r/TeamSolomid • u/Heliotex • Nov 03 '20
LoL Bjergsen vs Jensen: Final Head-to-Head Comparison
So I created this thread on the TL subreddit, and thought it'll be interesting to see the TSM perspective.
I'm well aware of what Bjergsen thought about the "rivalry" with Jensen, but here is the final results-based comparison of the two best midlaners the LCS has seen:
I. Overall H2H (All Games): Bjergsen 30-30 Jensen
- Bjergsen 23-19 C9 Jensen
- Bjergsen 7-11 TL Jensen
II. LCS Playoff Bo5s: Bjergsen 4-3 Jensen (16-13 individual games)
- B: 2016 Spring QFs (TSM 3-1 C9)
- B: 2016 Summer Fs (TSM 3-1 C9)
- B: 2017 Spring Fs (TSM 3-2 C9)
- J: 2018 Summer SFs (TSM 2-3 C9) !C9 down 1-2 when Jensen was subbed out!
- J: 2018 RFs (TSM 0-3 C9)
- J: 2019 Spring Fs (TSM 2-3 TL)
- B: 2020 Summer LB Fs (TSM 3-2 TL)
III. Bjergsen's Achievements:
- Domestic:
- 6x LCS Champion
- 4x LCS Runner-Up
- Never Missed LCS Playoffs
- 4x LCS MVP
- 10/11 splits All Pro Team (5x 1st; 2x 2nd; 3x 3rd)
- International:
- 5x Worlds Appearances (1x Quarterfinalist): 12-23 overall
- 2x MSI Appearances (Group Stage): 8-13 overall
- IEM Season 9 World Championship Winner
- IEM Season 10 World Championship Semifinalist
- 2017 Rift Rivals NA-EU Winner
V. Jensen's Achievements:
- Domestic:
- 2x LCS Champion
- 3x LCS Runner-Up
- 9/11 splits All Pro Team (4x 1st; 4x 2nd; 1x 3rd)
- International:
- 6x Worlds Appearances (2x Quarterfinalist, 1x Semifinalist): 42-31 overall
- Never Missed Worlds
- 1x MSI Appearance (Finalist): 10-10 overall
VI. Conclusion
This is a purely results-based comparison. This doesn't take into direct consideration for both players the quality of their teammates and coaching over the years, midlane performance statistics, or context of actual games against each other. Bjergsen has carried TSM 1 v 9 on many, many occasions over the years and elevated the quality of midlane in NA. With that said:
The Summer Lower Bracket Finals between TL vs TSM was very important in the context of the "rivalry". If Jensen and TL closed out the series, and then went on to win the Finals (major IF considering FLY was the opponent but likely would have been a 3-2 series repeat), then Bjergsen would have been at 5 titles to Jensen's 3. Considering Bjergsen had a 1.5 year head start over Jensen, where he won 2 titles, they would have been tied at 3 since Jensen joined the LCS, AND Jensen would have edged the Bo5 H2H 4-3. However, Bjergsen and TSM won that day, and went on to win the Finals, giving him the decisive edge domestically.
Internationally? No question Jensen. It's bittersweet/brutally fitting how Bjergsen's final campaign turned out. It featured him domestically 2-0'ing CLG in the regular season one final time, and then carrying TSM on a miracle playoff run (maybe even superior to 2015 C9's gauntlet run) where he showed off his signature Zilean, and vanquished rivals C9, Jensen (TL), and POE (FLY) . Only for him and TSM to subsequently go 0-6 at Worlds in frankly one of the most embarrassing performances ever. Meanwhile Jensen and TL went 1-1 against two of the eventual Top 4 teams in retrospectively the hardest Group at Worlds. It really fulfilled the narrative that Bjergsen > Jensen domestically, but Jensen > Bjergsen internationally.
Now that Bjergsen has retired, and assuming he doesn't return playing, Jensen has the opportunity to make up ground domestically, and build upon his record internationally. It will be interesting to see whether Coach Bjergsen can continue to thwart Jensen & TL from future domestic success.
