LCS 2022 Summer Outright Winner Predictions, Picks, Odds

• Evil Geniuses were mere value picks during the spring split but their victory has made them among the top favorites this time
• 100 Thieves have a point to prove this season after falling to EG during the spring split final
• Cloud9 will be dark horses this time around

The 2022 League Championship Series (LCS) is the fifth year of North America’s professional League of Legends league under partnership, and the tenth year of the league overall. Ten teams will compete in a double round robin format.

Once again, it will involve the same 10 teams that competed during the spring split. Here’s a look at the strengths, weaknesses, how team compositions have changed.

Evil Geniuses

Spring split winners Evil Geniuses are just coming off the Mid-Season Invitational 2022, which was held in Korea and ended on May 29. They don’t have much time to regroup heading into the North American summer split now, but will still be deeply satisfied with their performance in Korea, and with the year they’ve had overall. In the MSI they tied for third place on the rankings along with G2 Esports.

Slotted into Group C which had three teams, they ended up playing two more games than the other groups – eight, as opposed to six for the others. It gave them quite an advantage, and overall was a decent tournament for Evil Geniuses – they trounced ORDER 4-0, but G2 swept past them four out of four times to top their group. Still, the 50% W-L ratio ensured they ended in the top half of the tournament standings.

But nothing can quite compare to Evil Geniuses’ historic dream spring split, which they won for the first time in history. The underdogs rose out of nowhere to leave the all-tournament favorites – TeamLiquid, Cloud 9 – in their dust. What made their rise all the more remarkable was that their group games were middling, and they finished fourth on the rankings with exactly nine wins and losses each. They had a relatively easy time of it against the lower ranked teams, completing 2-0 wins each against Dignitas, FlyQuest and TSM. At the same time, they were also blown away by Cloud9 and 100thieves, and of course Team Liquid who topped the rankings.

Epic comeback trail

But the comeback they scripted in the spring playoffs was sensational, taking on each of the title-touted teams they’d lost to earlier and blowing them all out of the water, one after the next with abandon. They thrashed FlyQuest once more in the loser’s bracket 3-1, then destroyed Cloud9 3-0 in Round 2. Then, they went on to exact revenge against group leaders and league favourities TeamLiquid, whitewashing them 3-0 before surging ahead to the final. There, they brushed aside defending champions 100 Thieves to be crowned the deserved winners, and secured a place in the mid-season.

EG’s exciting zeroes-to-heroes fairytale of the 2022 spring split has captivated in the public eye, and they’ve emerged as the team to beat – from starting out as group-stage middlers last season, they now head into the summer split as the deserved tournament favourites.

Evil Genuises’ roster remains unchanged from last year, when they added Jungler Kacper ‘Inspired’ Słoma and mid laner Joseph ‘’jojopyun’  Joon Pyun to their squad. Now that their younger players, “Jojopyun” and Kyle “Danny” Sakamaki now have gained international experience thanks to playing at the 2022 Mid-Season, the Evil Geniuses’ well-rounded unit will be an even bigger force to reckon with in the league.

Team Liquid

Team Liquid have historically been one of the top teams of the league, and naturally were one of the strongest forces of the spring split. They sat pretty atop the rankings in the group stage, streets ahead of the rest with a 14-4 win-loss ratio, and a win-percentage of 78. Not a single team managed to beat them twice on the trot – 100 Thieves, Cloud9, FlyQuest and Golden Guardians scored single wins over them, but that was it.

After exerting that unquestionable dominance in the group stage, they will be smarting after the humiliation in the playoffs at the hands of the indomitable Evil Geniuses. TeamLiquid swept past them 2-0 in the group stage, and nobody could have predicted how the group stage dominators would be crushed to dust by the underdogs in the playoffs.

