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Too Long;Didn't Broadcast: LCK's KING-ZONE DragonX

Riot·5/11/2018, 12:00:28 AM·0 votes·5,029 views

With the Play-In Stage still fresh in our minds, we turn our attention to the 2018 MSI Group Stage - kicking off in just a matter of hours. Since we've already taken a look at who will be playing and how some of the Casters prepare for an event, we wanted to peel back the curtain just a little bit more and share some of that preparation with the players at home. In this issue of TL;DB: we dive into one of the team breakdown documents that the Stats team prepares for broadcast in order to get to know the teams, players, and play styles just a little bit better. Because it's more of an outline than an article, the information may be bullet-pointed while graphs and tables are used to showcase areas of strength or weakness. Who better to start with than one of the tournament favorites that some of you may (or may not) know a thing or two about...

 

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LCK - KING-ZONE DragonX (KZ)

Author: Bobni Das

Top Takeaways

  • High expectations will be on this team as they are probably one of the front-runners to take this tournament.
  • Strong play and emphasis coming out of the Top and Bot side of the map with facilitation coming from the Jungle and Mid-lane.
  • Composed of stand-out members in all of their lanes.
  • One potential weakness could be the exploitation of the low amount of time that Peanut spends around his laners due to the lane pressure they exert. 

League Overview (LCK)

  • Double Round Robin Best of 3 (Bo3) format with 10 teams participating across 9 weeks for the Regular Season
  • Top 5 teams from the regular season qualify for Playoffs with the top seed getting a direct bye into the Finals
  • Playoffs are a “King of the Hill” style bracket. 
  • Round 1 is Bo3 while all remaining rounds of Best of 5
  • Playoff matches were played on patch 8.6 with Kai’Sa enabled.
  • We include all players who have played 30% or more of the average number of games for a player in the league, for the LCK league these are how many players are included in the ranking for each position (rankings are always among position unless otherwise stated):

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Team Overview

This is a rebranded roster that was sold over to KING-ZONE from Longzhu Gaming

  • The only player change is the swap from Cuzz to Peanut for the starting Jungler spot.
  • LCK 2017 Summer Champions
  • Worlds 2017 Quarterfinalist
  • LCK 2018 Spring Champions (With the swap from Cuzz to Peanut)

Are coming into MSI as one of the frontrunners for being the tournament favorite off of a dominant LCK split

16-2 regular season match record (33-7 game record) w/ 1 loss occurring during the Khan suspension

First team outside of SKT to attend MSI from the LCK.

The team is composed of 3 notable veteran members who all have their own pedigrees. The accomplishments below are only their achievements prior to joining Longzhu/KING-ZONE:

  • PraY is probably the most veteran player on the team, with experience stemming all the way back to Season 2.
    • 2x LCK Champion
    • 1x Worlds Quarterfinalist, 2x Semifinalist, 1x Finalist
    • Has lost to the tournament Winner of Worlds each time (S2 TPA, S3 SKT, S5 SKT, S6 SKT, S7 Samsung)
  • GorillA comes as the second most veteran player on this roster. He is also known for having popularized the MF support pick from the Season 6 Worlds Semifinals.
    • 1x LCK Champion
    • 1x Worlds Quarterfinalist, 1x Semifinalist, 1x Finalist
  • Peanut has his own pedigree as well. He has played with Pray and Gorilla on the ROX tigers in the past and then went on to also join SKT during their 2017 season.
    • 2x LCK Champion
    • 1x MSI Champion
    • 1x Worlds Semifinalist, 1x Finalist

 

Analysis

Early Game

Stats from Regular Season + Playoffs

 

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Average Gold Difference over Timestamp (10, 15, 20 or 25 minutes) for teams in the 2018 LCK Spring Split

 

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Based on KZ’s gold differentials they are a team that looks to spike very heavily starting around the 20-25 minute mark.

Their CS leads, as shown in their Team CSD@15, also allow them the ability to secure leads in the early game just based off of laning.

 

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*TD@15 represents Team Tower Differential @ 15 minutes

Typically in the early game, KZ doesn’t force an aggressive tower trading game.

  • Team T@15: 0.4 (4th highest)
  • Opp. Team T@15: 0.2 (lowest)
  • However looking at FT% and FB%, it is clear they still are on the more proactive side of playing the early game.
  • For context: The LCK average is at 0.4 for Team T@15, which might lead to the low tower trading early game.