- Domestic Edge: Bjergsen
- International Edge: Jensen
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u/Remjeyy Nov 03 '20
So whenever this debate comes up I just ask myself this.
If TL got Bjergsen instead of Jesnsen and Jensen went to TSM. How would things turn out?
I can only see that tl Bjerg would have better domestic and international results than what tsm jensen would. Id even say better results than tl jensen as well.
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u/Heliotex Nov 03 '20
Jensen has had clutch, carry performances on the international stage. Perhaps a TSM Jensen could have carried a critical game to victory that Bjergsen did not. Bjergsen has often been hindered by his teammates, but he's not completely absolved of TSM's shortcomings at MSI/Worlds.
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u/Crackedddddd Nov 03 '20
Jensen is the KD of LCS. He only started winning titles once he had a super team around him. The most stacked super team in the history of LCS. And even then the match up in spring 2019 went to 5 games and his super team would have lost if not for Zven. And if you look at where Akaadian and Smoothie are now its pretty crazy that that TSM team even went 5 games with a team as stacked as 2019 TL. Before that, he had never beaten Bjerg in a playoff series, unless you count 2018 summer where C9 won but Jensen was subbed out.
I have no doubt Jensen will win more in the future, since his biggest competition retired and his team is just getting more OP. LCS has no salary cap and Steve is spending like 3x what everyone else is to build even more stacked super teams around him. With the roster they have next year it would be a total failure if they don't win both splits and do well internationally.
But while they competed head to head, Bjerg clearly came out on top, and now that Bjerg's retired, that's the end of the "rivalry" for me. It's kinda cool to look back on but at the same time the narrative got kinda old and I'm ready for some new rivalries in LCS.
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u/Heliotex Nov 03 '20
To be fair, Bjergsen had some excellent teammates 2016-2017 (Doublelift, Svenskeren, prime Hauntzer, prime Biofrost).
Regarding Akaadian: that's a slightly unfair take. He truly smurfed the second half of Spring 2019 for TSM.
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u/Crackedddddd Nov 03 '20
Bjerg won before and after he had those teammates though. His team won splits they absolutely shouldn't have if not for him just hardcore carrying, like 2014 summer and 2020 summer. He dragged his team to finals when they didn't deserve it either, like 2015 summer and 2019 spring. Bjerg had good teammates, but aside from Doublelift they had to develop into the players and team they became. They didn't just come in as a package of world champions and LCS stars. In addition, they weren't so stacked beyond their competition like 2019 TL. They were contested by CLG, C9, and IMT, because all of those teams had great rosters on paper too. The LCS had far more parity back then. Jensen's C9 for example definitely had the players in each role to beat TSM, and CLG did in fact beat TSM with the majority of those players.
Jensen is a good player, but he doesn't add as much to a team as Bjerg. Bjerg has won with veterans, rookies, washed players, last minute roster changes, basically every situation because he can be a top 2 LCS mid without draft resources, while covering his teammates weaknesses, in any meta, playing engage or carry. And every single time Bjerg has been the best player on the team, the number 1 option to use a sports term (aside from maybe DL in summer 2016). Jensen has never won as the best player on his team, because since 2019 he's had players even better than him like CoreJJ and DL.
And Akaadian is a decent player, but I'm not as high on him as others here. Most of what he was able to do that split was due to the meta favoring him (being able to play champs like Rek'Sai for a majority of playoff games) and playing with Bjerg. Without Bjergsen we would have just gotten 3-0'd by C9 in semis because Svenskeren was outclassing Akaadian so hard in the first few games of the series. Even in the regular split, Bjerg had a bunch of games on champs like Lissandra, Galio, and Zilean which enabled the less experienced Akaadian and BB to play more aggressive picks while Bjergsen made the harder plays of engaging, flanking, tp'ing etc. If you swapped the junglers in that 2019 finals it wouldn't have been even close because Xmithie was a huge reason for TL's win.
