The Lolesports Fantasy League

On May 19, some of your favorite lolesports.com writers and personalities took a stab at Fantasy LCS. You've read all their articles and analysis, now it's time to put them in the hot seat. Here is the recap of what went down in their 8-man draft and their thoughts.

Don’t think we’ll leave you hanging without the results, either. Each week, we’ll be checking back in with our fantasy gurus to find out whose picks lived up to their expectations, whose exceeded them, and who wished they had grabbed someone else. Who do you think picked the best squads? Where will they end up? Stick around to find out.

First Round Picks

The rest of the picks can be found here. Full team rosters can be found here.

Strategies

Josh Augustine - No. 1 pick overall

I got so close to being happy with my team. I was fortunate enough to get the first pick and ended up with the crazy-strong Fnatic bot lane by round 2 (picks #1 and #17). Link (#16) and Shook (#32) aren't flashy, but they're great value picks on winning teams. They'll put up solid points every week, and I really like reliable players. MrRalleZ (#33) was my intended risky pick, and I'm happy to have him in my Flex where I can drop him in and out as my bench fluctuates.

ZionSpartan (#48) was my unintended risky pick. I waited too long to get a Top laner, and all the headliners were gone by the time I got there. I hope ZionSpartan will show up strong on the newly revamped Dignitas team. I also drafted Wickd (#49) at the same time to ensure I had a consistent, solid backup waiting in the wings. I think Alliance will do very well this split, and Wickd fits perfectly in the current meta. He'll outperform many of the Top laners drafted before him. I'm very happy with my bench overall. As long as Link stays healthy, it should provide consistent backups and flex rotations.

Thomas Watts - No. 2 pick overall

I intentionally auto-drafted for the lolesports freelancer draft in order to try and help others who missed their drafts, or are just dissatisfied with their overall roster and want to tweak it a bit.

My first reaction was that I needed to drop one of the Gambit players since starting three players from the same team can be a catastrophe. A single blowout loss by that team would almost certainly ruin that fantasy week. Of the three Gambit players I drafted, dropping Diamond is a bad idea, period, and the only other top laner available in the league at the moment is Westrice. Swapping Darien for Westrice results in a double-digit point drop, which is simply unacceptable. This left Edward as the lone droppable Gambit member.

Going forward, I am not wild about the point oscillations that Darien will give, so I will keep an eye out for any sort of Top laner that hits the free agent pool, and I still feel like my Support position is a patch job unless Gleebglarbu performs. I am very pleased with the rest of my team.

Jack Ho - No. 3 pick overall

My initial focus was going to be on the Jungler and Top lane positions, specifically Meteos and Balls if they were available. So I was rather pleased when I could pick either C9 player. I went with Meteos (#3) in the end because the Jungler position is more impactful (Junglers averaged 0.5 pts/game more than Top laners in Spring Split). My second pick was going to be a Top laner and Dyrus (#14) was next on my list after Balls. My fourth round pick was, interestingly enough, Amazing (#30) as a Flex. The only other Junglers picked since the start of the draft (besides my own Meteos pick) were dexter and Cyanide. I felt that by picking Amazing, I could deny solid Jungler choices from my colleagues.

Kev1n (#51) was a big steal as my first alternate. He has been a strong performing Top laner despite being on a lower ranked team. I delayed my team pick for as long as possible and locked in both SK Gaming (#62) and LMQ (#78) as undervalued sleeper Team picks in the Summer Split.

Kelsey Moser - No. 4 pick overall

Because of the scarcity of strong Jungler picks relative to other roles, I chose dexter (#4) after Meteos was picked, banking on his reliability over Amazing. This may seem surprising with Bjergsen still up, but I consider the Mid lane position to give reliably high points with little variation, even with Bjergsen's obviously strong performances. I then planned to choose Dyrus for a similar reason as my early Top lane pick, but I auto-drafted xPeke (#13). After Dyrus was taken, I deemed more value in choosing an early Support pick in the next round and chose Xpecial (#20), banking on picking up ackerman (#29) in the next round, which I did. I left AD Carry a little late, partly due to the xPeke pick, but I thought I could at least get Tabzz. Unfortunately, he was taken from me right before my turn, but Celaver (#36) was a solid alternative.

From there, people began picking up quite a lot of Junglers, and I figured it was easier to snipe another AD Carry and hope for a strong sleeper Support. Creaton (#45) seemed like the last viable pick in the ADC category, so I chose him for Flex. I was hoping to pick up Kev1n next round, but I again lost it right before my turn, and instead went for the reliable value in the Mid lane by taking the still fairly fresh but promising SELFIE (#52). Then auto-draft gave me Curse (#68), which was fine since I would have gotten a comparable team, and I was still able to pick up KiWiKiD (#77) last, which I found somewhat surprising.

Trent Murray - No. 5 pick overall

My overall strategies were as follows: Get at least one Cloud 9 player, draft two AD carries early for to ensure a quality flex, to wait as long as I could to get Alliance as my team, and to take a low tier NA player as a sleeper.

I went into the draft having said that I would take Sneaky (#5) over Bjergsen with the first pick. Both were available, and I stood by my convictions, for I am a man of principle. Plus, I think Sneaky is going to have an incredible split. Following my strategy of "Draft Cloud 9," Hai (#12) fell to me as my next pick, and I snatched him up. There were a few good Top lane options for my next pick, but I wanted to make a bold choice. I believe that CLG has a genuine shot at taking first place this split, and I wanted at least one CLG player. With everyone but Link gone at this pick, I took a gamble on Seraph (#21).

