Pakistani Piplups manager here (click for discord channel)!
The level of quality of LCPL has grown tremendously since LC was excluded from SPL all the way back in SPL 6; while the playerbase of the 2015 LCPL season was by a large margin the best our community had seen thus far, it would pale in comparison to what we have now.The 2017 LCPL was the toughest, most interesting LCPL we've had yet; even the weakest teams in the tour would comfortably make the top 20 LCPL teams of all time. But how would the better 2017 teams rank amongst the top teams of previous seasons?
Of the 48 that have been formed, here are the top 16 teams in the history of LCPL, judged by how capable they were overall in the tiers of their respective tournaments. Subtiers are ordered alphabetically.
Tier 5
Aipom Army
Season: 4
Position: 5th
Manager(s): Rowan
Players: fitzy72, tazz, rzl2000, kingmidas, shrug, trev, kumih0, the quasar, fran17, yagura, kingler12345, firemage
Naughty Noibats
Season: 5
Position: 5th
Manager(s): melonz
Players: apt-get, Kushalos, fitzy72, majaspic22, Brazilian Army, lighthouses, Aladyyn, boo836, jeran, Superpowerdude, Spl4sh, ShotsLikeSwish, gangsterish, TraceofLife
Midseason: Rowan, kingler12345, oma
Teenage Mutant Ninja Tirtougas
Season: 5
Position: 3rd
Manager(s): macle, imanalt
Players: Sken, GOAO, ggggd, Kumiho, atomicllamas, Imanalt, FLCL, Krubby, Pikasohn, ItzViper482, Sam-testings
Midseason: Artemisa, Ice Tea, RZL
Tynamo's Dynamos
Season: 3 (SPLC)
Position: 3rd
Manager(s): Ray Jay
Players: Starmaster, Nineage, Shrug, tazz, Brazilian Army, Cheek Pouch, The Quasar, majaspic22, Kumiho, DatCoconut
Despite failing to make playoffs, the 2015 rendition of the Aipom Army was generally seen as one of the better teams of the tour. They possessed a strong roster for their time, with well-respected players in most of their positions. Whether a modern team consisting of the same players would be stronger or weaker is up for debate - though a large portion of the team has since gone inactive, the likes of shrug, tazz, and kingler12345 have improved tremendously to become some of the top players in the community.
Although several of their relatively obscure players managed to perform well above expectations, the Naughty Noibats performed quite poorly in the first half of the season. Following some good pickups during the midseason, the Noibats began to pick up the pace, nearly tying the Remoraiders before winning the last two weeks, but it wasn't enough to get them a position in the playoffs. Regardless, their post-midseason lineup would almost certainly have placed them as the third strongest in the tournament.
After finishing in last place the year before, macle decided to try his hand at drafting actual LC players to decent success in the 2016 rendition of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Tirtougas. Unfortunately, users such as ggggd and kumiho who should have been the team's star players weren't in their prime; while the team was still strong enough to reach playoffs, they ultimately found themselves outclassed against the best teams of the tournament.
The playerbase has developed much further since then, but the 2015 season of LCPL was the first season where the LC community could claim to be even remotely competent (with an LC main, Kingler12345, winning LC Open later that year). Prior to that, the quality of both the metagame and the players was notoriously poor, leading to LC's exclusion from SPL 6; users with no prior LC experience wielding sample teams could viably hold their own against the better LC mains, and the winning drafting strategies tended to reflect this. The only team from this earlier era that would have any notable chance at reaching playoffs in later seasons would be the scrubs team of SPLC. These players found themselves overlooked during the draft and eventually ended up fizzling out early into playoffs, likely due to a lack of tournament experience. However, their performances during the regular season proved beyond a doubt that their potential was unmatched; the tynamos roster has aged like a fine wine, and not one of its members has been overlooked since.
