The
LCS - the North American
League of Legends championship - were created in 2013 under the name of LCS NA. During the first five seasons, one club emerged as the team to beat: Team SoloMid (TSM). Winners of the very first edition of the competition, TSM have in fact won six of the ten titles delivered between 2013 and 2017.
Two players in particular have made their mark during this period for their loyalty to the structure: firstly, AD Carry Jason "WildTurtle" Tran, who was present for TSM's first title and won three other splits in the same shirt. Then there is Danish midlaner Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg, who arrived in 2014 and has been the common denominator of all the club's victories since then. As a club legend, Bjergsen was still here three years later, in 2020, when TSM clinched their seventh and final title.
Cloud9, the first rival
Like Fnatic in LEC - the EMEA championship - TSM built their collection of trophies mainly during the early years of the competition. Although the structure eventually left the LCS in September 2023, TSM are still the most successful team in the LCS, with seven crowns. But unlike Fnatic, TSM's dominance in the early seasons was far from absolute. As early as Summer Split 2013, it was another team that won the LCS: Cloud9. The Blue Cloud followed this up by also winning the 2014 Spring Split before a long dry spell. Like Bjergsen for TSM, during this period Cloud9 had its fetish player, Zachary "Sneaky" Scuderi.
C9 won LCS back-to-back in Summer 2013 and Spring 2014
The AD Carry stayed in the club as a player until 2020 and was present at C9's - and the NA's - best performance at the Worlds to date: a semi-final loss to Fnatic in 2018. However, it was when he left the roster (Sneaky joined the coaching staff) that C9's most successful period began. Since 2020, the structure has won four LCS titles, taking its total to six trophies. This makes Cloud9 the second most successful team in the history of the LCS. Players such as Ibrahim "Fudge" Allami, Robert "Blaber" Huang and Jesper "Zven" Svenningsen have left their mark on this era. The jungler is still in the roster in the Summer of 2024.
Team Liquid era
The second team to challenge TSM's supremacy in the early days of the LCS was Counter Logic Gaming. Like Cloud9 two years earlier, CLG won Summer 2015 and Spring 2016 back-to-back. The structure's first trophy was also the first for Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng. After this triumph, the AD Carry joined...TSM, where he also established himself as one of the biggest names in the club's history. In the Spring 2016 final, CLG defeated TSM, and thus Doublelift. Since then, Counter Logic Gaming have never seriously glimpsed victory, and remained in the middle/lower echelons of the standings until their departure from the league at Summer Split 2023.
Doublelift won his first trophy with CLG in 2015 LCS Summer Split
The years 2018-2019 saw the unchallenged domination of a fourth team: Team Liquid. In 2017, the structure was at its lowest point: they finished 9th in the Spring Split and then 10th in the Summer. Liquid retained their place in the North American elite by winning the promotion/relegation tournament, and then completely changed their face. TL won the next four splits of the LCS. Three players took part in this entire campaign: Jeong "Impact" Eon-young on the toplane, Jake "Xmithie" Puchero in the jungle and... Doublelift, who has just left TSM (before returning in 2020). Since then, the team has alternated between the good and the not so good: ninth in Spring 2020, 8th in Spring 2023 and 2nd in the two Splits in 2021, for example.
No hierarchy
Above all, Team Liquid returned to the top by winning their fifth trophy in Spring 2024. TL complete the podium of the most successful teams in the LCS. Three other teams have also won the competition, with one victory each: 100 Thieves in Summer 2021, Evil Geniuses in Spring 2022 (with Impact) and NRG in Summer 2023. In other words, the LCS has been relatively open and competitive for some years now.
List of LCS winners
| Year | Spring champion | Summer champion |
|---|
| 2013 | Team SoloMid | Cloud9 |
| 2014 | Cloud9 | Team SoloMid |
| 2015 | Team SoloMid | Counter Logic Gaming |
| 2016 | Counter Logic Gaming | Team SoloMid |
| 2017 | Team SoloMid | Team SoloMid |
| 2018 | Team Liquid | Team Liquid |
| 2019 | Team Liquid | Team Liquid |
| 2020 | Cloud9 | Team SoloMid |
| 2021 | Cloud9 | 100 Thieves |
| 2022 | Evil Geniuses | Cloud9 |
| 2023 | Cloud9 | NRG Esports |
| 2024 | Team Liquid | |
Header Photo Credit: Riot Games