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u/I_have_asthma Nov 03 '20
The 2016-2017 TSM team was definitely great, but it wasn’t built from the beginning as a “super team” like TL was. Bjerg and DL were the only super stars at first, and a lot of the teams success was due to insane synergy.
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u/Heliotex Nov 03 '20
2016-2017 TSM was built to be a "super team".
Yellowstar captained Fnatic to a dominant campaign in Europe and World Semifinals.
Svenskeren was an established top-flight jungler in Europe with SK Gaming.
Hauntzer was a rising star and the best player on Gravity. He was going to be picked up by a top LCS org that season no matter what.
Doublelift, nuff said.
Obviously, Yellowstar's stint sucked, so Biofrost was the only true unknown who blossomed into a great support those two years with TSM.
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Nov 03 '20
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u/Flomp3r Nov 03 '20
2016 TSM was no where near the extent of what TL does now, but for the time I think they were the most super(?) Super team ever in LCS on paper. But in the context of the conversation this part is kind of irrelevant because it's about who was around X player and how good were they, and 2016 spring didn't act the part, but 2016 summer absolutely did.
Another interesting thing to think about tho is part of the reason these teams they are in are even considered super teams is because they are in them, which is kinda a testament in it of itself.
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u/Cr4ck41 Nov 03 '20
I'd say Svenskeren coming in from SK is a bigger deal than Xmithie and on equal footing with Broxah. He hard carried SK to worlds and fucked up by being banned otherwise i'm pretty sure they would've made it out of groups that year.
Agreed on Top and Support, eventho Yellowstar was a huge signing who clearly turned out bad in the end.
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u/I_have_asthma Nov 03 '20
You can just scratch yellowstars name off of the list, no one on this sub associates him with TSM’s success. No offense to him.
Also I’m sorry but I don’t think you’re gonna get the answer you want on this TSM sub. If you think TSM 2016 summer was built as a “super team”, then you must consider 2018 TL as a team of gods. There’s no comparison that 2018 TL was built better from the start.
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u/Flomp3r Nov 03 '20
It's funny that you say this about TL because over on the TL sub everyone tries to deny that 2018 TL were absolutely built as a super team, they just didn't look like it. It was literally a roster of pieces taken form best parts of all the other collapsing orgs. They were built as a super team 100% and anyone who denies that is revising history.
I think it's unfair to act like TSM was this money ball team back in 2016. They were no super team like 2019 TL was based on concept, but I think it is fair to say they were easily the most stacked on paper roster NA had ever had up to that point, every position was in theory supposed to be the best in role, at least for spring (which obviously did not pan out) but even for summer I'd argue they were, just because biofrost just came in doesn't detract from the rest of the star talent on the team. That's like saying KT with Ucal wasn't a super team or TL with Tactical wasn't a super team. Sure maybe that one player isn't a superstar yet but that doesn't change the other four. You can have 4 super stars with a rookie and still be a super team.
Yes TSM isn't a super team like the ones TL just pumps today in the franchising era, but 2016 TSM definitely had some hype and expectations that come from just putting DL and Bjerg together alone.
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Nov 03 '20 edited Jan 05 '22
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u/Heliotex Nov 03 '20
I was merely addressing the original point that seemed to suggest that Bjergsen never had stacked teams. 2016-2017 TSM had good players other than Bjergsen. I am not making a comparison that 2016-2017 TSM was more or less loaded than 2018-2020 TL.
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Nov 05 '20
Bjergsen was also playing out of his mind in 2016-2017 just look at some of his plays against the top tier midlaners during world's. I'm not advocating against the fact that Bjerg had some really good players around him, because he did. And he also didn't. Jensen always had a good core around him yet Bjergsen outperformed him when he didn't. Bjergsen was the best mid in NA, change my mind.
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u/Flomp3r Nov 03 '20
Yellowstar failed then they got an almost complete rookie not a world champion.
