This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

　　The 2014 League of Legends World Championship concluded last weekend with SSW defeating SHR 3-1. We compiled dozens of player stats from the games throughout the tournament, and this article highlights the 20 statistically most impressive players. We chose a few different stats to assess each role. We chose our stats to focus on individual performance rather than team performance or things that represent stylistic play, but some of that is still inherent in LoL statistics. This means we selected a different set of criteria for each role, as for example “Damage to champions per minute” isn’t great at telling which support was the best, as damage isn’t core to the role.

　　One of the unique stats that we used in this analysis is “Kill Shares / Deaths” (invented by Jesse Albert). For the TL;DR, this is a better KDA ratio, centered around 1.0. This is calculated by instead of each death giving up a kill and up to 4 assists, it instead gives away 1 “Kill Share”, which is split amongst participating players. This stats solves one of the key problems in KDA which is teamfight inflation, where players get massive amounts of assists but can only die once to counteract this, leaving teams who teamfight the most get the highest KDA, rather than those who perform the best. To learn more about this stat check out this link.

　　Rather than pick overall top 20 players, we chose 4 players per role. To determine the top 4 per role, we selected a few different stats to use and ranked the players according to their stats in each category. We summed up the rankings and selected the four players with the lowest rank totals. For example, if we used four metrics and a certain player finished 4th, 5th, 8th, and 2nd in the four categories, then his rank total was 19 (4 5 8 2). For some of the calculations, we multiplied a category’s rank by 0.5 to reduce its weight in the total. The following tables show the results.

Top

　　The stats we chose to assess top lane asses how well a player performs in the laning phase as well as overall metrics like GPM. Seeing OMG Gogoing and SSW Looper in our top 4 is not surprising given the public perception that they were the two of the best top laners in the tournament. EDG Koro1 is in the top 4 largely due to his high GPM and his strong performance in the laning phase. He averaged a large gold advantage over the enemy top laner in a majority of his games. Going into the tournament, many people considered NWS Save to be the best top laner and one of the few top “carries.” While Save noticeably performed below expectations (especially during the laning phase), he still managed to put up above-average statistics in virtually every category and narrowly beat out ALL Wickd in our final rankings.

Jungle

　　The stats we chose for junglers focus on overall performance, kill participation and particularly early game performance. SSW Dandy led most categories and especially dominated the early game in a majority of his games. He was undoubtedly the best jungler in the tournament and many of the stats reflect this notion. ALL Shook received flak for being inconsistent throughout the group stage, yet the stats show that he was actually consistently dominant in the early stages of games. He ranked 2nd in largest average gold difference at 10 minutes and in 10-minute gold lead frequency. Shook’s relatively low GPM is largely due to his team’s lackluster performance in the group stage (3W-3L). The other two players, EDG Clearlove and SSB Spirit out-performed enemy junglers in the early game on average and continue to perform well throughout the other stages of the game, evidenced by their high GPM and KS/D rankings.

Mid

　　For mid lane, we used a few new stats to reflect how much damage players were doing to other enemy champions. The only knock on SSW PawN, who was arguably one of the best players in the tournament, was that he earned a gold lead in the laning phase in less than half of his games. Other than that, his stats help show how dominant he was in other areas. EDU U finished in the top 4 due to his strong laning phase and his above-average stats in other areas like GPM and Dmg. to Champions per Min. NWS Ggoong earned a gold lead at 10 minutes in 90% of his games, the highest % among mid laners. FNC xPeke finished 1st in both of the damage metrics, secured the 3rd highest solo kills per minute, and was average in the other basic metrics.

ADC

　　Seeing SSW imp, SHR Uzi, and SSB Deft in the top three is not surprising. All three players put up good stats, with Uzi having the best laning phase stats. FNC Rekkles performed extremely well on paper, as his laning phase stats and overall performance stats are all in the top 3. The damage stats help show how Rekkles perhaps is more farm-centric than the other three players, as he finished only 8th in the Dmg. to Champions per Min. stat among ADCs and was almost last in the Dmg. to Champions/Gold Spent stat. Yet, it’s is fairly remarkable that Rekkles finished with the 3rd highest GPM, because his team won only 2 out of 6 games in the group stage.

Support

　　We included warding stats to assess the supports. SSW Mata’s and SHR Zero’s stats are average or better for all four categories, with Mata being the standout of the two. FNC YellOwStar was the most active warder among all supports throughout the tournament, evidenced by his 1st place ranking in both categories. SSB Heart was also average or better in all categories, yet is noticeably a step down from Mata on paper.

Conclusion

　　The fact that all five SSW players finished in our top 20 was expected - the team finished with a 15W-2L record and dominated a majority of its games. Many of the pre-tournament favorites finished in our top 20 as well, notably OMG Gogoing and SHR Uzi. Perhaps the most surprising thing is that three FNC players finished in the top 20. FNC finished with a 2W-4L record yet the players’ stats look great on paper.

　　Data collected by Tinyshrimp and Spellsy.