Fantasy Love/Hate: Week 5
Riot·2/18/2015, 9:03:26 PM·0 votes·6,957 views
After such a tough week that left many Fantasy LCS owners wondering if they'd wasted their first-round pick, we need to sort out the illusions from the players we can depend on this week.
It's TSM's turn to beat on the Team Coast punching bag. We all know to start Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg, but Jang-sik "Lustboy" Ham could actually be the most exciting player this week. Team Coast and Team Liquid both allow a steady stream of points to enemy supports: 17 points/game average -- as much as Dignitas allows opposing ADCs!
Lustboy went 1-0-11 and racked up 18.7 points the last time TSM played Liquid. In the following three games, Liquid only killed opposing supports twice. Coast manages to kill supports more often, but they kindly get themselves killed even more -- so the support still makes out well.
Lustboy might not be able to bully the benched Piglet this week, but you can still start the LCS' favorite Twitter troll with confidence. It's going to be good.
Gambit Gaming (vs. Meet Your Makers, Fnatic)
Gambit Gaming has occupied the top team position for two weeks -- half the season! Yet I still see them available for pickup in every fantasy league I'm in. Their 43 points in Week 3 is still this season's record.
Week 9 could be rough for Gambit, but that's four weeks away and they've got a nice mix of matchups until then. If they keep up steam, Gambit (7th in team position) could be a nice short-term team swap for the stubborn people still holding onto Cloud9 (9th), Team Liquid (10th), or Elements (11th).
The current Gambit roster doesn't have the pedigree of those other teams, which'll make fantasy managers nervous. But remember that almost no one keeps a backup team on their roster, making it the safest position to target short-term gains with.
Winterfox showed up big this past week, with Johnny "Altec" Ru and Eugene "Pobelter" Park shooting up to the 2nd and 3rd fantasy positions, respectively. That was partially due to soft matchups (Team Impulse and Cloud9), and this week's matchups are equally squishy.
However, there is one big potential problem: Winterfox is starting their new support this week. Hyeonsu"Imagine" Jang is highly touted by the team, but he's still going to have a learning curve and culture shock coming straight from Korea. (See exhibit A: Team Liquid's Gwang-jin "Piglet" Chae, who was just benched for his inability to adapt.)
Altec will now be the only player on the team who does not speak Korean, which Pobelter has said in interviews will be the primary language used during matches. Maybe Altec plays just as well with only pings for communication. Maybe he synergizes immediately with his new support and they dominate lane. Maybe he'll be 2nd overall again this week.
But I'm not willing to risk it. There are too many things that could go wrong, and the reward, surprisingly, doesn't look very big. Dignitas has only allowed opposing ADCs an average of 17 points in their last four games. Liquid has given them 20.
37 points is a pretty average score for an ADC -- Kristoffer "P1noy" Albao was the No. 13 ADC last week with that many points. I'd be surprised if you didn't have a more stable bench player that could net you a similar score without taking on a massive amount of risk.
Overpow (vs. Copenhagen Wolves, Elements)
Remigiusz "Overpow" Pusch has only produced good fantasy points on one week. He gave owners 46.76 points in Week 3, but has averaged 17.56 points the rest of the time. Overpow owners (and I used to be one): it's time to face the hard truth. You've got to cut and run -- and do it quick. You don't want him on your roster this week.
Yes, Elements are on a three-game losing streak, but in those losses, they've only given up 14.3 points on average to opposing top laners. Mike "Wickd" Peterson may not be the most threatening lane opponent, but he limited Overpow's potential for picks in these team's first encounter in week 2 (1/7/7, 10.8 points).
On the other side, Copenhagen Wolves' long games have given great points to opposing top laners lately (35 points average in their last two weeks). But those points weren't given away, they were stolen by top-lane studs Seung-Hoon "Huni" Heo, Simon "fredy122" Payne, Tamás "Vizicsacsi" Kiss, and Lucas "Cabochard" Simon-Meslet, who on average score 62% more points than Overpow.
Josh Augustine's favorite champion is Sion, he's never enjoyed a Darius, and he will always go for the kill, even when he knows he shouldn't. He currently works as a game designer on EverQuest Next at Daybreak Games. He’d love to talk with you on Twitter.
For Fantasy Week 5, We Love...