Cop was taken right before me, I couldn't wait another round for an AD Carry, so I took the highest rated player available, Imaqtpie (#28). I was hoping Shook would fall to me, but he went just a few picks too early. ROCCAT has the potential to do very well this split with the amount of upheaval in the EU, and Jankos (#37) has always been a very solid player. I needed a Jungler, and he was the right choice. My other option was to wait another round and risk it all on KottenX, but he seemed too big an unknown.

In the crazy event that Cloud 9 or Hai falls apart, I needed to have a back-up Mid. Instead of taking a sure thing, I decided to take a major flyer on Pobelter (#44). EG had a lot of problems last split, and one of the biggest was Pobelter not living with the team. EG could shock the world this split, and if they do, I can replace Imaqtpie at flex with Pobelter. At this point, I couldn't wait any longer for a Support; I feel very good about Alliance this split, so I went with my gut and took Nyph (#53). By now, I waited as long as I could on team, and still wound up with exactly who I wanted. Alliance (#60) is my choice to win the Summer Split and now I have them on my fantasy team. Aside from losing out on Cop, I hit on all of my goals, and picked up a few wildcards. If they pay off, I could have a very good season.

Ferguson Mitchell - No. 6 pick overall

My overall strategy heading into the draft was value picking based on last splits' stats, with an eye on roster changes where some teams could improve (Curse) and others may fall (Gambit). I was hoping to random a middle draft position (#3 or #4 overall) to get a top scorer and get an early pick on the snake. I ended up being gifted Bjergsen (#6), who was my top overall player, so there was no way I would pass him up. I went with consistency for my next pick and sOAZ (#11) fit the bill; Fnatic should be a solid team this year. I could take double ADC's, Vasilii (#22) and Cop (#27), in the next two rounds which would cut other drafters waiting too long on AD Carry.

After those two, it was value time to fill in Support, Jungler, and Team positions. I'm a Vanderhook (#38) convert and Crumbzz (#43) wasn't too bad last year. The next choice was tough, I could grab a Team to fill out my starting roster, or find a player with the highest potential to rotate into my Flex slot. I went with Voyboy (#54), hoping to wheel a top team like SK Gaming, CLG, or TSM (#59) in the next round. I had been eyeing Mor (#70) the entire draft as a player with huge potential paired with Vasilii and he fell right into my team. Continuing with the potential theme, I finished the draft with Innox (#75), who was on fire at the end of the Spring Split.

Andrew Whitmore - No. 7 pick overall

I wanted a really strong AD Carry duo so I could put one as my starter and the other in my Flex. I opened with Doublelift (#7) but lost out on WildTurtle. Ditching that strategy, I went with the strongest Top laner in NA with Balls (#10), who should see more points if the meta shifts towards Top lane carries. The next set of picks focused heavily on Mid laners, I needed to take XiaoWeiXiao (#23) immediately or I would've been stuck with a subpar Mid. I could grab an alternate later in case I misjudged LMQ's strength.

Cyanide (#26) somehow slipped through the cracks and I could pick up another Jungler if Fnatic repeats their Spring Split performance. With high expectations for CLG (#58), Aphromoo (#42) will definitely do better with Seraph. My bench choices were niQ (#71) and NoName (#55), value replacements in case my starters struggled.

Mattias Lehman - No. 8 pick overall

My ideal picks before the draft order was determined were:

• Top: Kev1n or ZionSpartan
• Jungle: Meteos/KottenX/Amazing
• Mid: Bjergsen/Shiphtur/Kerp/Jesiz
• ADC: Sneaky/WildTurtle or Imaqtpie/Tabzz/Cop/MrRallez/Creaton
• Support: LemonNation or Aphromoo

As the end portion of the snake draft, the top choices, Meteos, Sneaky, and Bjergsen were obviously all gone. My Top lane options weren’t worth picking; I was quite sure that my picks would make it back to me. This left LemonNation (#8) and WildTurtle (#9) as the top tier choices. My tier two was comprised of almost entirely ADCs, so I figured at least one would make it back around to me. I grabbed Shiphtur (#24) and Cloud 9 (#25), planning on picking up another ADC and KottenX (#40).

By the third round of picks, everybody had a starting Top laner except for one player, so I figured I would get either ZionSpartan or Kev1n. I secured my top remaining Jungler pick, and used my flex pick to grab a remaining Mid laner in Kerp (#41). I could have picked Creaton, but I’d had a feeling he would make it back around to me, and my next two picks would be him and Kev1n.

Unfortunately, neither Top laner made it back to me, nor did Creaton, so I ended up picking up Xaxus (#56) and Quas (#57). Hopefully one of them will step it up this season. I overestimated Team picks. I’d expected them to start going earlier, and I probably could have let Cloud 9 slide. I also overestimated Supports, and could have put off my LemonNation pick and gotten Aphromoo instead. I also should have grabbed Creaton over Kerp, because ADCs tend to be more stable. I just didn’t think anybody would go for Creaton.

I ended up getting 6 of my 8 projected picks, but feel I could have done better, and ended up with either Kev1n/ZionSpartan or Creaton.