1. lokifan - this kind of needs no introduction. i believe fille told me he has like 3 losses to date in the LCPL all-time sheet and he is unfortunately set to surpass me after my disastrous LCBC/current LCPL campaigns in The Sheet. great player, intuitive and has played in playoffs. had a dominating 8-2 record last SCL and did well in this LCPL after he got to play past his week lock (i'm not looking this up so i'm gonna say like 3-0). i was going to say he didn't play indivs as a negative but that's moreso me being completely afk in those till may LOOL he made the finals of the winter seasonal and made it to a respectable like r7-r8 in the fall seasonal with i'm assuming not that much effort honestly. he didn't make it out of majors pools tb I think but pools is unviable anyway. the one actual concrete negative you can say is that he got outplayed vs larry in playoffs, so you can argue that he has a clutch problem that I will discuss for a few others, but this is not a handwave as I think his main test begins if his team makes the playoffs but I have him at #1 because he could be up to the challenge vs whoever. he said if he wins scl he's winning every lc indiv? in which case I might have to stop bro in his tracks like eniigma. he also has taka as support who is wonderful, but I must say guys spending 9k on support is wild stuff. he also has goatwain LOLOL i just know they have some insane ideas they are not gonna bring bc shiloh is gonna veto it or something.
loki was a retain, which makes him 10k. he was their only retain aside from the obvious oldspicemike retain, and while i was a little perplexed during the time it's certainly understandable to retain someone who is almost definitely doing well in the pool. this and another retain had some... let's just say interesting effects on future prices.
2. laroxyl - he would not have been at #2 if you asked me a few weeks into lcpl. an atrocious 0-3 start and overall probably middling record in that tournament wasn't anything to write home about, but he played two excellent games in the semifinals unfortunately against my team. he proved his ability to win in tiebreak against a very good player that basically does not make mistakes. a massive redemption after the year where my team beat him and he lost to pig in the lead-up game as well as fille in the finals tiebreak (he was their star player). he was like 15k last year to play ou and he has a world cup trophy, coming to be a top tier player in just a few years since he was playing lpl scrubs and it was a question whether he was good in a certain lc server (they concluded in the affirmative). but yeah, I don't think laro's had consistently excellent records or anything in lc at this stage to back this up but his ability to play in the clutch is very important.
laro was 10.5k, an absurd overpay given last year's draft situation but I guess with the lc prices this inflated it's definitely acceptable. at least retaining him for 18 would sound silly given this context so his team from last year has no regrets
3. starsama - i wasn't sure where to place star or tazz because (and this is especially set in my mind after talking to a good friend) I see them in the space of LCers that you would bet money on go positive. he went 5-2 last SCL until my boy quinn needed playing time bc the foxes were out already LOL (i think he lost to bbb but after his lcpl test shenanigans I'm in the club too), he also went like 7-1 in LCPL with like one speed tie against dunoks that he won and one timer win vs laro in a probably worse position. the loss to laro in semifinals was definitely in part a result of some pressure, with a massive early lead partly due to luck being evened out by some outplays. i think the pressure factor is the only reason he is not in one of the spots above, because while he can go positive it's almost impossible to teach or learn playing under pressure the same way as playing regularly--it's a trial by fire and we will see if he succeeds provided he makes it there.
he was an absolutely absurd 16k for an lcer, thanks in part to yours truly aggressively upbidding all the way up to 10k and two managers deciding an lc slot was worth this price. i'm not sure if gondra feels regret for not retaining him but given the direction they went in i don't think 10k starsama would work in their plans anyway since the possible support would add on to the lc price even more. he has tko for support and can handle himself in builder.
4. tazz - tazz is one of the oldest faces on the scene, even in terms of his div 1 experience (compared to the pool). he helped me out during slam playoffs and was on levi and my LCPL team for our maiden voyage all the way to the finals. he got his start in 2019 in snake iii, already being highly esteemed within the power rankings iirc and having a strong showing. fast forwarding to now, he's had a few bad tours and mostly great tours and you can expect him to go positive, he even won an SCL supporting bouli whose career i missed during my smogon sleep. tazz is a solid builder, good pilot, and expected to go positive. as far as LCPL goes, he managed the rufflets who were one of the strongest teams this year and had great teambuilding contributions i'm sure, getting inexplicably blown out vs the remoraiders in the semifinals. he mostly plays sm in those but his records are great. tazz went 6-4 in SCL last year (if expulso is to be believed and i'm sure tazz in the machines' lc chat, main season losses were to Hax). the important part here is the finals loss to larry, which kind of in the starsama vein does leave something to be desired in terms of proof that he can win in the important situations.
tazz was one of the later retains, which while surprising for his record i guess is sort of unsurprising because his managers trust him and he is good. this retain combined with the lokifan retain drove lc prices to a truly ABSURD amount (again, starsama was 16k). i heard dvs was like close to 10k in a previous scl LOL so this isn't an isolated incident maybe but just want to make sure people understand the absurdity we went through 3 days ago.