DRAKE% and BARON% showcase that KZ is able to keep a stranglehold onto objectives throughout their games

 

Snowballing

Stats from Regular Season + Playoffs

 

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For an explanation of M-LEAD and M-DEFICIT, check out how it looks at gold leads

While they don’t have the overall fastest Game Time (2nd to KT who has 36:10), KZ wins their games the fastest and stalls out losses the longest.

M-LEAD and M-DEFICIT are also remarkable when you compare those numbers to KT, who have the 2nd highest in those categories for the LCK:

  • KT w/ 35.7% M-LEAD (8.9% Percentage Point (PP) Difference)
  • KT w/ 19.8% M-Deficit (13.1% PP Difference)

 

Playstyle (Summer 2017 vs Spring 2018)

Stats from Regular Season + Playoffs

 

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DMG% by Role, comparing KZ to 2017 Summer LZ and the 2018 LCK Spring Average

Looking at their DMG% their clear focal points are their Top lane and ADC.

  • This is in somewhat of a contrast to last years Summer LZ (⅘ of the same roster) who were all around about the same damage share.
  • Bdd (Mid) appears to significantly stepped back the most here in terms of relative damage output, especially compared to the Summer 2017 iteration. (This is further explored on the Players to Watch and Picks to Watch Section for Bdd)

 

Prioritization

Stats from Regular Season + Playoffs

 

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*JP-D represents Jungle proximity difference, which is the time an ally Jungler spends within Proximity minus the opposing Jungler's time

Most of Peanut’s (Jungler) time, when he is ganking, is spent around Mid-lane.

The low JP’s and JP-Diff’s are related to the low Team JP that Peanut outputs to his team.

  • Peanut instead gains advantages with his large CSD@15 (+6.8), GD@15 (+297), and XPD@15** (+209) which are all at least top 2 for Junglers.
  • He somewhat gets away with this because of the laning prowess that his teammates all have.
  • All the KZ laners are top 3 for their role in CSD@15 and almost all output relatively high DMG/M as well
  • The one exception is Bdd (Mid), but when looking at his DMG/M-D*** against other mid laners he still breaks out ahead (+23 which ranks 5th)

The topside of the map (Top, Jungler, and Mid) all also boast the highest KDA for each of their positions respectively.

Looking at CS%15-30, further allocations go towards Khan (Top) and PraY (ADC), with Bdd taking a slightly lower share of CS once KZ transitions out of laning.

**XPD@15 represents experience point difference, which is the difference between a player and their opponent's experience points at 15 minutes

***DMG/M-D represents damage per minute difference, which is the difference between a player and their opponent's damage per minute through the game

 

Players to Watch

Khan - Top Lane

 

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Stats from Regular Season + Playoffs

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Khan is shown to be an aggressive player with his high FWD and dominant CSD@15 statistics.

  • Of the 9 champions that he has played this split, 6 of the 9 fall into the category of being carry style champions: Gangplank, Jayce, Camille, Vladimir, Riven, and Fiora

Khan leads DMG/M, but also leads DMG/M-D at +188. This means that with KZ’s average game time of 36:38, that Khan will deal ~6890 more damage than his opposing top laner.

Khan's FWD and DMG/M-D speak to what his role is: Apply pressure topside and allow Peanut to invade. Numbers show (see the above Team JP) that Peanut doesn't gank lanes frequently, and focuses on applying pressure to split the map in favor of objectives.

Khan’s KP might be one of the few weaker parts of his skillset where he falls a bit below the toplane average.

  • This is due to the high amount of time spent split-pushing and damaging turrets, exerting his own pressure on the map (showcased here by his high FWD).
  • However, he more than makes up for this due to his high Teamfight KDA* contribution.

*Teamfight KDA is defined as the kills and assists over deaths in situations where 4 or 5 allies fight in the proximity of 4 or 5 enemies.

 

Bdd - Mid Lane - LCK Season MVP

 

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Stats from Regular Season + Playoffs

 

Bdd’s teamfight KDA is actually 2nd in the LCK overall (Behind SKT Bang’s), with a 3.1 K/D ratio in those teamfights.

Like Khan, Bdd also plays very forward in lane as seen in his FWD

One surprising statistic is his slightly low KP in comparison to other mid laners.