Freeze (vs. ROCCAT, Meet Your Maker) Okay, bring out the whipping post. Aleš "Freeze" Kněžínek cranked out some great fantasy numbers last week... after I put him on my bench list. Consider this listing my official apology, and buy me a ticket for the Copenhagen Wolves fantasy hype train. It's okay, I'll pay the late fee. Despite having the hardest matchups in the LCS (Fnatic and SK Gaming), Freeze managed to land in the 5th ADC spot last week (49.30 points). Almost all of those points came from their upset win over Fnatic, but even in the brutal stomping SK Gaming gave them, Freeze managed 8.5 points while his teammates struggled to stay above 0. This week should be much easier. While MYM beat the Wolves in Week 2, the Wolves have improved a lot (3-1 in games since then) while MYM has somehow managed to get worse (0-4 since). MYM won that match solely on the back of Cho "H0R0" Jae-hwan's Jarvan IV (3/1/12, 89% kill participation), and the Wolves probably won't let that pick go through again. ROCCAT is the last team the Wolves haven't played, so it's hard to rely on solid stats. But now that ROCCAT seems to be on on tilt, letting opposing ADCs score 32 points last week, Freeze's prospects are looking up this week.. And that's the harder opponent for Freeze this week. Lustboy (vs. Team Coast, Team Liquid)
It's TSM's turn to beat on the Team Coast punching bag. We all know to start Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg, but Jang-sik "Lustboy" Ham could actually be the most exciting player this week. Team Coast and Team Liquid both allow a steady stream of points to enemy supports: 17 points/game average -- as much as Dignitas allows opposing ADCs!
Lustboy went 1-0-11 and racked up 18.7 points the last time TSM played Liquid. In the following three games, Liquid only killed opposing supports twice. Coast manages to kill supports more often, but they kindly get themselves killed even more -- so the support still makes out well.
Lustboy might not be able to bully the benched Piglet this week, but you can still start the LCS' favorite Twitter troll with confidence. It's going to be good.
Gambit Gaming (vs. Meet Your Makers, Fnatic)
Gambit Gaming has occupied the top team position for two weeks -- half the season! Yet I still see them available for pickup in every fantasy league I'm in. Their 43 points in Week 3 is still this season's record.
Week 9 could be rough for Gambit, but that's four weeks away and they've got a nice mix of matchups until then. If they keep up steam, Gambit (7th in team position) could be a nice short-term team swap for the stubborn people still holding onto Cloud9 (9th), Team Liquid (10th), or Elements (11th).
The current Gambit roster doesn't have the pedigree of those other teams, which'll make fantasy managers nervous. But remember that almost no one keeps a backup team on their roster, making it the safest position to target short-term gains with.
But We Hate...
Altec (vs. Team Dignitas, Team Liquid)
Winterfox showed up big this past week, with Johnny "Altec" Ru and Eugene "Pobelter" Park shooting up to the 2nd and 3rd fantasy positions, respectively. That was partially due to soft matchups (Team Impulse and Cloud9), and this week's matchups are equally squishy.
However, there is one big potential problem: Winterfox is starting their new support this week. Hyeonsu"Imagine" Jang is highly touted by the team, but he's still going to have a learning curve and culture shock coming straight from Korea. (See exhibit A: Team Liquid's Gwang-jin "Piglet" Chae, who was just benched for his inability to adapt.)
Altec will now be the only player on the team who does not speak Korean, which Pobelter has said in interviews will be the primary language used during matches. Maybe Altec plays just as well with only pings for communication. Maybe he synergizes immediately with his new support and they dominate lane. Maybe he'll be 2nd overall again this week.
But I'm not willing to risk it. There are too many things that could go wrong, and the reward, surprisingly, doesn't look very big. Dignitas has only allowed opposing ADCs an average of 17 points in their last four games. Liquid has given them 20.
37 points is a pretty average score for an ADC -- Kristoffer "P1noy" Albao was the No. 13 ADC last week with that many points. I'd be surprised if you didn't have a more stable bench player that could net you a similar score without taking on a massive amount of risk.
Overpow (vs. Copenhagen Wolves, Elements)
Remigiusz "Overpow" Pusch has only produced good fantasy points on one week. He gave owners 46.76 points in Week 3, but has averaged 17.56 points the rest of the time. Overpow owners (and I used to be one): it's time to face the hard truth. You've got to cut and run -- and do it quick. You don't want him on your roster this week.
Yes, Elements are on a three-game losing streak, but in those losses, they've only given up 14.3 points on average to opposing top laners. Mike "Wickd" Peterson may not be the most threatening lane opponent, but he limited Overpow's potential for picks in these team's first encounter in week 2 (1/7/7, 10.8 points).
On the other side, Copenhagen Wolves' long games have given great points to opposing top laners lately (35 points average in their last two weeks). But those points weren't given away, they were stolen by top-lane studs Seung-Hoon "Huni" Heo, Simon "fredy122" Payne, Tamás "Vizicsacsi" Kiss, and Lucas "Cabochard" Simon-Meslet, who on average score 62% more points than Overpow.
Josh Augustine's favorite champion is Sion, he's never enjoyed a Darius, and he will always go for the kill, even when he knows he shouldn't. He currently works as a game designer on EverQuest Next at Daybreak Games. He’d love to talk with you on Twitter.
