Walking into the League Championship Arena on Friday, I narrowed down my choices for North American LCS MVP down to three, and all of them were about to play in the most anticipated match of the season: Team SoloMid vs. Immortals. It was the series that would tell us which team was going to grab the regular-season title in North America, and which team would enter the playoffs with a leg up on its closest rival for the postseason crown.
At the center of the match stood three superstars with legitimate claims to being called the most valuable player in the league.
The contenders
On the side of Immortals, there was the reigning MVP, Kim "Reignover" Yeu-jin. Outside of ROX Tigers' Song "Smeb" Kyung-ho, no player in the world has transformed more in the past few years than Reignover. Given the nickname "GameOver" in South Korea for his tendency to throw games, Reignover has become a true conductor on Summoner's Rift since linking up with fellow teammate Heo "Huni" Seung-hoon on Europe's Fnatic last year. He is the main cog that stirs the pot for Immortals, a team that can make their overly aggressive style work due to the effort Reignover puts into vision, jungle control, and overall pressure. For me, he's one of the top five junglers in the world, and his bilingual fluency makes him a linchpin.
The second candidate, another former winner, was Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg. Let me be frank: if this award was named "Best Player in the NA LCS," then Bjergsen would get my vote. I still believe Bjergsen is the strongest player in North America, and Team SoloMid did the correct thing in the 2015 offseason by building a team around him instead of trying to plug its best player into an already half-solved jigsaw puzzle. Like Reignover, Bjergsen is a player that any team, North America or Europe, would drop everything to sign.
Finally, Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng. Weirdly enough, I didn't think of him as a true candidate for the award through the first few weeks of the split. He was only playing one champion in Lucian, and all eyes were fixated on his rookie bottom lane partner Vincent "Biofrost" Wang, and the centerpiece of the team was seemingly in the mid lane. But as the season progressed, Doublelift started to gallop along with the other two frontrunners.
Before I delve into my decision for my placement of how I'm voting for MVP of the split, let's go through a few players who should be highlighted for their work during the summer season.
Honorable mentions
As crazy it seems, for a few moments during the weekend, Rami "Inori" Charagh popped up into my head as someone who should be on the ballot. Sure, he only played half of the season, but that's also the main reason why he entered the conversation in the first place. Without Inori, it was clearly shown that Phoenix1 was a downright bad team that didn't deserve to be in the LCS. With him, the team started to click, and mid laner Choi "Pirean" Jun-Sik played like an absolutely different player. In the end, I decided against including him in my top three but I feel like Inori should be credited as one of the "main characters" of this split. When people think about this split, outside of TSM's dominance and Doublelift and Bjergsen's one-two punch for the ages, Phoenix1 and its rise from the ashes of an 0-9 start will be one of the first stories to come to mind.
Besides Inori, I also felt like Eugene "Pobelter" Park is another player that was on the cusp of breaking into the top three. While Reignover is certainly the man pulling the strings for Immortals, Pobelter was the catalyst to Immortals being able to keep up with the likes of TSM during a season where mid pressure and mid lane control were so crucial. After the spring split where every Immortals player was seen as the best at their position except for the last remaining North American starting mid in the league, Pobelter was the best or second best player for IMT this season alongside Reignover.
Zaqueri "Aphromoo" Black, per usual, pulled together his CLG troops following an awful start to the split and led the team to a top four position in the regular season. I'd also be daft not to mention Jake "Xmithie" Puchero for his continual strong play in the jungle. On the topic of jungle, how do I even choose the top three junglers in the league for the All-NA LCS squad? Reignover, Xmithie, Inori, TSM's Dennis "Svenskeren" Johnsen, Liquid's Joshua "Dardoch" Hartnett, and Cloud9's William "Meteos" Hartman all had stellar seasons. While a majority of the positions have a few clear trios at the top, the jungle position -- once the shallowest position in the NA LCS -- has a stack of candidates.
Now, maneuvering back to the three players I will have on my ballot, Reignover will be my third choice for the award this split. The person I selected to get the award last split had another great split this time around, but those tiny mistakes Reignover and Immortals can usually cruise by with easier teams came back to bite them when they faced Doublelift and Bjergsen in the regular-season match that decided first place in the league.
What makes an MVP?
When it comes to criteria for how to vote for the MVP, a lot of people have different mindsets. Some will simply pick the player with the best stats across the board. Others will pick the player, regardless of team record, that influenced his team the most in a positive manner throughout the season. Personally, I have an assortment of different criteria, ranging from stats, to how well their team did, to what would happen if you took said player off his team and replaced him with merely an average player. In the end, to me, the MVP award, along with those other variables, should go to the player that you remember when you think about that season in the future.
Someone may say, "Remember the summer split of NA LCS in 2016?" I want the player to whom I give the award to be that player who springs to my mind. The player that defined the regular season. The player who not only was world class in his play, influence, and stats, but put on a memorable enough performance where he made that split his own. To me, when looking back at the past nine weeks of trudging up to the LCS Arena, sleeping in hotels, and watching the games live, that player is Doublelift. When it comes to TSM's best season in team history, I don't think Bjergsen could have done it if you replaced Doublelift with an average AD, and I don't think Doublelift could have done it if you replaced Bjergsen with an average mid laner.
When it comes to stats, Bjergsen and Doublelift are atop of almost all the major stats for each of their positions. However you look at it, TSM's success this season started with the two players that they built around during October of last year. Bjergsen was the last remaining player from the 2015 version of TSM, and Doublelift joined not long after. With Doublelift, Bjergsen was given a reliable carry he could trust in to help him carry the load, and the same could be said about Doublelift with Bjergsen.
Yet, when I reached my hotel Sunday night after the final games had been played to start deliberating over the awards selection, the player that came to mind as the personification of the split was Doublelift. Last split, I couldn't even fathom a possible worse gut-punch exit to a season. Doublelift lost in the finals to the team that let him go. Instead of crumbling, he gave an interview after the loss, and hasn't let his head drop once this entire split.
Defining the season
While Biofrost isn't your average rookie, he's also a reason why I give the incredibly slight edge to Doublelift. Playing with a new support is always tough, especially for a player that has been around for a long time. You can have two players simply not meshing well, or the young player not following behind the veteran's footsteps correctly. For Doublelift and Biofrost, they play like a bot-lane that has been around for years, and the season-long frontrunner for Rookie of the Split was enabled by Doublelift with their matching laning styles.
His 1000th kill in the NA LCS. One of the main voices on the team when it comes to shot-calling. The best AD carry in the league, and one that was able to actually carry in a season where a lot of the players in his position were used in utility roles. After last season's loss to CLG, a lot of players, years of experience or not, would have crumbled. You lost directly to the player who replaced you on the team that you put on the map. Your former bottom lane partner, considered one of the best in history, Fnatic's Bora "YellOwStaR" Kim, leaves you to return to his home continent and former team.
Instead of falling apart under scrutiny, Doublelift had the best split of his career. He helped Biofrost become one of the marquee supports in the league during his first split. He helped ease the pressure off of Bjergsen's shoulders. He marched TSM to its best regular season in history with only one match blemish on its record.
We don't know how the playoffs will unravel, but that's not what I'm voting for. When I look back at this split in a few years, the first thing I will remember is Riot stretching out the league to three days a week and completely killing any sort of social life I had on Friday nights. However, after that, I'll think of Doublelift. A superstar that, for me at least, became a leader and the league's most valuable player that summer near the beaches of Los Angeles in 2016.