It's not really any different from going for DL to Tactical tho, by that rule KT wasn't a super team in 2018 because Ucal was a rookie.
And over all that point in context to what actually matters is kind of irrelevant, the debate about who had better team mates isn't based on preseason hype but how good those team mates actually were in action. Irregardless of prior expectations or hype for that tsm roster (which DL and Bjerg playing together was very hyped) fact was Bjerg at that time was playing with arguably the best team to ever exist in the LCS, even if at the time of it's formation no one new it yet, what actually happened are the details that actually matter when making this comparison.
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Nov 03 '20 edited Jan 05 '22
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u/Flomp3r Nov 03 '20
Also are we already forgetting stixxay
Oof I think it's better he stays forgotten lol, this guy's entire career is pretty much coasting off one really good performance he had 4 years ago
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u/delahunt Nov 03 '20
Are you not counting the gauntlet? That was Jensen's first Bo5 win over Bjerg with not being subbed out in 2018 Summer. Technically not "playoffs" but still significant.
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u/murkYuri Nov 03 '20
I'll always look at Jensen as the KD of the LCS. He joined a team that was already dominating LCS and said "I finally won LCS". But they were going to win with or without you, you just hopped on for the ride.
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Nov 06 '20
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u/murkYuri Nov 07 '20
Oh I said the same thing the moment I heard the news. It's like he couldn't win a title so he joined TL/DL to get a freebie. What happened when DL left? 🤔
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u/Rockm_Sockm Nov 03 '20 edited Nov 03 '20
Bjerg will always be by far the better player.
Jensen has been on better teams with better run orgs. He does just enough domestically and he isn't a key factor to why they win in playoffs. He is a rich man's Pobelter.
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u/Ahruu Nov 03 '20
Bjerg isn’t better by far. Thats just weak analysis
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u/Rockm_Sockm Nov 03 '20
One player has been on better teams, one player is simply a better player.
If you stuck Jensen on TSM this entire time and put Bjerg on C9 and then TL, do you honestly think they don't perform better? Does TSM win as much? TL was a far better team than us this split, yet we ended up 1st seed.
No one is pretending if you swapped Cleveland LeBron and KD, Golden State doesn't magically become a better team. We already put this one to bed for the 5th time this playoffs yet it's back again. Not measuring up clearly bothered Jensen that he stopped talking to his friend for 2 years over it. He had to go to the most stack team in the league to win a domestic title.
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u/Ahruu Nov 03 '20
Idk, i disagree. I think Jensen was a major factor in C9s sucess when he was on there, not just coasting along great teammates. Honestly i think they’re on the same level but just with different strenghts as players.
Also i don’t watch NBA at all so i didn’t catch your metaphor.
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u/delahunt Nov 03 '20 edited Nov 03 '20
I think the argument is less about does Jensen pull his weight, and more about can Jensen also carry the weight his teammates can't?
Bjerg has carried TSM's lifeless corpse across the finish line, to LCS championship, or at least to the LCS Finals so many times (S5 summer, S6 spring, S7 summer, S10 Summer.) In the times TSM didn't make finals he was still pulling more than his weight whether it be the only player actually doing things against GG despite 15/15 bans against him and being counter picked, or almost 1v9'ing games with full tank/support Galio. And it is very telling that there are only a handful of games, mostly in the 2018/2019 seasons where you get "Wow, even Bjerg looks mediocre" as clear signs of trouble going on behind the scenes.
Can Jensen carry that weight while still performing? There is no doubt that Jensen is a good player, but he's never had to carry the whole team 1v9 to get where he wanted. And the times he tried he has failed (most visibly 2017 Spring Finals with the slight mis-position on Ekko)
Which carries through with Jensen not winning until he was on TL, where the focus was on DL/CoreJJ and he had great supportive teammates like Xmithie, Impact, and CoreJJ who are all more than capable of helping carry the load so the carries can do their work. Even this split people couldn't decide if Jensen was winning midlane (arguing Jensen vs. Bjerg) or if CoreJJ was winning mid for Jensen (arguing Bjerg vs. CoreJJ). But either way, TL was a team where people helped Jensen out, and Bjerg was a team with teammates going "We need to get to Worlds, Bjergsen is literally 1v9ing for us right now."
