The Recall: What we learned from LCS Playoffs Round 2

Cloud9, FlyQuest and Golden Guardians are the only three teams in competition for the 2023 Spring Split crown — here's what we learned from the second week of the 2023 League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) Spring Playoffs.

First-seeded C9 (6-1) beat second-seeded FLY (3-3) by a 3-0 score on March 30, sending the latter to the Lower Bracket. On March 31, GG (6-2) upset Evil Geniuses (3-3) by a 3-0 score and advanced to face FLY on Saturday, April 8; the winner of that series will face C9 in the 2023 Spring Finals on Sunday, April 9 at PNC Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina.

C9 have already secured a spot at the 2023 Mid-Season Invitational, where they'll be joined by the winner of Saturday's series.

C9, one of two teams undefeated in series score along with GG, lead all playoff teams in kills (113 in seven games, 66 this week), deaths (70), kill-death ratio (1.61), percentage of lane CS taken (50.9%) and percentage of jungler CS taken (53.5%). C9 jungler Robert "Blaber" Huang led all players this week with 50 assists and is tied with support Jesper "Zven" Svenningsen for most total assists with 79.

But the real star of C9 is bot laner Kim "Berserker" Min-cheol, who leads in kills (46, 30 of which came this week), Player of the Series awards (two), KDA score and ratio (46/12/39 and 7.1) and damage per minute (880 overall, 1,081 this week). The Korean superstar also holds the third fewest deaths (12) and second best kill share (40.7%) of all players.

C9's 56.9% gold spent percentage and GG's 56.3% are the only positive gold spent ratings of playoffs; the same is true for C9 and FLY's gold difference at 15 minutes of 923 and 893, respectively.

The other undefeated squad, GG, are one of two teams with eight games played along with 100 Thieves, who were eliminated on Day 3 of the first week of the 2023 Spring Playoffs. GG support Choi "huhi" Jae-hyun earned Player of the Series honors for his performance against EG; jungler Kim "River" Dong-woo's score of 6/0/28 and KDA ratio of 34 led all players this week; and bot laner Trevor "Stixxay" Hayes is one of two players with over 10 CS per minute, with his 10.1 score having the slight edge over 100T bot laner Yiliang "Doublelift” Peng's score of 10.

GG's 39-11 (3.55) kill-death ratio is the best of any team, and the team's 11 deaths are the fewest in playoffs.

Other notable stats

• Despite community criticism, FLY support Bill "Eyla" Nguyen leads all players in kill participation (87.7%) and has the lowest kill share (1.4) -- perfect for a support.
• Two EG players are tied for the worst KDAs of playoffs: bot laner Ian Victor "FBI" Huang (2/9/1, or 0.33) and top laner Kim "Ssumday" Chan-ho (1/6/1, or 0.33).
• Zeri is the most played champion of playoffs so far, appearing in 16 games of 21 total.
• Annie is the only champion whose 100% pick-ban rate is still intact.
• Maokai was played in every game of Round 2.
• The best KDA of any champ with over four games played is Wukong with a score of 46/27/97 and a ratio of 5.3

All stats from Leaguepedia and Oracle's Elixir. Featured photos courtesy of Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games.