Top lane is possibly the loneliest lane in League of Legends. A top laner can go fifteen minutes without seeing a single minute of action and the only companion to a top laner is their enemy who they’re constantly trading blows with.
Because top lane sees little to no action and is secluded from most of the map, most professional top laners have adapted a playstyle which is built towards affecting the map through their laning phase. The best way to do this is by getting their enemy top laner behind.
Therefore, the best top laners know how to solo-kill their opponents while also using their top laners to roam down to the mid lane to look for a possible pick. Plus, they also know how to coordinate with their junglers to make small plays that have a big impact throughout the map.
This year has seen dozens of top laners performing jaw-dropping plays but only a handful have truly cemented themselves into history this year. Here are my top five picks for the best top laners of the 2018 season.
Ssumday has been a name that’s been known for a while now starting from the early years of League of Legends competitive play and he’s taken his talent from Korea to North America now. This move hasn’t been of any waste.
His time in North America has made him the best top laner right now in the region and it’s thanks to the mechanics he learned in Korea. In fact, Ssumday was a key part in taking 100 Thieves, a brand new organization, to the World Championship for the first time.
Ssumday is very good at playing the fundamentals. Whenever his jungler comes in to look for a kill on his enemy top laner, Ssumday knows how to react in nearly every circumstance, even in the cases where the enemy jungler comes to counter-gank.
He knows when to split push and when to team fight so he’s a very strong all-around player. Furthermore, he isn’t afraid to play unorthodox champions to throw off his opponent such as a Jax or a Gnar pick.
However, for Ssumday, it’s his team fighting that really sets him apart from the others. Ssumday has a solo-carry potential, meaning he can carry his team by himself in certain instances. You may not see it in every team fight but whenever Ssumday shows up full throttle, his enemy team better start running.
There have been countless times—both in Korea and North America—where Ssumday’s actions have single-handedly turned a team fight around. He’s the anchor of the team in a team fight and he keeps the team from drifting afloat in a critical fight. When the late game comes around, this can be crucial so this makes Ssumday a world-class player right now.
His laning phase and his overall mechanics may not be as good as the other people on this list but Ssumday definitely has the skill and ability to be on this list. He’s known for his team fighting and his stability.
He forces the enemy team to play around him and focus down Ssumday and if they don’t, consequences arise. This, of course, makes Ssumday a very deadly target which is why he is on this top five list. He knows how to fight a good fight and has the keys to keeping his team in the game.
Wunder really proved his worth at this year’s World Championship and he did it in an underdog like way. He was a key factor into bringing G2 Esports to the World Championship semifinals for the first time and even further back, he was key part into bringing them into the Knockout Rounds in the first place.
In some areas, Wunder can be seen as possibly the second most important player on the team, second to Perkz because he has built a fairly important carry-like playstyle for the team. Wunder doesn’t like to play tanks as much as he likes to play bruisers and carries.
You’re more likely to see Wunder on an Aatrox or Urgot pick rather than a Sion or Ornn pick but the thing about his playstyle is that he’s perfected it to the point where no matter how the laning phase goes, you can always end up depending on Wunder for the plays.
For example, he pulled out a Ryze pick for the top lane against RNG, something that isn’t commonly seen yet he made it work against Royal Never Give Up, a world-class team. He knows how to carry from the top lane and he does it consistently.
On champions like Aatrox and Urgot, he’s nearly unstoppable and he showed this on the Worlds stage by constantly outplaying and outdoing his opponents. I have said countless times that he is a very carry-oriented player but not in the way you would expect.
He doesn’t solo-kill very often and it’s uncommon for Wunder to take place in a first blood kill unless it’s on a pick on the enemy jungler and Wunder happened to be nearby. Instead, Wunder likes to take things textbook style.
He likes to play the game fairly slow at the beginning. He doesn’t want to put all his chips on the table and look for a solo-kill. Instead, he farms up, gets the items he needs for his champion, and then shows his dominance in the mid game.
By the mid game, he’s become such a big powerhouse that Wunder can either choose to split push—which he usually does—or team fight. Either way, he’ll dominate. He can take on most top laners one versus one and in team fights, he’s extremely good at zoning out opponents.
When Wunder enters a team fight, he makes the entire enemy team nervous. His ability to punish an enemy team’s misstep is unmatched in the EU LCS right now. Therefore, he can essentially force an enemy team to either play its best or play its worst.
