5 standout performers so far in the LEC Spring split

We are now officially halfway through the 2022 Spring split of the LEC. Playoffs begin to loom, and with them the all-important spot at the Mid-Season Invitational. 

The first round-robin stage of the LEC has come to a close. We’ve seen all ten of Europe’s best teams face off against each other, and the leaders of the pack have already begun to pull away from the rest at the top of the standings.

Rogue are the undisputed best performers of the split so far. They’re yet to lose a game, and have looked dominant in all nine of their victories so far in spring. The LEC’s oldest rivals, Fnatic and G2, currently sit tied in second place, with Summer 2021 champions MAD Lions in fourth.

Outside of Rogue, the LEC standings have been remarkably close so far this split. Outliers Astralis and SK Gaming sit uncontested in ninth and tenth place, but the middle-of-the-pack teams continue to battle it out for the hopes of an all-important playoff spot and a chance at MSI qualification.

Now that the first round robin is over, the discussion around LEC MVP candidates is beginning to heat up. Numerous players have had impressive moments on the LEC stage, but here are five who’ve stood out more than most.

Emil ‘Larssen’ Larsson

It would be remiss to highlight standout performances so far in Spring without mentioning Larssen’s name. He’s consistently been one of Europe’s strongest mid laners since joining Rogue in 2019, but he’s never quite been able to secure his spot as the de facto best.

He’s still not quite there yet. The pool of talent in EU’s midlane has a pedigree that can’t be ignored, and Larssen doesn’t yet have the playoffs showings to prove he’s truly the greatest of all time. But a 9-0 opener for Rogue in which he was an incredibly important factor is well on its way to securing his status as the LEC’s best.

He has shone consistently in Rogue’s impressive performances and has the highest damage per minute of any player in the league. He’s one of the league’s best Viktor players, and given the champion’s incredibly dominant presence in the current meta, that prowess has proved a blessing for Rogue.

He’s almost completely infallible. You can’t break Larssen, no matter how much pressure you throw his way, and he’s the undisputed laning king of the LEC.

Vincent ‘Vetheo’ Berrié

Vetheo is a player who’s taken a while to truly come into his own in the LEC. He debuted on Misfits in 2021, and while he’s always been a strong player, he’s struggled to truly shine into some of the region’s best.

But 2022 has seen a radical shift for Vetheo. He’s Misfits’s go button, and has the third-highest kill count in the entirety of LEC (the highest among the region’s mid laners). He’s still by no means the cleanest mid laner in the LEC, and he averages a gold, CS, and experience deficit at ten minutes versus the LEC’s mid pool.

But that’s exactly what makes him so exciting: he’s a diamond-in-the-rough Yasuo/Sylas player who’s not afraid to go all-out. He plays without fear, something surprising for a player who’s not had the most successful competitive history.

As Misfits’ most bloodthirsty player, with 45 total kills in the first round-robin, he’s also their primary win condition, and he’s stepping up to that role in a way few could have expected for such a young player.

Zdravets ‘Hylissang’ Galabov

Hylissang is one of the LEC’s most controversial stars. He’s a fantastic player in his own right, and one of the best supports the region has ever seen. He also has a special knack for making the most head-scratching plays in the league, and has both solo-lost and solo-won games for his team throughout his competitive career.

That ‘spark’ of mad genius is part of what makes Hylissang such a fan-favorite to watch. Dubbed ‘The Professor’ by Korean fans, he’s always had a natural ability for finding the engages nobody else can spot. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t, but they are always entertaining.

But this split has seen a change in Hylissang. He’s still not afraid to make risky plays, but he’s turned down some of the more… questionable decision-making for which he’s become so famous. He still has his moments, but he’s becoming more and more of a rock on which Fnatic can rely.

He’s been a part of 79% of Fnatic’s total kills and accounts for only 22% of their total deaths. For context, in Spring 2021, he accounted for 32 of the team’s deaths%. He led the league in deaths in Spring 2021 with 74, but now he’s not even in the top 20. He’s becoming more and more consistent with every game, and alongside AD Carry Elias ‘Upset’ Lipp, he forms one-half of one of the most dominant bot lanes in the LEC.

Markus ‘Comp’ Stamkopoulos

Comp had a difficult path before joining Rogue. He went from earning a shot at LEC, to being benched on Vitality, to taking over the spot of one of Europe’s most well-beloved and successful AD Carries in the space of just over a year.

He was a part of the Vitality roster that went 2-16 in Spring 2020, and was substituted out for Juš ‘Crownshot’ Marušič at the start of 2021, spending six months as a substitute before leaving the roster in December 2021 to join Rogue. He’s never had much of an opportunity to shine in the LEC. Until now.

It is, undoubtedly, very easy for an AD Carry to look good on a team with solo laners like Rogue’s. But it would be entirely disingenuous to suggest that Comp’s success is only down to his teammates. He’s a team fighting machine and the AD Carry with the highest damage in the league.

He’s arguably the best Jinx player in the league, and her strength in the current meta puts Comp in prime position to carry Rogue in late-game fights.

Kim ‘Malrang’ Geunsong

There’s an argument to be made that this list could consist entirely of Rogue players. The team has looked completely unstoppable so far this split, and there is a real possibility that they could go undefeated for the first time in the org’s history.

Malrang was a relatively unknown variable for Rogue heading into 2022. Community perception around Rogue’s offseason was that they had made slight downgrades after the departure of Steven ‘Hans sama’ Liv and Kacper ‘Inspired’ Słoma, but that they would still be one of the stronger teams in the LEC.

But nobody expected Malrang to show up in the way he has. He’s a ganking machine, willing to put himself at a disadvantage in gold and experience to provide early pressure for his laners. He has been fearless in the Rift and played everything, from Volibear to Viego.

And he does all of this through a language barrier. He’s a native Korean speaker who is currently learning English whilst competing in the LEC.

Malrang knows just how talented his teammates are, and he is the glue that holds them together. He doesn’t need to be a flashy, hard-carry, Evelynn-playing machine. He knows his role, and he executes it perfectly.