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Top: Kim "Kiin" Gi-in (Gen.G)
Kiin is the kind of top laner who rarely makes headlines in the laning phase and then decides the game anyway. Gen.G don't ask him to bully his opponent. They ask him to hold his lane, keep his Teleport for the right moment and show up in fights as a second engage, and no top laner was more involved in his team's kills during the Swiss Stage, his 68% kill participation ranking first in his role. His range helped too, as he moved between Rumble, Ambessa and Camille depending on what Gen.G needed. When the LCK champions were finally pushed to a decider by LYON, it was his Camille Teleport into the last fight that settled the series.
Jungle: Kim "Canyon" Geon-bu (Gen.G)
Canyon spent most of the Swiss Stage on carry junglers, Qiyana first among them with three games, and played them for tempo and resources rather than early kills: he was only ninth among junglers in first blood rate. He ranked first in his role in CS per minute (8.7) and reached 15 minutes with the biggest leads of any jungler (+627 gold, +520 XP, both first), which means Gen.G's jungler arrives at every mid-game fight stronger than his opposite number and turns that edge into objectives. When a big play was needed, he had it in him too. His ultimate in a dragon fight against Hanwha Life Esports turned the LCK civil war on its head and set Gen.G's snowball rolling. With the best KDA of any jungler at 10.5 and a DPM Rating of 84.5, no jungler weighed as much on his team's results.
Mid: Zhuo "Knight" Ding (Bilibili Gaming)
Knight is BLG's engine. He wins his lane, sitting third among mid laners in gold difference at 15 minutes (+412), gets involved in everything around him, with the highest kill participation in his role at 82%, and then decides the fights, ranking second among mid laners in damage per minute (691), equally at ease on control mages and assassins. What stood out in Allen was his patience. On Orianna, he never wasted his Shockwave, waiting for the moment it would hit several targets at once, and that is exactly how he wiped Hanwha Life Esports in the final series to knock out the MSI champions. BLG went 3-2 and struggled at times as a team, but their mid laner never dropped below his level, finishing first among mid laners in KDA at 8.4.
AD Carry: Zi "JiaQi" Jia-Qi (Invictus Gaming)
JiaQi arrived in Allen as a Worlds debutant, after years in the LDL and short spells at RNG, FPX and TES before joining IG in March. He played with all the fearless aggression of a newcomer. His style is built on the laning phase: he pushes his advantage from the first wave, ranks first among AD carries in first blood rate (67%) and finished the Swiss Stage first in his role in both CS and gold difference at 15 minutes, the latter by a wide margin at +1,544. From there, IG simply play around him. His defining moment came against Hanwha Life Esports. On Yunara, he took the game into his own hands, dominated Gumayusi from the opening seconds and tore through HLE's lines in the fight for Infernal Soul, sending one of the tournament favourites to the brink. IG went on to reach the Knockout Stage for the first time in seven years, with their debutant AD carry leading the way.
Support: Ryu "Keria" Min-seok (T1)
Keria remains the reference at his position. He is the one who decides when T1 fight, with a wide champion pool and a feel for engages that few supports can match, and he backs it up with the best KDA of any support in the Swiss Stage (8.3), while ranking third among supports in first blood rate at 60%. T1's run kept coming back to his initiative, never more than against CTBC Flying Oyster, when his engage in the mid lane turned a game T1 were losing. That same day, he overtook Faker as the player with the most assists in Worlds history, a fitting record for a support whose whole game is about making his teammates shine.
Honourable mentions
Two more players deserve a word. Choi "Doran" Hyeon-joon came close to taking the top lane spot, giving T1 the frontline and engage tools they needed in the Swiss Stage. He was the MVP of the qualification series against Movistar KOI, catching Supa to turn the decisive Soul fight in game one and carving through the Spanish side on Gwen in the second. Dplus KIA's rookie support Career, meanwhile, embodied his team's ability to stay alive when games seemed lost. His Flash into Renata's ultimate turned T1's damage against them in the Elder fight that flipped the Round 2 clash, a huge moment for a player who had been in tears after a poor opening game against the same opponent at the LCK Cup earlier this year.