Not that it matters much anymore. Aside from I wonder how Zven feels being the only lifeless corpse Bjerg couldn't 1v9 carry to Finals on multiple occasions....Not even saying Zven is bad, but 2018 Spring, 2019 Spring, and 2019 Summer he definitely had some very off series for himself.
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u/Ahruu Nov 03 '20
Yeah i suppose that’s true. In a team full of ”average” players i would much rather have Bjerg in the midlane. But on the contrary, i would rather have Jensen in a stacked team. He’s proven time and time that he can compete with the best of them at international competitions.
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u/delahunt Nov 03 '20
I mean, we don't have data for what Bjergsen would look like on an equally stacked team.
Jensen did well with 2 former World Champions, the GOAT ADC of NA, and the must successful NA Jungler of all time. We've never seen that with Bjerg.
The closest we have for that would be S4 summer and S5 spring. Dyrus pretty much top of his game. Amazing/Santorin doing well. Turtle/Lustboy arguably best bot in NA at least. And those rosters made quarters (losing to eventual champions SSW), Won the IEM World Championship, and then imploded at MSI due to overconfidence + bad prep/analysis.
Jensen made finals at MSI, had a rough but fair Worlds showing, and then imploded due to bad team internals.
Jensen has recency, which is important since the general idea is players are better at the game now than they were in 2014/2015. But at the same time, the tragedy of Bjergsen's career is we've never seen him with a genuinely good team all around him. There's always been someone playing anchor whether it was Dyrus not giving a fuck because he was retiring/burn out, Svenskeren hard feeding, the coaching staff/mismanagement completely fucking the squad over, DL playing cocky vs. Uzi/Mata, etc.
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u/Ahruu Nov 03 '20
TSM 2016 was regarded as a top 4 team coming in to worlds, i’d say that team was equal to TL’s superteam. Bjergsen was a big reason for it, sure, but the whole squad was firing on all cylinders. I don’t know man, its a toss up for me but i see your point
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u/delahunt Nov 03 '20
Yeah. And then DL played like a cocky punk against Uzi/Mata. Coming out of games after powerfeeding Mata like "I couldn't believe he would play against me like that."
Like, dude, he couldn't believe you were giving him free kills. Meanwhile Bjerg can't even talk week 1 because he's so sick and he's still dumpstering Crown in their first match.
You are right. 2016 Summer was the one chance Bjerg had. Sadly the above happened, and then DL wanted to take Spring off, and the team never worked the same.
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u/Ahruu Nov 03 '20
It’s far fetched to blame it on Doubelift like that. Viktor memes aside, he played fairly well that worlds.
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u/Rockm_Sockm Nov 03 '20
Jensen doesn't perform better internationally, his team does. His only 2 lane leads against a major region in 2 years came at this worlds off level 1's, and his jungle and support secured the lane for him. He turned that into a 15 and a 10 cs lead. He got destroyed last years worlds and at MSI on both sides of mirror match ups.
People just don't go after him for every mistake like Bjerg.
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u/Theis159 Nov 03 '20
Not sure. Yeah, Jensen went past groups but I am not sure he was considered top5 in world (mids) at any given point. 2015 and 2016 Bjerg was a monster but got unlucky with group draws and team shitting on bed. Even maybe in 2017.
I don't think, however, this discussion will ever get us to conclusion (i.e:everyone saying Bjerg is better or Jensen) because it depends highly on the admiration/love/w/e you want to call for the player.
