Kaan "Naak Nako" Okan being crowned LEC Spring 2026 regular-season MVP just minutes before Team Vitality got swept out of the playoffs was a unique moment. The award itself is genuinely historic, since he's the first toplaner to take LEC MVP in nine years, following Tamás "Vizicsacsi" Kiss in Spring 2017 back when the league was still the EU LCS, and only the second top laner ever to win it. This was an interesting moment for the role, like goalkeepers in football very important but rarely awarded. Then, basically as the confetti settled, Movistar KOI dismantled Vitality 3-0 in the upper bracket.
The case for the award wasn't close to controversial, which is what makes it worth dwelling on. Naak Nako led the entire LEC in average gold difference at 15 minutes (675) and XP difference at 15 minutes (640), topped the league in KDA, CS per minute, and gold per minute among top laners, and racked up 17 solo kills, one behind MKOI's Joseph "Jojopyun" Pyun. The vote was tight on raw first-place picks, with Jojopyun actually edging him by a single first-place vote, but Naak Nako's consistency across ballots carried it, and 35 of the 40 All-Pro voters named him the best toplaner in the league. He also wasn't especially humble about it, telling the broadcast "there was not much competition so, I was expecting it".
The All-Pro Vote Is Where the Arguments Actually Live
The All-Pro vote was the controversy of the event. The first team read Naak Nako, G2's Rudy "SkewMond" Semaan, Jojopyun, and Karmine Corp's Caliste "Caliste" Henry-Hennebert and Alan "Busio" Cwalina, which means G2, widely considered the best team in the league, landed only a single player on it. That's a strange outcome for the team most people expect to win the whole thing, and it points to a voting process that rewards flashy individual lane stats over the quieter contributions that make a dominant team tick. Steven "Hans Sama" Liv getting bumped to the second team was the snub most people fixated on.
Why the Sweep Reframes the Whole Thing
Vitality had a strange event to day the least. A first-place regular-season finish, the league's MVP, a first-team All-Pro top laner, and the reward was a 3-0 exit at the first real test. Regular-season dominance in League has always been a shakier predictor of playoff success than the standings suggest. Naak Nako himself flagged exactly that weakness earlier in the split, admitting Vitality were "losing games we're ahead in most of the time."
More:LEC Apologizes After Inappropriate Fan Message Airs During Karmine Corp vs Team Heretics Broadcast
Read
Source Editing
Visual Editing
Related news