Wunder is a very strong all-around player. He’s good in the laning phase, extremely good in the mid game, and still relatively strong in the late game. He has good team fighting and is proficient at farming up his items. This makes him a deadly player that, if not stopped early, can help G2 Esports snowball into an unstoppable threat.
Afreeca Freecs made their first World Championship debut this year and you can thank Kiin for a large chunk of their success. While Kiin may have been a little shaky at the beginning, namely the Spring Split, he quickly caught on and started putting up strong results in the Summer.
During the Summer Split Regular Season, Kiin boasted extremely high KDAs on champions like Aatrox, Gangplank, and Jax. On Aatrox, he had an 8.75 KDA with a 67% win rate. On Gangplank, he had a 9.60 KDA with an 83% win rate and on Jax, he had an 8.50 KDA with a 67% win rate.
He’s put up very strong numbers on his select pool of champions that he loves to play but even then, he can use different champions to an even stronger ability. The thing that makes Kiin such a big threat is that he’s so mechanically sound, he literally makes nearly zero mistakes in a fight.
Whether it’s a one versus one or a team fight, Kiin can output a near perfect performance and play the fight to perfection, even if he loses it. That’s not the best part of Kiin though. Kiin is a very carry-oriented champion like so many on this list.
You don’t normally see him on a tank pick. You’re more likely to see him pick Quinn or Camille rather than a Sion pick. However, he makes up for the loss of health, armor, and magic resist with unmatched mechanics and an impeccable team fighting experience.
If you ever watch Kiin team fight, you’ll see that he’s very good at engaging and disengaging. He can disengage as quickly as he engages and for a carry-type champion, this can make the difference between life and death, especially considering the fact that enemy teams tend to burst down carries quite fast.
Then, there’s the fact that Kiin knows how to use his carry champion to target down the enemies. Kiin doesn’t necessarily dive right in for the carry because sometimes, that can be a suicidal mission for any carry.
Instead, he waits out the fight for the perfect opportunity to pounce in and when he finds it, he doesn’t hold back. Like Wunder, if the players misstep, he punishes them as much as he can and this usually results in a free kill for Kiin.
Kiin is very good at playing carry champions. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Kiin is the best carry player on this list. Team compositions have been built around Kiin due to how well he can carry and he shows up during the team fights.
He can engage a fight on a carry and still live to see the end of the fight. During these fights, he’s very good at targeting the right player, even if that means shooting down the frontline in the first few seconds of the skirmish.
In the end, Kiin’s targeting and carry potential goes unmatched. He was a big part as to why Afreeca Freecs was able to make it so far this year. He carried a big burden for the team and accepted it wholeheartedly to turn them into a world-class roster.
Smeb is a name that most people have heard about if you’ve been around League of Legends long enough. He’s a household name in Korea and has had his fair share of success on the main stage of League of Legends.
He reached a World Championship final in 2015 and was named MVP in the Spring Split of 2016 during his time with the ROX Tigers. Therefore, he knows how the field works and he knows it extremely well, better than anyone else on this list.
In fact, his mechanics have gone so far as to help his team take down South Korea Telecom during their peak years. That’s right. Smeb helped take down SKT when they were at their best. Right now, Smeb is the face of Korea.
It’s no longer Faker. Since the downfall of South Korea Telecom during the 2018 Summer Split, Smeb and KT Rolster have now become the new face of Korea and Smeb takes this title responsibly. He hasn’t put disgrace to the name.
While KT Rolster may have lost in the quarterfinals of the World Championship—a surprise for sure—Smeb still put up a very strong performance nearly every step of the way. He didn’t disappoint very much throughout the entire event.
In fact, he didn’t really disappoint at all this year. He put on a splendid performance, one that matches Faker’s in 2015. Most top laners strive to be a jack of all trades and no real expert in one single field of the top lane.
For Smeb, he isn’t just a jack of all trades. He’s also an expert in every single field of the top lane. He knows how to farm well. He knows how to freeze lanes. He knows how to exert pressure and how to look for the kill.
When he’s put in a situation where he has to take out both an enemy jungler and a top laner, he performs outplays as if they were an easy thing to do. And he can do this on almost any champion. He plays tanks as well as he plays bruisers and any meta seems to suit this man.
If you don’t believe me, just take a look at his stats. In the LCK 2018 Summer Split, he averaged a 78% win rate on Gnar, an 80% win rate on Kennen, and a 100% win rate on Dr. Mundo, Singed, Jayce, Vladimir, and Camille.