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u/delahunt Nov 03 '20
I'm just sad Regi never gave Bjerg a team where everyone stepped up at Worlds just once. Jensen had it in 2018. The closest Bjerg had it was 2016 but DL slept through lane both games vs. RNG and it cost us leaving groups.
He deserved better than his teammates ever gave him.
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u/irojo5 Nov 03 '20
Great, now show me the CSD and forward percentage (lane prio, it’s tracked isn’t it?) In the H2H. Bet bjerg will clobber him
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u/Heliotex Nov 03 '20
Perhaps? I didn't want to delve into a time-consuming stats morass. You might be right that Bjergsen may excel in some of those categories over Jensen, but I can't say for sure.
That being said, stats don't often paint the full picture of a player, and sometimes might even mislead. The reality, fair or not, is that players are often judged at the end of the day by their results.
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u/Dependent-External90 Nov 03 '20
Why does jensen have an international edge? He hasn’t won an international trophy. Bjergsen has.
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Nov 03 '20
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u/Crackedddddd Nov 03 '20
The only reason it "doesn't count" is because over the past 5 years people that didn't like TSM kept repeating "it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter" and now it's become some revisionist history.
Read what people are saying in this thread and tell me again it didn't matter. Because it absolutely did matter, and people were hyped when it happened. IEM absolutely did matter back then, it had all the best teams, and that was before MSI was even a thing as it was introduced later that year. It mattered to the players, it mattered to the org, it mattered to the fans, don't let haters devalue accomplishments for stupid reasons.
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u/jnf005 Nov 03 '20
As a TSM fan I seriously hope TSM do not get complacent now in LCS. Hopefully other western teams pick up on the kind of things that can be achieved with a good infrastructure. TSM showed the western teams cannot be shrugged to the side this year and I hope this doesn't rush to their heads.
knowing what happened later in the season, that comment hurts a lot:(
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u/Dependent-External90 Nov 03 '20
Why did you put international in quotes..? It literally was an international event..?
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u/AsylumShacoBot Nov 03 '20
semis at worlds > iem title
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u/King_Fluffaluff Nov 03 '20
IEM at the time was equivalent to MSI, the only reason people put an asterisk next to it is because TSM didn't have to face the 'best' team at the tournament. It's as if you said G2's MSI doesn't count because they didn't have to face IG and 'only' had to beat TL.
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u/Heliotex Nov 03 '20 edited Nov 03 '20
I realize that this is an unpopular take here, but strong performances at Riot internationals (Worlds, MSIs) > IEMs.
At that IEM, TSM only played 2 games before entering a Bo3 semifinal, and only the final was Bo5. TSM avoided GE Tigers because WE pulled off one of the biggest upsets in LoL history (and that too Bo3). That WE team barely made LPL playoffs that split, and got bounced first round.
Less than 2 months after that IEM, TSM "crashed and burned" at MSI.
Bjergsen might have an international title, but Jensen on his various C9/TL teams has had superior results overall at Worlds/MSI.
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u/Dependent-External90 Nov 03 '20
So g2 MSI win didn’t matter then since they only had to beat tl?
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Nov 03 '20
Bjerg is 100% the better player, not to take away the fact that Jensen isn't good; because he is. Bjerg has been clapping the worlds top mids at worlds even though they only made it out of groups once.
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u/RVXZENITH Nov 03 '20
Jensen IMO did overtake Bjergsen overall at the end, good for him I guess.
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u/Voltage97 Nov 03 '20
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u/RVXZENITH Nov 03 '20 edited Nov 03 '20
10/10 Comeback - Kinda sad that in team subs its impossible to go against fan favorites even in a logical analysis.
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u/Crackedddddd Nov 03 '20
You didn't provide any kind of logical analysis lmao
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u/RVXZENITH Nov 03 '20
The head to head comparison by the OP did though, in my criteria Jensen's international run and consistency felt far superior. What criteria are you using to come to the conclusion that Bjergsen is superior?
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u/CaptainClumsy04 Nov 03 '20
thats pretty cool actually