For the last few years, League of Legends has been the most popular esport in the world, with many players making their name out there as the best LoL players. In this live and updated list, we’re ranking the best League of Legends players in the world.
It’s really hard to stay relevant for many years, as team performance can largely vary from one year to another. However, some of them manage to stay at the top, with new contenders rising and making for some interesting League of Legends betting.
We’ve compiled a list of some of the best League of Legends players out there, taken from each region.
Here’s our full list of the best LoL players in the world:
| Rank | ID | Name | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | Knight | Zhuo Ding | Mid Lane |
| 9 | Tarzan | Lee Seung-yong | Jungle |
| 8 | Viper | Park Do-hyeon | Bot Lane |
| 7 | Zeka | Kim Geon-woo | Mid Lane |
| 6 | JackeyLove | Yu Wen-Bo | Bot Lane |
| 5 | Canyon | Kim Geon-bu | Jungle |
| 4 | Kiin | Kim Gi-in | Top Lane |
| 3 | Kanavi | Seo Jin-hyeok | Jungle |
| 2 | Zeus | Choi Woo-je | Top Lane |
| 1 | Chovy | Jung Ji-hoon | Mid Lane |
Let’s take a closer look at the talent below.
10. Knight
Knight, esports star, didn’t start his journey in glitzy arenas, but in a humble Pingxiang PC café. His friendly foe? His buddy, Yagao. Their challenge? Who’d be crowned ‘king of Pingxiang’. Yagao often won, but Knight saw each loss as a stepping stone to improve his game.
In the unforgettable 2020 Spring and Summer LPL finals, they ended up on opposite sides, each snagging a victory in a heart-stopping 3-2 showdown. Their hometown rivalry had turned into a full-blown spectacle that had fans worldwide grabbing their popcorn. Knight finally elevated to global stardom with JD Gaming’s near-Golden Road 2023 season which saw them win two LPL titles as well as the Mid-Season Invitational, though the World Championship was sadly out of their reach.
9. Tarzan
Tarzan’s come-up alongside other elite talents Chovy, Viper, and Lehends — all as rookies with Griffin — was part of one of the most spectacular promotion stories in the history of League of Legends. Immediately one of the world’s best teams as soon as they entered the LCK in 2019, the majority of Griffin’s roster have gone on to have illustrious careers and compete among the best in their roles.
That includes jungler Tarzan whose time over in China has seen him perform for LNG Esports, Weibo Gaming, and, now, Anyone’s Legend. His Weibo side reached the semi-finals of the World Championship last season and he followed that up by taking underdogs Anyone’s Legend to Demacia Cup glory and a second-place in the LPL Split 1 playoffs in 2025.
8. Viper
A member of the famous Griffin rookie squad that burst on the Korean scene in 2019, Viper’s career has taken a rather different path from some of his former teammates. Opting to make the switch to the often more lucrative LPL, Viper rose to the very top as part of the Edward Gaming roster then became world champions back in 2021, then went out of the 2022 competition at the hands of eventual winners DRX.
These days he’s back in the LCK on Hanwha Life Esports, becoming a key factor in the organisation’s first-ever Korean title – one that dashed Gen.G’s dreams of becoming the first team to win five consecutive LCK titles. He’s proven himself time and time again as one of the best bot laners on the planet, perhaps amongst the best ever, though there is still one other that rises above.
7. Zeka
When he won the 2022 World Championship with DRX in arguably the biggest Worlds final upset ever, Zeka was considered one of the worst mid laners to have lifted the Summoner’s Cup. He followed that up with a mid-table split on Hanwha Life Esports; then thought to be the mid laner’s results returning back to his level.
But since then, Zeka has grown immensely as a player, sticking with HLE as they slowly improved the roster around him until the point where he became one of the world’s best mids on one of the world’s best teams. That culminated with the 2025 g of top laner Zeus, the final piece of the puzzle to propel HLE to international success as the team became inaugural First Stand champions.
6. JackeyLove
That man is JackeyLove. A World Champion with the famously powerful 2018 Invictus Gaming roster, JackeyLove was immediately considered to be at the top of the AD carry pool. However, rocky seasons followed his initial success and earned him the label of an inconsistent player; one that could play at a world-class level on his day but would often falter and become a liability.
But the inconsistency is a thing of the past. In recent years JackeyLove has refound the form that saw him become a world champion and has finally found a way to perform at that level more often than not. Now he’s scarier than ever – one of the best bot laners ever seen and able to produce this level constantly. Now in his sixth season competing for Top Esports, the Chinese carry has the chance to add a second Worlds ring to his title collection.
5. Canyon
Like his former teammate ShowMaker, Canyon has consistently found himself among the very best in his role ever since promoting to the LCK with DAMWON Gaming back in 2018. He was also part of the DWG squad that won Worlds in 2020 and continued to represent the team all the way up until last season.
The Korean only left his long-term team to Gen.G, who had just won three consecutive LCK titles at the time of his ing. Since then he’s gone from strength to strength, competing alongside one of the best players to ever compete in League of Legends esports in the shape of mid laner Chovy, and now himself is discussed as possibly being the greatest jungler to ever play the game.
4. Kiin
Spending much of his career on the flailing Afreeca Freecs, Kiin’s skill was always obvious and it seemed just a matter of time before he got his chance on an elite roster. That chance finally came this year, brought in as part of a Gen.G rebuild and with big shoes to fill replacing the outgoing Doran. Since Kiin’s arrival, along with jungler Canyon and Lehends, Gen.G hit new heights by finally clinching their first international title; the Mid-Season Invitational.
Now all that evades the organisation is a World Championship. In of solo lane talent they’ve got just about the best possible with Kiin at top and the exceptional Chovy in mid.
