LoL: LCS Crowns Rookie Of The Year, The Most Improved Player & Coaching Staff Of The Split

After revealing the three All-Pro Teams of the Split, the LCS has now crowned the Rookie and the Coaching Staff of the Summer Split. The winner surprises many, read everything about it here.

Rookie and Staff of the split LCS
The LCS crowned the Rookie and the Staff of the Summer Split |©Riot Games (Montage)

The North American LCS has crowned the Rookie of the Year and the Coaching Staff of the Split. Just a couple of days ago, the LCS already revealed the three All-Pro Teams. The LCS Broadcast team, the pro-teams and third party media were able to vote for their favorites. Some of the winners were surprising for many fans.

LCS Crowns Most Improved Player

MIP LCS 2023 Licorice
Licorice was named as the Most Improved Player 2023 in the LCS |©Riot Games

To always improve is a hard task, but necessary to be successful in life. This is especially expected from athletes, and so many big sport leagues all around the globe are awarding their most improved players. The same applies to the North American LCS, which recently announced the winner of their Most Improved Player Awards.

The winner for the 2023 LCS Season is Golden Guardians Toplaner Eric "Licorice" Ritchie, who had an incredible season with his team and is only a few wins away from reaching the season finals. Golden Guardians reached the second place, behind Cloud 9, in the Regular Season and has to play against Team Dignitas in the Second Round of the LCS Playoffs now

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Licorice has been part of the franchise since July 2021, when he joined from a short stint at FlyQuest. In his 7 years as a pro-player, Licorice played for teams like Cloud 9 and their Challenger Team, eUnited and FlyQuest. It will be interesting to follow Licorice's career in the future, and maybe we will see him at Worlds this year as well.

LCS Crowns Rookie of the Year

Every season brings new faces to the League, who are hyped to prove themselves on the biggest League of Legends stage there is in North America. And so in every season there is the award for the Rookie of the Year, to crown the young player that showed the most and had the biggest impact.

For the LCS 2023, the voters chose Team Liquid's Sean "Yeon" Sung

ROTY 16 X9
Yeon won the Rookie of the Year award |©Riot Games

Yeon has been playing on Liquid's main roster since December 2022 and has been part of the franchise since December 2020. Before joining the LCS roster, Yeon was active for the TL Academy squad. He played an overall impressive split in which his team finished 4th in the regular season but failed to move further into the playoffs after loosing in the Upper Bracket Round 1 against NRG.

Yeon was 37 point ahead of the second placed 100Thieves Support-Player, Alan "Busio" Cwalina, and his teammate Eain "APA" Stearns.

Rookie of the Year
1st - TL Yeon (87 Points)
T-2nd - 100 Busio (50 Points)
T-2nd - TL APA (50 Points)

LCS Crowns Coaching Staff of the Summer Split

COACHING STAFF 16 X9
The Golden Guardians apparently had the best Coaching Staff of the Split|©Riot Games

Also, the Coaching Staff of the Split was crowned. And the winner might be surprising for some fans. According to the votes, Golden Guardians had the best coaching staff of the LCS Summer Split 2023.

The staff consists out of head coach Samuel" Spookz" Broadley, who has been part of the franchise since 2019 in varying roles. Since November 2021, Spookz has been responsible for the GG main team, before this he was coaching the Golden Guardians Academy side for roughly 3 years

Also, part of the staff are assistant coach Aaron "Chus" Bland, part of GG since December 2019, and General Manager Nick "Inero" Smith who has been with the org since August 2018.

Together they coached the roster to an impressive second place finish in the LCS and so to the Second Round of the playoffs. GG's next match will be against NRG, which will take place on August 6, 2023.


Community Reaction

LEC Crowd
Of course the community has to discuss this votings |©Riot Games

Of course, an important decision like this, has to be discussed within the League of Legends community. And it wouldn't be the internet without a popular Subreddit threat about this topic. And it seems to be the case, that many users are fine with the voting and their outcome. So, let's take a look at some reactions and comments by the Reddit community.

And we're starting with the Rookie of the year.

Yeon is the 2023 LCS Rookie of the Year
by u/gandalf45435 in leagueoflegends

Apparently many fans are sharing the views of the voters and would also name Yeon as the Rookie of the Year, even tho some say that the selection wasn't the best in general.

The user "NenBE4St" for example wrote," undwerhelming rookie class tbh", and gets supported by the user "aisantuttle," who agreed with," Half of the candidates didn't even play a full split"

User "TopOfTheKey" commented on the vote, and agreed with the chosen player,

Yeon really did have an impressive statistical 2023 for a rookie. Still, it is pretty surprising to see how many first choice votes APA managed to get for eight regular season games.

User "Maxplosive" supports the decision as well and wrote,

Don't see who else it could have been, Busio too inconsistent and APA played too few games. Revenge probably locked for next week.

It will be interesting to see, how these players are going to perform in the upcoming splits and if they can manifest their position within the LCS landscape. A Rookie of the Year award is a good career start, for sure.

Now, let's take a look at some community reactions regarding the Coaching Staff of the Split.

LCK fans
More community reactions |©Riot Games

Golden Guardians wins 2023 Coaching Staff of the Split
by u/gandalf45435 in leagueoflegends

Here, the reactions are way more different than in the rookie thread. But still many users are agreeing with the decision made by the voters. User "Vilhelmgg" supports the outcome and simply wrote, "Yeah, that seems about right to me" and gets supported by the user "warpenguin," who stated as well, "No disagreement here".

Meanwhile, community member "Derk08", wondered about the missing voted for Evil Geniuses coaching staff,

I'm surprised that nobody is mentioning EG. They completely revamped their entire roster and ended up 3rd, 1 win behind the two MSI teams. Are they not the clear winners of this award?

And the user "Carpet-Heavy" had a more or less controversial opinion on the whole voting process and the award itself,

honestly just revamp the award into social media / content org of the split. that's what the LCS needs anyway, teams who put effort into promotion.
and that's basically how you might choose coaching staff anyway, by what is shown in their behind the scenes videos and such.

Well, only the future will show, how much impact the best coaching staff of the split might have in the upcoming split. Of course, we will keep you up-to-date once the new split begins. At the moment the GG staff has the chance to coach their team to the LCS Split title, surely a way to prove their quality.

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