Tier 4
Developmentally Delayed Duskulls
Season: 4
Position: 3rd
Manager(s): Corporal Levi, Coconut, Sken
Players: sparktrain, nineage, fender, fiend, sken, coconut, melon, nudisto, boo836, kopaka, marvelous, infamy, aladyyn, healndeal, unfixable, cydrolic, water drone, bughouse
Gone-froggin.com Froakies
Season: 6
Position: 6th
Manager(s): macle, imanalt
Players: imanalt, Kumiho, Zorodark, Vubon, blarajan, Kushalos, atomicllamas, Many, Quote, Kenzo, Natalie, The Quasar, Spl4sh
Snivy Subterfuge
Season: 5
Position: 4th
Manager(s): Jac
Players: mad0ka, Tricking, absdaddy, Vileman, trash, Aerow, Raseri, Merritt, slurmz
Midseason: Passion
Squirtle Squad
Season: 4
Position: 2nd
Manager(s): OP
Players: trash, heysup, tuo, omastar42, blarajan, the avalanches, goao, vermillion, jellicent, kavatika, merritt
Terrible Timburrs
Season: 4
Position: 1st
Manager(s): Quote
Players: fatty, joltage, apt-get, atomicllamas, ggggd, pikasohn, majaspic22, tesung, imanalt, idiotfrommars, soldier
The 2015 season of LCPL took place at a time when the playerbase was improving rapidly to a degree that the majority of the managers were not aware of; as a result, the draft was quite lopsided, with three teams ending up noticeably above the rest. While the top teams of more recent LCPLs would likely leave them in the dust, the Terrible Timburrs, Squirtle Squad, and Developmentally Delayed Duskulls found themselves competing neck to neck during their heyday. The Squirtle Squad and Terrible Timburrs consisted of much better rounded lineups than the rest of their competition, along with their respective outstanding players, whereas the DDD roster could be summarized in
two posts. It was ultimately the Terrible Timburrs that pulled ahead to claim victory following two 4-3 comebacks in a row, including a very long final.
The 2016 rendition of the Snivy Subterfuge took a very different approach compared to the Snivy Subterfuge of 2017, consisting of a compact group centered around the 6k aerow and 22k mad0ka. With a lineup containing some of the strongest players in the community at the time, they swept through the regular season with ease. However, when they found themselves facing the eventual champions during semifinals, the team suddenly lost their nerve - only two games were played, and both involved the Snivy player losing.
The Gonefroggin.com Froakies weren't a bad team by any stretch; they had at most a few minor holes in their lineup, and had the team been formed in an earlier LCPL, they very likely would have made playoffs. The issue was that LCPL 6 is, by an enormous margin, the LCPL with the highest average level of skill that we have seen so far, and quite possibly the most competitive as well; the Froakies may have been good enough to make playoffs in any other season, but in the same situation, the next worst team of 2017 would have comfortably been able to make finals.
Tier 3
Guerilla Goletts
Season: 6
Position: 6th
Manager(s): Shrug, tahu
Players: tahu, Infamy, Rowan, PD, HSOWA, Dundies, fran17, Fille, Brazilian Army, Berks, Real FV13, Eternal Spirit, Poek, Adam the first
Remoraiders
Season: 5
Position: 2nd
Manager(s): Coconut, blarajan
Players: Heysup, blarajan, H&MBerkeley, Joltage, tarn66, innovamania, KratosMana, -Tsunami-, Steve Angello, HANTSUKI, CrashinBoomBang, Pearl
Midseason: Sam
Snivy Subterfuge
Season: 6
Position: 3rd
Manager(s): Jac, Merritt
Players: Merritt, tcr, rssp1, Gummysaur, Drew, Mambo, Pikasohn, Hilomilo, therealslap, ItzViper482, slurmz, Joltage, sparktrain, Finchinator, Quite Quiet, Altariel von Sweep, Oma, zarel
Midseason: Alice Kazumi, Nozzle, Kurukaito
At this point, the gap between tiers becomes less defined; we are now in the realm of teams that can not only threaten, but seriously contend with the best teams in LCPL history. Any of these teams could have made finals in earlier tournaments without breaking a sweat, and a case could be made for merging this tier with the next. If I were to guess, I would place a lineup consisting of the SPL 5 LC starters playing in a later LCPL here as well (catcherandtherai, heysup, blarajan, artemisa, corkscrew, fitzy72, dcae, al_alchemist, raichy, raseri, prem).
The Remoraiders are a borderline case in two regards. Standing head and shoulders above most of their competition, they were the closest team to being able to challenge the Munnas during the LCPL of 2016, though still some way off from actually matching them. More importantly, it's with this team that we start to get into lineups with no real weaknesses. Starring Heysup, blarajan, and CBB, and featuring decent to great players in every position, the Remoraiders had no trouble reaching the finals of the 2016 season.
