Every year the League of Legends European Championship welcomes new players coming from the European Regional Leagues. While we already made a top 3 of ERL players per role, this story will highlight some of the younger ERL players with LEC potential.
Some of the strongest ERL players, such as Martin “Rekkles” Larsson and Lucas “Cabochard” Simon-Meslet will therefore be excluded from the list. You will also be able to keep an eye on some of those players at the upcoming European Masters.
Martin “Yike” Sundelin (LDLC OL)
LDLC OL have finished first place in the LFL Spring Split regular season 2022. While the whole roster deserves credit, this was Yike’s first time playing an entire split in one of the accredited ERLs.
The 21 year old jungler comes from Sweden and surprised many in the LFL. While he can play tanks such as Volibear, he also plays a lot of carries like Viego (87.5% win rate on it this split) or Kha’zix last year.
While he only played one game of Qiyana in the LFL, it’s also one of his most played champions in solo queue. His playstyle and champion pool does result in an average of 342 damage per minute this year, which is the highest for junglers in the French ERL.
Óscar “Oscarinin” Muñoz Jiménez (Fnatic TQ)
At only 18 years old, Oscarinin stomped through every lane in the SuperLiga. In 2022, the Spanish top laner became extremely consistent at being very good.
His laning numbers are simply ridiculous. Oscarinin averages of plus-461 gold, plus-362 experience and plus-13.9 creep differential at 10 minutes against his opponents. He is, by very far, first in the league in all those statistics out of any role.
The only other top laner in ERL having such impressive statistics (for laning) is Cabochard. Note that sometimes those leads are obtained by Oscarinin on his own without his jungler camping him.
Adam “Random” Grepl (BISONS ECLUB)
BISONS ECLUB had a rough start to the split in Spain, as a few weeks into it they were a bottom table team. Despite that situation at the time, mid laner Random did have surprising stats and managed to win some difficult lanes.
Overall, the whole roster has some talented players and, on top of creative drafts, they are now qualified for the Superliga finals against all expectations. Random does rank first out of mid laners in the league with plus-146 experience averaged at 10 minutes. But what’s impressive is his champion diversity, as he made 13 different picks across 18 games during the regular season. From Zed and Irelia to Ivern and Zilean, Random plays it all. The Czech mid laner is anything other than random.
Thomas “Exakick” Foucou (LDLC OL)
While Exakick had already played for 1 year and 8 months with LDLC OL, he is only 18 years old. Alongside Yike, he is one of the younger players on LDLC OL’s roster.
Seen as one of the best LFL bot laners last year, this season he still managed to shine despite the coming of Rekkles, Juš “Crownshot” Marušič or Liyu “Cody Sun” Sun. Bot lane is often considered the most stacked role in the LFL.
Exakick averages 10.6 creep score per minute in the LFL, the highest in the league (yes, more farm than Rekkles). His other numbers are not outstanding, but extremely decent for a league with many good bot laners.
Keep on eye on his Aphelios as he has 100% win rate with it on eight games this Spring Split.
Robert “Erdote” Nowak (Team BDS Academy)
Paired with Crownshot in the bot lane, Erdote has done some impressive work in his second year playing with Team BDS. Arguably the best support in the league, Erdote averaged a 74.1% kill participation this Spring Split.
And despite four years playing in ERLs, the Polish support has been on an uptrend. He qualified with his team for EU Masters and it’ll be the best time to prove whether he’s ready for a bigger stage or not.
Doğukan “113” Balcı (Karmine Corp)
Turkish jungler 113 can’t be underrated. After playing one split with Vodafone Giants in Spain, he now qualified for EU Masters with fan-favorite organization Karmine Corp.
113 is only 17 years old, and while you can discuss where he ranks among ERL junglers, he is maybe the most promising. Similarly to Yike, 113 deserves credit for how fast he got into this position. Both on his team in France and Spain, his most played champions are Xin Zhao and Lee Sin.
Tim “Keduii” Willers (Berlin International Gaming)
Yep, Berlin International Gaming didn’t manage to qualify for the European Masters. BIG produced disappointing results for an organization with one EU Masters trophy that has sent many players on to the LEC.
However, Keduii still managed to make it into the Prime League Spring Split 2022 All-Pro team. The German bot laner for sure has a lot of talent and will attract any good team looking for a new bot laner if he doesn’t stay with BIG. He averaged a plus-499 gold differential, a plus-419 experience differential and a plus-12.1 creep score differential at 15 minutes this split. He managed to carry games for his team almost on his own despite a sixth place finish with his team during the regular season.
Rúben “rhuckz” Barbosa (Fnatic TQ)
Rhuckz is the oldest player from this list, but 2022 has probably been his best year so far. He’s a player who many considered calling up to the LEC in the past and whose has praise worthy game knowledge.
Being a key component to Fnatic TQ’s success (16-2 record during the regular season), rhuckz has been on the rise lately, too, and could be a decent choice in the future for any LEC team ready to offer him his first steps there.
Jakob “Jackspektra” Kepple (Team Heretics)
Just like Keduii, Jackspektra didn’t qualify for EU Masters. In fact, he didn’t even make it into the SuperLiga playoffs. However, Jackspektra did show this split why so many LEC team considered him last offseason.
Out of the eight wins Team Heretics earned this split, Jackspektra received MVP awards six times. On average, Jackspektra dealt 29.5% of the damage of his team this split. Those are numbers worth noticing.
Tobiasz “Agresivoo” Ciba (Team BDS Academy)
Agresivoo is playing his fourth year in ERLs. After playing two years for Misfits Premier, he now plays for another LEC Academy team. Additionally, last offseason he was considered by LEC teams.
Mais PARDOOON ??? #LFL pic.twitter.com/qgz6C5ed7f
— LFLxDIV2 (@LFLOfficiel) March 16, 2022
Considering how he performed this split despite a stacked top lane pool in the LFL, we could expect the same thing to happen again. In 28 official games played this split, Agresivoo played 13 different champions. While waiting for the next games of LFL playoffs, enjoy this little clip from him.
Honorable mention: The whole Fnatic TQ roster
While it’s hard to say whether Fnatic TQ are the strongest ERL team at the moment, they do have five players who never played in LEC before. Therefore, they all fit this list pretty well compared to the top LFL teams who do have former LEC players.
Well actually, Magnus “Maxi” Kristensen did play in the LCS with Flyquest, but that was a single game, which he won. Similarly, Louis “BEAN” Schmitz did play at the World Championship of 2021 with Fnatic. He showed there that some of the best ERL players can perform decently against some of the best players in the world.
Lastly, João Miguel “Baca” Novais Bigas is the mid laner from the roster and only player who hasn’t been mentioned yet. He’s not the dominant kind of laner, but he deserves a ton of credit for consistently playing well with his team. Baca was also part of UCAM last year, another ERL roster that performed above expectations. It seems Baca always completes and improves his teams well.
Credit to all five of the Fnatic TQ players who managed to hold a record of 16-2 in the Spanish ERL.