5. envy - envy came onto the scene last year. i beat him in lc classic semis, where he played decently. he definitely elevated his play in 2024, making it to the finals of LCWC as well as the finals of LCPL, being a key part of the #4 seeded rufflets team that upset the #1 team and brought our truly dominant LCPL team to finals tiebreak, where he slotted in BW, losing to kaboom. he played scl that year and went negative, but not by a huge margin. fast forward to this year where he was pretty much unanimously ranked #1 bw lc and did way worse fsr LOL. but he's been doing well in basically everything, top 8 or something of majors right now, very good player whose rise has been far more recent compared to all the names above (he namechanged maybe a year and some change ago and all his accomplishments have been since then, that alone is a very impressive resume). i guess i'll add that he's a circuit winner and scheduled for me one week, which led me to playing eniigma on saturday instead of sunday like i wanted. how do you wire 10$ to a brazil account?
envy was 10k, which is still on the pricey end even given that managers spent money on this tier like they had borrowed credits on a covid PPP loan. you can expect him to go even or above, but he could go below. for support he has colin, who likely would have been a LC pick until his miraculous slam run, which secured him a retain for 10.5k and the ability to escape LC Hell.
6. eniigma - the madman. he's legitimately been around for so long that to get his start in 2023 is ridiculous; by comparison i thought tazz was kind of a late break into the div 1 scene when i'd been in spl since 2016, and he got his start in MID 2019. he made good use of his start, going 5-4 in SCL III and winning circuit. he is kind of known for being lucky or whatever i have a post from 2015 in the lc open i won saying this LOOOOOOL but he's a good dude and solid player. no real bullshit here, he can click. he went like 6-3 in LCPL or something but it was a 6-1 in the regular season, maybe not against the best opponents but at the very least pigwarrior who was playing well. he has a tendency to bring the worst shit known to mankind; nymble? fuckin idk man look at the bottom of the builder and make sure u know what this does if ur playing eniigma. he lost in semis in LCPL and in the tiebreak to me; the tiebreak game in particular left a quite good deal to be desired, he sacced his tera fire trapinch after his mon died to hazards. so i think he has some work to do under pressure lol, but he's definitely one of the better players in the bottom half. he does just have a tendency to churn out good records; despite his snub last season, he quite comfortably got in this year (partly due to the non-signups and tierlocks from some).
7. jake - in a move reminiscent of the “how do you do, fellow kids?” meme, upon receiving a random message from me relating to my
history post, jake took it upon himself to ladder about 50 LC games and learn this metagame. while he brings up the average age of the pool by conservatively 5 years (you do the math for 10 players), he is one of the greats especially when you consider the 2017-2020 mini-era. levi said in the SPL XI discussion thread in 2020 that jake is one of the only players who he felt at a loss against while prepping, which is very high praise. it also might mean that jake is a little insane, given what is known about levi. jake being very old is a real downside, however, and while i'm not going to make fun of greedy for anchoring him down with [insert unmon here] (i think they'll get along well actually), it remains to be seen if the quality and execution is there. he could easily perform better than this ranking, and he could also perform far worse.
8. always edgy - edgy was our breakout star in lcpl. after like one kind of mediocre lcwc iirc, fille knew he wanted him. he got him, and edgy proceeded to beat ghost, laro, and bbb, which is honestly kind of an insane schedule for a 3k player. yeah, his loss against danny was a disastrous choke. but he could've been 6-3! with an insane schedule! 5-4 isn't super bad. a lot of people seem low on edgy, he is not going to end up high on the power ranking list, but it is interesting that with a somewhat smaller pool of locks people decided to go with him over, say, fille and onraider to start who were left in the pool? following lcpl, edgy won lcbc with a pretty bad 3-5 record and in last lcpl his record was also like probably negative idr i think he went negative or even. while this looks like nothing special, edgy always asks to play the best player apparently, which i can kind of respect, and i guess his managers looked past the sheet or looked at the games or saw that expulso called him "heat" in the lc discord. idk which, but this is kind of last year's triumph catching up to him in terms of giving him the opportunity to start on the big stage. onraider support means his opponents should prepare for gothita i believe.
9. wail - once I wrote up the SPL PR for wail it actually seemed like edgy should be lower. however, wail really just has not shown anything in SV and i spent time arguing with kaboom and [redacted] if 5 games in LTWC and like 5 games *check notes* in the LCPL two years ago that i didn't even remember I was in was sufficient sv experience. wail is older compared to the SV guys like edgy and to starsama and loki in terms of his div 1 tournament experience, but he's been just about average in everything aside from a 6-3 in an SCL that had SS LC. nothing to write home about, solid clicker who retired me in SS LC this LCPL with a natu but I just don't see him pushing a new metagame forward. look to be proven wrong because kaboom and [redacted] really think he's going to pop off or whatever. let's see.
i got tired, i'll type the rest later if i get enough likes <- edit this is done