3. Kanavi
Of the previously mentioned elite former talent of Griffin, Kanavi is the unique case of a player who left the team and found immense success without ever having appeared for the side. After ing Griffin as a sub in early 2019, Kanavi was quickly loaned to JD Gaming in the LPL and signed permanently later in the year.
Kanavi stayed with the team for years and was part of the famous 2023 roster than won two LPL titles, the Mid-Season Invitational, and finished in the top four at Worlds — one of the best seasons ever produced by a League of Legends team. He’s now on Top Esports, winning the LPL yet again and continuing to be one of the best in his role.
2. Zeus
A back-to-back World Champion, LCK champion, and inaugural First Stand champion, Zeus has firmly cemented himself as the world’s best top laner in the last two years and, at times, could be argued as being the best player, full stop.
His shock switch from T1 to HLE for the 2025 season was one of the biggest roster moves worldwide for years and had seismic effects on both teams. T1 immediately slumped to a 5th/6th place finish in the LCK Cup while HLE were the cup’s first ever winners and then went on to win the team’s first international title in its history.
1. Chovy
Chovy will always be in consideration as one of the best League of Legends players of the new generation. No one is dominant as he is in lane, and he’s always the main carry for his team. It’s a lot of burden that he finds himself in, but it makes him stand out even more.
Now that Gen.G is free from the international curse having won MSI earlier this year, all that remains is a Worlds title. Back-to-back Worlds semi-finals in 2021 and 2022 proceeded a regression in 2023 where Chovy’s side failed to move past the quarter-finals.
2024 saw them knocked out in the semi-finals by eventual winners T1, though Gen.G will be favourites for the tournament once again having added the legendary bot laner Ruler to its roster for 2025.
Honorable Mentions
Faker
You cannot disregard Faker when making a list of the best League of Legends players. It doesn’t matter what year it is, but Faker is still here giving his best. He hasn’t lost his drive and that was highlighted best with T1’s World Championship win last season – Faker’s fifth title overall after winning his last a ridiculous seven years earlier.
He might not be the best mechanical player out there, but you can bet that he’s the leader everyone wants. He’s guiding his team full of young players with his shotcalls just like it should be. If T1 is still fighting in the LCK, it’s thanks to Faker and his ion for League of Legends. When it comes to the LoL betting odds, there’s hardly anything more certain than Faker being amongst titles.
Ruler
A mainstay in modern League of Legends, Ruler has shown us all recently that he has many more years left in his reign of the bot lane. After bursting onto the scene in 2016, Park ‘Ruler’ Jae-hyuk hit the ground running. It was but a year before he took victory at 2017 Worlds after taking the final of 2016 to a fifth game, with a dominant sweep in the final vs an SKT that was looking to cement a long-existent dynasty with what would’ve been their third Worlds win in a row.
What followed was a few quiet years of playing second fiddle to either DAMWON or T1, making a few placings here and there, but it wasn’t until the 2022 iteration of Gen.G that Ruler broke through to a victory again, claiming first place in the LCK Summer Playoffs. Despite the promising display from the regular season and the excitement that followed as his fabled Mid Laner in Chovy broke his quarter-finals curse at Worlds, it seemed that the pressure got to them as they fell to DRX in the semi-finals. It appeared fated that the brief interlude of victory might be fleeting for an incredibly talented ADC, who felt good enough to take the top spot.
Then along came 2023. There were certainly suspicions that Ruler’s talents outpaced his team, and after JDG’s disappointing exit at the semi-finals of Worlds 2022 it seemed that they and Gen.G had opposing issues. JDG’s top side remained strong but their bot lane left a lot to be desired, whereas in GenG it was perceived that Chovy cracked under the pressure and without him their topside seemed incredibly stifled. Thus a move from Ruler, from arguably the best LCK team on paper at the time, to the best LPL team while seemingly insane given the historical perception of the respective regions’ strengths; made sense when it came to solving the teams’ problems.
The rest, as they say, is history. Ruler and JDG proved a match made in heaven – winning his first two splits in the LPL and securing a seemingly easy victory at MSI, the second player to ever win LCK, LPL, Worlds and MSI.
Caps
Widely regarded as the best-ever Western League of Legends player, mid laner Caps enters each international tournament as arguably the only Western competitor that will strike fear into his Eastern opponents. He’s part of a rare breed of LEC players that can put up performances in line with — sometimes even ahead of — Korean and Chinese opposition and it was this ability that saw him crowned MVP of G2’s 2019 MSI victory.
Having just won four LEC titles in 2024, his lead ahead of other EMEA talent is only widening, and the odd off performances that used to earn him the ‘Claps’ or ‘Craps’ nicknames have been ironed out. Finally Caps can be relied upon to display elite form on a consistent basis and will be required to continue doing so if G2 are to provide European fans with the deep Worlds run they’re longing for.
Scout
Once the protégé of Faker and seemingly unable to claw his way from under the moniker, Scout has been struggling to manifest results since finally surmounting the greatest peak available within the League of Legends pro circuit by winning Worlds in 2021. While he’s still considered amongst the best in the world, a move from EDG to LNG has led to some questionable results, and their 2023 season eventually saw a quarter-final elimination at Worlds to the eventual winners T1.
ShowMaker
Despite having the odd season where his Dplus KIA side failed to challenge at the top of the LCK, ShowMaker has shown himself as not only one of the best-performing mid laners on the planet but also one of the most consistent. Since reaching Korea’s top division with his current org, then named DAMWON Gaming, the enigmatic mid has led his side to World Championship qualification every season.
A champion in 2020’s pandemic-affected tournament, ShowMaker has just qualified for his fifth Worlds and would surely love to win one in front of a roaring London crowd. He’ll face an uphill battle competing against squads that are much better and much more balanced on paper, but anything’s possible with such an elite talent leading Dplus from the mid lane.
