’ve seen this from their last week’s games — they’re cool and calm under pressure. They were one bad call away from losing both against Echo Fox as well as the Golden Guardians, and yet they remained composed. They knew what was on the line, and not a single member overstepped. No one made the wrong call, and they eventually emerged victorious through stellar team play and exceptional individual performances.

Everyone did their job, and they played like a well-oiled machine. The Golden Guardians aren’t much worse, but they did make egregious blunders when they had to be spotless in their execution. Still, these are forgivable offenses seeing how they did so many things right.

They were aggressive and on the same page more often than not, and if they continue building on this foundation, they should be a lock for the upcoming playoffs for sure. They probably won’t find any success much like last split, but they’re an actual contender and are currently on quite a roll. The organization itself never had such a good start to a split and they’re making the right choices in order to stay near the top of the standings.

That leaves us with OpTic Gaming. After their incredible 4-0 start to the Summer Split, they’ve lost both games against Cloud9 as well as Team Liquid. That was expected, to be fair, but they were exposed quite a bit. Once they didn’t have their priority picks they were unable to have the same impact on the map. This is especially true for their jungler William “Meteos” Hartman. Once they’re pushed out of their comfort zone, they’re simply not as dangerous or cohesive.

Still, the fact that they played such a close game against the defending champions tells us that they really did improve leaps and bounds from the Spring Split. They’re not exactly a dangerous contender quite yet, but they have the right tools in order to challenge the upper echelon of the LCS.

Seventh — Clutch Gaming (3W-3L)

In a moment when every team is tied with a dozen others, being in sole possession of something must feel good, even though the spot itself isn’t particularly high. Still, Clutch is just a single win behind the tie for first place, so they must be doing something right.

Saying just how good they are currently is downright impossible. They’ve shown great progress overall, but they’re as inconsistent as ever. Regardless, they have solid wins over the Golden Guardians, 100 Thieves as well as FlyQuest, so they’re a capable dark horse. While their loss to Team SoloMid exposed many of their innate weaknesses, they’re still a solid team that has ample room to grow and improve as a five-man unit.

The fact that they’ve found a somewhat unique identity and playstyle gives them an upper hand more often than not, and if they continue playing to their strengths they should be able to upset more often than not.

Tied for Eight — 100 Thieves, Echo Fox, FlyQuest (1W-5L)

Finally, we have a three-way tie for eighth. Not exactly the most prestigious spot to be in, but at least all three teams have a win behind their belts. Out of all three, Echo Fox is surely the most capable, although their inconsistent play and subpar decision-making kept them from climbing the ranks. That said, they’ve shown so much potential over the last three weeks, and many of their losses were as close as humanly possible. They literally lost because of one bad decision on more than one occasion.

But that’s the name of the game, and they’ll need to step up and improve as a unit if they want to stand a chance of reaching the playoffs once again.

FlyQuest are still sitting on their one win (upset, rather) over Team SoloMid, and they’ve been unable to mount much of an offensive against Clutch, Liquid, OpTic, or the Golden Guardians. They’re still the same team we all loved watching back in Spring, but they’re simply not as cohesive this time around. They’re somewhat meek and reactive which simply doesn’t work well with the current meta. And it feels like if Omran “V1per” Shoura doesn’t manage to hard carry they simply don’t have a backup plan.

Still, they have all the right pieces of the puzzle, and it’s only a matter of time before they step up and start stringing together wins. They had one of the hardest schedules so far, so they should be able to bounce back sooner rather than later.

Lastly, we have 100 Thieves. Not much to be said about the worst team in the region right now, other than the fact that they finally did show some improvement, but it feels like it’s too little too late at this point in time. Regardless, they have a couple of grizzled veterans within their ranks so they should not be underestimated… That much.

That’s it for our 2019 LCS Summer Split week 3 recap! Tune in this week if you’re interested in seeing how the standings finally resolve, and which teams end up taking up the top spots.