Unfortunately, after that Team Liquid’s nerves in the knockout got the better of them – their form began a slow decline as soon as they exited their breezy league stage. They slotted into the winner’s bracket and beat Evil Geniuses 3-2, but it was a lot  closer than they would’ve liked considering how convincingly they defeated them in the round robin. A 2-3 defeat to 100 Thieves began the tolling of the alarm bells, but they still progressed to round 3 thanks to their favourable standing on the winner’s bracket. But they were faced there with an insurmountable task – getting past the Evil Geniuses. Though EG succumbed to Team Liquid both times over the course of the split, they returned in style to wipe them off the map 3-0. Unceremoniously, four-time champions Team Liquid crashed out of the tournament they’d bossed from the word go.

Looking ahead

Like most of the other teams, Team Liquid hasn’t made any changes to their roster. Team Liquid’s mid laner Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg’s return to competitive play in November last year after a year of retirement as the head coach of TSM was one of the most significant changes to their roster. However though Bjergsen still has only shown glimpses of his former glory, they have persisted with him ahead of the summer split.

100 Thieves

100 Thieves had an excellent spring split, but like all the other top teams of the LCS, they will be disappointed with how it ended. At the start of the spring, all would have predicted another 100 Thieves versus Team Liquid final, but the Evil Geniuses dropped a bombshell on the league’s bullies that will not be forgotten for a long, long time.

100 Thieves won the spring split in 2021, and turned in performances befitting of the defending champions throughout the 2022 season as well. 100 Thieves finished third on the split rankings, with an impressive 12-6 win-loss ratio. They were defeated twice by league aggressors Team Liquid, but no other team got away against them in that fashion, and they even beat future winners EG 2-0. But that wasn’t exactly a portent of things to come.

Not a lot has changed since

A strong showing in the playoffs saw 100 Thieves advance to their second final in a row. Their position in the winner’s bracket meant they had a straightforward road to the final. After handing Cloud9 a thumping 3-0 defeat in the first round, they impressed against table-toppers Team Liquid too, brushing them aside 3-2. At the same time, EG were scraping their way out of their losers bracket after a middling league stage.

Ahead of the final, Thieves were strong favorites to take home a second consecutive spring championship against underdogs EG, who’d never claimed an LCS title before. And we all know how that ended – Thieves, much like the other dominant teams of that split, were left far behind. EG yanked the rug out from under their feet, handing Thieves a 3-0 drubbing as they watched their mid-seasonal invitational hopes fade away to nothing.

Thieves’ roster remains the same ahead of the summer split. Their mid laner Kim “Ssumday” Chan-ho has been one of the main talking points for their squad in 2022, carrying the team as their bot laners worked through a slump in form. He is pivotal to their success, and it will be interesting to see how the rest of the team rallies around him this summer.

Cloud9

Cloud9 had an impressive tournament, though they would’ve preferred if it had ended on a winning note. The four-time champions dominated the split as they have done so often, ending second on the rankings with 13 wins and five losses. Like the other table-toppers, they defeated EG twice in the season before being knocked out of the playoffs.

They will be ruing their loss of form in the most crucial stage of the tournament, given how well they did to get there in the first place. This summer for Cloud9 will carry a theme of revenge, much like the other top three teams who were ousted by the league’s underdogs.

Disappointing playoffs last time

But even after dominating the regular league games, Cloud9’s performance in the playoffs was nothing short of a disappointment. They started out high on confidence and had a strong advantage in the winner’s bracket. But in their very first round of the playoffs they faced an immediate setback – getting past defending champions 100 Thieves, who weren’t going to give up on the goal of snagging their second title so easily.

They were thrashed 3-0, and Cloud9 slumped at once to the loser’s bracket. There they encountered Golden Guardians, who presented quite a simple challenge as they hadn’t managed to register a single win against Cloud9 that season. After brushing them aside 3-0, they might have felt they had a good chance against EG. They were whitewashed in all three games.

Back to the basics

After a little experimentation with their line-up in the first half of 22, Cloud9 have reverted to their original order. Their top laner Ibrahim “Fudge” Allami, who pulled off a successful stint in the mid-lane has returned to his original position now that Cloud9 have reacquired the services of Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen after the LCS Spring Split.

Cloud9 is sporting a shuffled squad to the one they’ve played all year, with both Fudge roleswapping back to top lane and Jesper “Zven” Svenningsen also returning to the squad.