Of the reasons that the Goletts were ultimately left out of playoffs, a weak lineup certainly wasn't among them. Numerous strong players to start in every role and some of the most capable teambuilders in the community allowed them to get off to a strong start, but bad luck ended up bringing them down. While many of their players were relatively unknown when the season started, with only Dundies consistently being acknowledged as a top player at the time, they have since developed into some of the more respected battlers in the community, with several being picked up for Exhibition.
We may laugh at Jac's drafting strategies every auction, but it's clear that he's starting to figure his way around; each edition of the Snivy Subterfuge has been worryingly stronger than the last. The latest version of the team managed to snag multiple top level players despite its enormous size, and accordingly was able to make playoffs as the second seed before bringing semifinals to a 2-1 tiebreaker. This team probably won't be rebuilt in full, as a large portion of its roster has since gone on to do great things, so how does Jac plan to draft this time around?
Tier 2
Belchsprouts
Season: 6
Position: 2nd
Manager(s): Corporal Levi, Kingler12345, Starmaster
Players: Kingler12345, Star, 067jox, Kaboom, TheFenderStory, Holiday, Serene's Grace, Confide, AD Thunderboy, tazz, Arifeen
Lit af Litleos
Season: 6
Position: 4th
Manager(s): OP, trash
Players: trash, OP, GOAO, ggggd, Zebraiken, fitzy72, p2, Nintendi, miltankmilk, Manipulative
The tkos had to face arguably their toughest competition for both rounds of playoffs; both of the teams in this tier truly had what it took to challenge the tkos for the throne, and came close to forcing a tie during playoffs. Early predictions were split between whether the tkos or the litleos came out winning the draft, but the general consensus was that they were the top two in that regard. These predictions proved to have merit, and they had already guaranteed their playoffs position well before the regular season ended. Unfortunately for the litleos, while their exceptionally capable SM and XY lineup was able to match the tkos game for game, it was in the earlier generations where they were ultimately knocked out.
The belchsprouts, meanwhile, started out slow. Most outsiders were quick to dismiss them, with only the team itself initially having any faith in how they would perform (you guys were great btw); these negative views were only cemented by poor luck during the first two weeks. The first sign that the belchsprouts were a genuine threat was when they tied the tkos in week 3, and by the time the regular season drew to a close, it was clear that they ranked among the top teams. After coming out on top in a nail-biting and somewhat drawn out tiebreaker against the snivys during semifinals, they fell during finals in a similar fashion to the Litleos.
There was just one important difference that separated the eventual champions, the tkos, from their otherwise impressive competitors in this tier: where the tko assman ended the season 8-0, the litleo assman quit three weeks into the season, and the belchsprouts assman did
this
Tier 1
Massive Stat-Boost Munnas
Season: 5
Position: 1st
Manager(s): Corporal Levi, Starmaster
Players: TheFenderStory, ZoroarkForever, Star., Tahu, Shrug, Infamy, teal6, idiotfrommars
The Krystal Onix
Season: 6
Position: 1st
Manager(s): Nineage, tko
Players: tko, Heysup, rozes, teal6, -Tsunami-, Ice Tea, KratosMana, FLCL, Endal, Lax, Advantage
Midseason: Disjunction
The tkos may not have had an easy run to become champions, but they proved that they deserved to be on top all the same, emerging as champions from the most stacked LCPL to date. The lack of a dedicated BWer turned out not to be an issue due to the limited competition in the field, while the team had no trouble crushing the rest of the tiers with a ridiculously solid lineup backed up by extremely capable builders. Provided they had access to a strong enough builder, as was the case for this LCPL, the majority of these players could have viably started in the LC slot for SPL 8; in fact, two of them did.
The Massive Stat-Boost Munnas, on the other hand, are the only team in LCPL history to win a playoffs round merely by submitting their lineup. The smallest team on this list may well be the single most dominant team in LCPL history; despite being plagued by poor luck and an initial lack of motivation during the regular season, the munnas had little trouble securing a playoffs position before effortlessly cruising to the throne. With a roster boasting players of the absolute highest caliber in not one, not two, but no less than all six starting slots of the tour, one must wonder just how ahead of the curve Corporal Levi is when it comes to managing.
This year, the playerbase is as large and capable as ever, and the managers all have years of experience under their belt. It'll be hard to imagine that the managers would allow any one team to be completely dominant - that is, of course, until the Pakistani Piplups are finalized.
Best of luck to the other teams, who will be competing for second place.