  • In fact, 4 out of his 5 most played mid-laners all have some kind of global ability in their kits (Ryze, Taliyah, Sion, and Galio) which further confounds this stat.
  • These champs are also why his DMG/M is most likely on the lower end of the Mid lane spectrum, most likely due to him having a teammate like Khan who can step into the damage role.

His Midlane Team Proximity (The amount of time 3-15 minutes that the mid-laner is within 2000 units of their teammates) is the lowest at 23.2% (11th).

One explanation could be that he is more economic with his roams and only leaves lane when those ganks and roams would be successful as shown in his high K+A@15/G.

 

Picks to Watch

Khan's Top 4 Champions

Stats from Regular Season + Playoffs

 

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Khan's champ pool focuses predominantly on carrying. As noted before, the majority (6 out of 9) of his champions can be classified as carry top laners.

Of particular note, would of course be his Jayce.

  • His career record since 2017 on Jayce is 19-2 with a 5.2 KDA.
  • For the LCK Spring 2018 Split:
  • He has a 45.7% FWD on Jayce
  • A +2.1% JP-D (His highest)

An interesting note, when playing Gnar, Khan boasts a confident 64.8% FWD.

 

Peanut's Olaf

Stats from Regular Season + Playoffs

 

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Peanut brought out Olaf in Week 6 of the LCK, and since then has become the 6th most banned champion against KZ with 10 bans.

The scoreline for Peanut's Olaf breaks down as 24/1/35 - with an impressive 4.0 K+A@15/G.

On average, Peanut will have a Team JP of 38.9%, while opponents will have 29.8%.

He also boasts a 17.0% CJ* (His average overall is 10.8% when he isn’t on Olaf).

*CJ is Counter-Jungle Rate, which showcases the percentage of time a jungler is withing the enemy's jungle quadrants from 3 to 15 minutes of a game.

 

Bdd's Roaming Champions

Stats from Regular Season + Playoffs

 

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As mentioned previously, 4 out of the 5 most played champions for Bdd have global abilities (with Azir being the exception at 7 games played).

Of particular note there is clearly a high priority on Bdd’s Galio.

It flaunts a high KDA combined with a high K+A@15 statline as well

The one downside could be his low CSD on this champion, but the LCK average CSD@15 for Galio is already at -10.3, so this statline is actually not as bad as it initially appears.

 

PraY's Kai'Sa

Stats from Regular Season + Playoffs

 

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This pick is of note due to the fact that KZ prioritized picking Kai’Sa for their bot lane in all 4 games of the LCK finals.

  • They picked her first round on Red side, with 1 second round pick and 1 first pick on Blue side.

There is a clear spike in the carry stats coming from PraY when he played this champion (DMG%, K%, and KDA) versus the champions he played in the regular season.

  • He had a 11/1/7 Teamfight scoreline on Kai’Sa during the finals.

 

Breakout

What Are KZ’s potential Weaknesses?

Stats from Regular Season + Playoffs

 

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In the 8 games that KZ lost this split, the biggest deficits come from the bot lane.

Regardless of Win or Loss, Khan is a consistent factor for the team with his ability to keep gold leads.

In losses, Peanut and Bdd have non-existent gold differentials going into the mid game, which might affect their play-making ability.

  • Looking at Peanuts ADC JP:
  • In Wins: 7.5% (0.5% JP-D)
  • In Losses: 3.8% (-5.9% JP-D)
  • The bot-lane has received a lot more jungle pressure in KZ’s losses, which further has affected the Gold Differentials that they come out of lane with.

What could cause Peanut to not match the pressure Bot?

  • Peanut’s CSD and XP-D@15

 

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In losses, Peanut is unable to come out of the Jungle with a significant CS, XP, or Gold advantage, which probably allows him less agency to affect the map as much.

  • His Team JP drops from 34.3% to 29.9%
  • K+A@15/G drops from 2.2 (2nd) to 0.6 (10th)

 

Conclusion

Now that the numbers are in plain sight, it's understandable how so many players are calling KING-ZONE DragonX "the team to beat" at MSI. While clearly powerful, only time will tell if the first non-SKT LCK representative at MSI are able to bring about the same success as their predecessors. Wanting to know more about the competition? Meet the teams attending the 2018 Mid-Season Invitational, or check out @LoLEsportsStats on Twitter for more information and analysis as the event goes on! The MSI Group Stage begins Friday, May 11th starting at 11AM CEST, 2AM PDT as FNC take on RNG, with KZ vs TL starting 1PM CEST / 4AM PDT.

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