North America’s LCS has officially overtaken Europe’s LEC in the AWS Global Power Rankings. This marks the first time in League history that NA has ranked higher than EU in these widely-referenced rankings, ending years of European dominance in western League of Legends.
The rankings update comes right after the 2025 Mid-Season Invitational (MSI), where North American representative FlyQuest delivered notable results while Europe’s champion G2 Esports underperformed. This continues a trend of improving NA international showings alongside declining EU results over the past several years.
“NA has outperformed EU for the last three years now,” noted one observer, highlighting what the data now confirms. The AWS Global Power Rankings use a rolling three-year window of international results to measure regional strength, meaning older European successes no longer factor into the current standings.
Europe’s decline from its 2019 peak, when G2 Esports reached the World Championship finals, has been gradual but steady. During that era, European teams consistently outshined their North American counterparts at major tournaments, establishing the LEC as the clear second-best region behind the Eastern powerhouses of Korea’s LCK and China’s LPL.
The removal of older results from the calculation window— including G2’s dominant 6-0 performance against Evil Geniuses at MSI 2022—has sped up Europe’s fall in the rankings. Meanwhile, recent solid performances from teams like FlyQuest, Cloud9, and Team Liquid have helped boost North America’s standing.
At MSI 2025, G2 Esports failed to advance deep into the tournament, while FlyQuest beat expectations. Even Europe’s second-best team at the event, KOI, showed inconsistent form despite taking a game off Chinese powerhouse BLG.
The ranking shift also reflects broader struggles within European League of Legends. Top organizations like Fnatic have failed to maintain their historical standards, with one fan lamenting: “Fnatic is truly bad. LEC is shit and Fnatic cannot win a title. So sad.”
This power shift carries potential implications for future international tournaments. World Championship and MSI seeding partially depends on regional performance, meaning continued European struggles could eventually impact the number of teams they send to global events.
Not just a western shuffle
The global landscape is changing beyond just the LCS-LEC rivalry. Emerging regions like the PCS (Pacific Championship Series) and LCP are gaining ground, with teams like CTBC Flying Oyster showing they can compete with established regions.
“Just the level of cope in this thread from EU fans is unreal,” another observer noted. “It’s time to realize that EU [has been] living off the 2019 G2 and FNC success for way too long. LEC was getting worse and worse every year.”