Furthermore, he also happened to have an 11.33 KDA with Aatrox, a 10.50 KDA with Dr. Mundo, a 12.00 KDA with Singed, and a 10.00 KDA with Jarvan IV. He would go on to put even better stats during the playoffs.
He produced an extremely high 19.00 KDA with Urgot in the finals of the LCK Playoffs and he was the main reason Griffin’s Viper wasn’t able to completely take over the map during their match. Using a wide variety of champions such as Cho’gath, Jayce, and Aatrox in the finals, Smeb was able to give several different playstyles that left their opponents struggling for room to breathe.
Smeb’s LCK finals performance as well as his performance at the World Championship goes to show how well this man can play when he’s in his zone. In team fights, he knows his role and he knows it well. Furthermore, because he’s a captain on the team of KT Rolster, he’s the one controlling the team fights.
He’s the one that takes responsibility to make sure that they win it and Smeb will play anything that suits the team composition well. If he has to sacrifice himself to make sure that his teammates can clean up the rest, he’ll do it without hesitation.
Smeb isn’t a selfish player. He’s quite selfless in fact. He just has a large highlight reel of jaw-dropping plays because he’s that good. Smeb puts his team before himself and if that means giving up a solo carry position, Smeb is fine with that.
He’s a captain now and he shows it on the field. The reason KT Rolster did so well this year was because Smeb led them to a victory. He led them in the critical moments and pulled through in several team fights. He was, simply put, the best top laner in the LCK for the 2018 year.
This is a man who really impressed the audience this year with his performance. TheShy not only took the title of best top laner in China amid competition from players like Duke and LetMe, he also took this title worldwide.
This player isn’t someone to mess around with. People consider him to be the best of the best because he takes a mix of playstyles and curates it into his own unique game. If you ever watch TheShy play, you’ll be shocked at the humble beatdown he likes to give his opponents.
He’s one of the few players that can easily solo-kill an enemy without much opposition from the opposing team. If you look at his past plays from the LPL Summer Split and the World Championship, there are countless times where TheShy uses a carry champion like Fiora or Camille to take down the enemy, whether it’s in a one versus one or a one versus two.
However, it isn’t just the solo-killing that makes IG’s TheShy such a big threat. It’s the fact that he can use the carry potential of his champion to turn a fight around. If you look at players like Kiin and Wunder, they like to use bruisers and carries as well.
But the one thing that they can’t do compared to TheShy is use their champion to turn around the fight. If a fight is already going in their favor, Kiin and Wunder can easily clean it up but if their backs are against the wall, they usually fail to use their champion to turn the tide.
TheShy has done this multiple times. His ability to use a champion like Fiora, Camille, or Aatrox to pinpoint a weak spot in the enemy’s line is unmatched. He can zone out an enemy or just outright kill him if he has to.
He can also hold off the enemy frontline in time for his own backline to recuperate and get back into business. TheShy is a master of team fighting with his carries and he used this to win the World Championship this year.
But not only did he use these skills to make history for China, he used these skills to create a spot for himself in the hall of fame. He’s now become known as one of the best top laners in the history of League of Legends and right now, it can be said that he’s the best in the world.
Looking to the future, it’s impossible to say who is going to be the next big top laner of the world. Right now, it’s TheShy by most standards but next year, it could be some North American talent who’s fresh out of college.
It could also be some veteran looking to make his name known again. There are so many factors to consider that saying we’re going to have TheShy as the best top laner in the world again next year is an exaggerated statement.
He could be. He definitely has the skillset to maintain this title but it’s always changing. TheShy might be the best in the world this year but next year, he could be the third best by our standards. Changes are good for League of Legends but if they’re not acted on, then players won’t get any better.
The future is unclear as to who will be the best by next year but I can tell you one thing for sure: all five of the players mentioned definitely have a shot at getting this title next year. They’ve proven to be exceptional assets to their team and their skillsets and contributions have made them valuable players all around.
League of Legends has many vital roles that need to be played well in order to win a match. Roles like mid lane and AD Carry have been seen as extremely important. However, the top lane is as equally important of a role as the others around it.
We’ve seen some of the best players stem from the top lane. Take Smeb for example. Right now, he’s the face of Korea. Wunder is a superstar in the EU LCS and Ssumday has become a respected player in the NA LCS.
Top lane is a unique role that has to be played in a different aspect compared to others. However, some of the best in the world have mastered this role. Top lane has seen Invictus Gaming’s TheShy become the best top laner in the world this year. But what about next year? Who could be the next big thing? For now, we don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see.
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