One of the most difficult aspects of League esports is determining individual skill and prospect level in such a team-confounded game. In basketball, through the box scores and eye tests of isolated matchups, the MVP is calibrated to near-consensus by end of season, and legitimate races are actually rare. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is a reigning two-time MVP because he is averaging ~32 ppg, and is the main driver behind a dominant OKC offense. It is not a discussion on whether or not any of that is true, they are clear facts that could be seen by a first-time watcher.
League of Legends has extremely primitive statistical data to detect isolated performance, the only box score is largely dictated by which team is winning, not by who is better in their respective role. KDA, gold difference, even laning itself are all weak indicators of what composes skill within a player, none can tell who is better in isolation, who is outperforming their circumstances. Traits indicating strength bleed directly into their teammates, as their teammates' do into them.
The LCK is notorious for giving end-of-year awards in a monotonic fashion driven by teams and not players. The most infamous example is KT Rolster in 2023, where their full roster had been awarded 1st Team All-Pro. Aiming was above Gumayusi and Viper, Lehends was above Keria and Delight, Bdd was above Chovy, all of these selections retrospectively look ridiculous. Below are the chart comparisons of these players and their 2023 CAR to refresh memories.
This is an extreme case study though, in reality it is just nearly impossible to properly dissect performance while removing team environment from the equation. That is what CAR and my work with the website are doing, but there will never be the same fulfillment to this goal in comparison to traditional sports like baseball or basketball. In this attempt at finding underrated players across the leagues, I am going to utilize CAR along with my own viewing as someone who is high-rated and watches all of the leagues.
The first and most important player I must stress and give kudos to is DuDu. In raw CAR he is sitting only behind Zeus among LCK tops this year, while being on easily the worst team in the league. This does not translate to him necessarily being the second best top laner, but it does mean he is finding significant leverage in lanes and contributes optimally. Below is a graphic showing his laning stats, a feat in itself to have on such a horrendous team.
An interesting facet to his game is that he is not selfish draft-wise either, compare the shape of his champion pool to a player like Zeus, he is blinding champs like Ambessa or K'Sante and still finding room for advantages in lanes. The ideal team in my mind for DuDu is T1. DuDu takes up minimal draft capital that Keria/Peyz can leverage, while being a strictly better weakside player than Doran. Nongshim would also be interesting because Kingen is a more volatile laner than DuDu, and if they did change top laner it would give Diable more draft space and strong-side him.
| Champion | Games | GD@10 |
|---|---|---|
| Ambessa | 10 | +13 |
| Rumble | 9 | +376 |
| Renekton | 8 | +178 |
| K'Sante | 7 | -191 |
| Gwen | 6 | -190 |
| Champion | Games | GD@10 |
|---|---|---|
| Gnar | 10 | +234 |
| Rumble | 7 | +204 |
| Jayce | 7 | +537 |
| Yorick | 6 | -49 |
| Sion | 6 | +142 |
Moving on to the LEC, Jopa is who I have my eyes on for next year and where he will land. In the CAR tables, he is sitting third among the LEC in his role currently, shining mostly in teamfight capability. Mikyx and the band of misfits drag Jopa into constant fiesta and poor decision-making. If Jopa gets an opportunity in a more stable environment that becomes the true test of his ability to become a true carry.
For the LCS there are two players I have in mind who deserve better opportunities and hold plentiful potential. One of these players is on a perilous, disastrous roster that holds zero hope due to the talent surrounding him, while the other has more talent but is still immature in his skill floor. The first being Bvoy, who everyone knows for his Ezreal and his consistency in staying afloat while the rest of SR sinks, has been the main engine for Shopify up until recently. One series summarizes the anatomy of his team, versus FLY in spring.
Game 1, he is playing his signature Ezreal. He drops a 1400 damage/min BOMB, 45% damage share, he is almost SINGLE-HANDEDLY winning teamfights while Contractz is throwing the game away. If you are not stats-pilled but understand those values, you would still appreciate how hard it is to reach those exact figures even on champions like Ezreal. Anyways, he loses this one.
Game 2, they are down nearly 3,500 gold by 15 minutes. Berserker could not handle this level of emotional abuse, but Bvoy is a rock. Bvoy tells his team to not panic while he clears Massu and Cryogen every other wave on mid lane. Bvoy carries this game to a win with another 1400 damage/min AND 40% damage share on Corki.
The second player I want to highlight is DARKWINGS, he currently ranks first among LCS mids in CAR, driven by his damage efficiency that measures his output based on the resources given to him. For DARKWINGS to be this high league-wise, that means he is over-converting what is being given to him.
The key part to inspect for Sentinels is that Impact is one of the worst laners this year, meaning DARKWINGS needs to both act as a win-condition and cover the map when he has priority. Compare this job to someone like Saint or Quid who tend to have winning side lanes, their jobs are relaxed and oriented around supporting plays that come to them.
None of these players are associated with stardom, not a single one of them has even come close to winning playoffs either. DuDu, across the last three years of the LCK, has accumulated fewer wins than Chovy in 2025 domestically. I also don't believe any of these players will be fully recognized for their efforts, none of them perform as undeniably talented as someone like Peyz on T1 for example.
The objective for each of them is to find and stay on teams that match their level of effort and strength next year. I know, without a shadow of a doubt, DuDu could replace Doran and be more capable, or that Jopa replacing Supa would be net positive, even Bvoy replacing Tactical AND Zven would be good. None of these changes will happen though, and most of them will be in purgatory for most of their career is my projection, and to me that is extremely unfortunate.
All figures are from the CAR Index, 2026-08-10 build, and the Oracle's Elixir per-game refresh through 2026-08-05. CAR is league-relative: cross-league numbers are never compared in this piece. Full tables at the Index.