OPL Power Rankings: Split 1, Week Four

Howdy all, and welcome to Snowball Esports’ weekly OPL Power Rankings. These will be hot off the press ~~each Monday~~ Tuesday this week!, serving only the hottest takes fresh out of the oven that was the last week’s games. Our panel includes our three writers: Reece, Andrew and Callum, our wonderful designer Swifty, and former SIN Gaming coach Bencel.

Let’s see how the teams shake out now that we’ve seen all the teams go once around the rift! This week, we feature a brief rundown on some of our picks from our pundits! Check that out, along with a more mobile-friendly text list of rankings underneath the main icon-based list.

A quick note on power rankings: Power Rankings are different to how one would traditionally rank teams. Normal rankings are a bit more based on ability than results. In a traditional ranking if one team beat another you could still rank them lower if you thought they were still worse than the team they beat. Power Rankings are by definition recency-biased and results-focused and are more of a snapshot of how a team looks right now than how they have looked throughout the year or how they project overall. A bad loss may see a team drop below a team most would see them as being better than. A string of losses can see a team tumble down the rankings.

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Andrew Wray
Reece Perry
Callum Matthews
Swifty
Bencel

Want more detail as to why our panel put the teams in the order they did? Click below for more thoughts from each pundit.

Andrew Wray

DW / ORD / CHF / AV / LGC / SIN / TTC / BMR

This week is by far the toughest week for the power rankings, the only certainty being Dire Wolves sitting in top spot.

Every team on this list from 2-8 has a strong argument to be moved one place.

Bombers have unfortunately found themselves languishing in bottom place after a very disappointing series to Sin.

Let Andrew know what you think of his power rankings on Twitter @AWray7

Reece Perry

DW / CHF / ORD / AV / LGC / SIN / TTC / BMR

I’m incredibly pleased that the teams agreed with my Power Rankings from last week, and delivered performances that give me no reason to change them at all. You know where to come to see the most correct rankings week in, week out 😉 ^_^

All arrogance aside, I think in their losses both ORDER and Legacy showed some narrowing of the gap to the team above them, especially Legacy who closed what I saw as a lot of space between them and Avant who were punished for what was tantamount to trolling in game one. They’re significantly better than that, and hopefully that’s woken them up to the knowledge that it’s how you handle matches you’re expected to win that defines a truly dominant team.

Let Reece know what you think of his power rankings on Twitter @LoLTies

Callum Matthews

DW / ORD / CHF / AV / LGC / TTC / SIN / BMR

A rough week for all the teams in the league this week albeit little has changed in the power rankings. AV and LGC could very much be interchanged, with AV taking a game loss to TTC and LGC taking a game win against CHF. However due to overall quality of play in the LGC CHF series, AV scrape into 4th. TTC remain in 6th after a game win over AV, narrowly edging out SIN who picked up their first victory against the BMR.

Let Callum know what you think of his power rankings on Twitter @CDMLoL

Swifty

DW / ORD / CHF / AV / LGC / SIN / BMR / TTC

After a full weekend of 3 game series, my top 5 hasn’t changed this week, but the bottom side has. The Sin/Bombers series was a good showing from both teams, both teams finally getting some wins on the rift. Bombers are gaining momentum (albeit slowly) and I think we’ll see that continue to build.

Tectonic has dropped a couple of spots to 8th, but in my opinion still looked impressive in their loss. That was heavily tipped to be a quick 2-0 for Avant but the NZ squad was able to give them a decent run for their money.

Let Swifty know what you think of his power rankings on Twitter @Swift_y