Puttin’ On the Carry Pants: Damage Shares Across the NA LCS

Tankiness, utility, vision control… Sure, these things are all important components to success in League of Legends. But ultimately, what everyone loves to see is Tons of Damage.

The question we’re going to look at is who carried the hardest in the North American League Championship Series over the course of the 2015 Spring split regular season. We’ll do this by reviewing players’ average share of their team’s damage dealt to champions.

First we’ll look at the top 10 carries in NA, both overall and in wins only. Then we’ll go through each of the NA LCS’s 10 teams and see how each team distributed its damage dealing.

Note

While a statistical approach is only one way to look at a player’s ability to carry games, it’s an approach that allows for easy comparison between players, and is there anything fans love more than making comparisons between players?

All of the numbers below are based on the NA LCS 2015 Spring split regular season. Damage share is calculated as the player’s proportion of the team’s total damage to enemy champions, averaged across all games played.

Bear in mind while reading these stats that a low damage share doesn’t necessarily mean low damage dealt; it just means less damage than teammates. A Total Damage to Champions statistic is available on Oracle’s Elixir’s Player Stats page, along with average damage share numbers for every player in the NA LCS and many other player stats. Team statistics are also available on the Team Stats page.

The Biggest Carries in North America

Overall Damage Share

Among players who put in at least 10 games, the top ten carries in North America this split, by average damage share, were:

1. Sneaky (33.9%)
2. Bjergsen (33.6%)
3. CoreJJ (31.8%)
4. Altec, as ADC (31.8%)
5. Link (31.2)
6. Cop (31.1%)
7. WildTurtle (30.6%)
8. FeniX (30.4%)
9. Pobelter (30.0%)
10. Keane (30.0%)

This list contains five ADCs and five Mid laners. The highest damage share for a player who was not in Mid or ADC went to Calitrlolz, with 26.5%. A notable absence is CLG’s DoubleLift, who barely missed out on being listed, ranking 11th.

Damage Share in Wins

Of course, if you deal 50% of your team’s damage and your team loses, that doesn’t say much for your effectiveness. The top ten carries in wins, among players who played in at least ten total games and three total wins, were:

1. Bjergsen (36.1%)
2. Link (34.0%)
3. Cop (33.1%)
4. Sneaky (31.7%)
5. Altec (31.5%)
6. WildTurtle (31.2%)
7. Pobelter (30.3%)
8. CoreJJ (29.9%)
9. FeniX (28.9%)
10. Calitrlolz (28.6%)

Bjergsen takes the number one spot as strongest carry in NA during wins, while Sneaky drops to number four. Calitrlolz joins the top 10, while Keane is pushed out.

Damage Share by Team

Cloud9

Sneaky is the obvious carry of Cloud9, dealing out 33.9% of the team’s damage. Interestingly, though, Sneaky’s damage share shrinks substantially in wins, and most of that damage ends up coming from Meteos, instead.

Takeaways:

• Kill Sneaky!
• Cloud9 performs better when Meteos is on high-damage champions.

Counter Logic Gaming

Link and DoubleLift each share a leg of the Carry Pants, but Link’s damage share is slightly higher at 31.2% to DoubleLift’s 29.4%. In wins, though, Link takes on a much larger role: his damage share climbs from 26.5% in losses to 34.0% in wins! Both Zion Spartan and DoubleLift give up parts of their shares to Link in wins.

Takeaways:

• Link is CLG’s main carry.
• CLG is more effective when Zion Spartan and Xmithie aren’t being called on to contribute as much damage.

Dignitas

Dignitas’ chart is harder to read because of their roster swaps in the Jungle, but there’s really only one position to focus on here: when Dignitas wins, Gamsu carries hard. The only Top laner with a higher damage share in wins than Gamsu’s 27.5% is Calitrlolz of Team 8, at 28.6%.

Collectively, DIG’s Junglers contributed very, very little by way of damage, while CoreJJ was responsible for more damage than Shiphtur.

Takeaways:

• Dignitas worked better when Gamsu was in position to carry from Top.
• Tanky/utility Junglers were more effective for Dignitas.

Gravity

As I already discussed in a recent article about Cop, the Gravity ADC’s damage share is more than 4% higher in wins. What that article didn’t point out is that Hauntzer’s damage contribution increases even more in GV’s wins, from 18.0% to 23.2%. Cop and Hauntzer steal their damage shares from Saintvicious and Keane.

Takeaways:

• Hauntzer is best known for his Maokai, but his ability to carry shouldn’t be underrated.
• In wins, Cop is the most important carry for Gravity.

Team 8

Calitrlolz lived up to the hype this split, showing that he is arguably the strongest carry Top laner in North America. Cali’s 26.5% damage share is the highest on his team, a ridiculous feat for a Top player, and his share actually increases to 28.6% in wins. (Both numbers are the highest in NA at the Top position.)

Slooshi’s damage share was higher in wins, while Maplestreet was relied on less in wins.

Takeaways:

• Calitrlolz is the hardest carrying Top in NA. Enough said.

Team Coast

What can be said about Team Coast’s one-win season?

Well, overall, Jesiz showed up with a bit more damage share than his replacement, mancloud. But in Coast’s single victory, Mash was the one carrying hardest, at 31.9% of damage.

Takeaways:

• Coast got auto-relegated.

Team Impulse

Impact, XiaoWeiXiao, and Apollo all shared the carry burden on Team Impulse, and Rush also contributed a higher share than average for a Jungler. Rush is the only player whose damage share noticeably increased in wins, while Apollo contributed a little less in wins than losses.

Rush’s overall damage share was second in NA among Junglers, behind Team 8’s Porpoise, but his damage share in wins was number one in his position.

Takeaways:

• Team Impulse has the most evenly distributed damage shares in North America, due to the above-average damage contributions of Impact and Rush in Top and Jungle.

Team Liquid

Though Keith is left out of the top 10 lists because of his small number of games played, his damage share in wins was the highest on the whole team, due to a few very hard carries on Kog’Maw, Caitlyn, and Corki. In losses, however, Keith contributed very little, with the smallest damage share in losses of any North American ADC.

Keith’s huge variation in damage share makes it hard to spot patterns across the rest of the team, but FeniX’s high damage shares are worth noting, as is IWDominate’s higher share in wins.

Takeaways:

• Team Liquid distributes its carry potential fairly evenly.
• Piglet is a more consistent threat than Keith, but Keith showed a higher likelihood to carry hard.

Team Solo Mid

Poor Dyrus. TSM’s frequently embattled Top laner had the lowest damage share among all North American Top laners, both overall and in wins. Of course, his team took home the number one spot in the regular season, so obviously this approach to the game was working for them.

Bjergsen is the obvious standout, providing 33.6% of the team’s damage compared to WildTurtle’s 30.6%, and the difference between the two carries is even bigger in wins.

Takeaways:

• Bjergsen is effectively the hardest carry in North America, due to his massive damage share in wins.
• Dyrus can expect to see more Lulu and Maokai games moving forward, assuming TSM expects him to keep getting camped early and completely shut down.

Winterfox

Winterfox had a lot of different players this split, and there aren’t really and clear trends across the board. Pobelter and Altec had the highest damage shares, both players reaching top 10 in the league. Neither showed much variation between wins and losses. Avalon had less damage share in wins.

Takeaways:

• Winterfox’s roster churn prevented any clear conclusions for their carry patterns.