Fantasy Love/Hate: Spring 2016 Week 2
Life is good. Fantasy LCS is back and I hope you're having fun and doing well in your leagues so far!
We're bringing our Love/Hate column back for 2016. In it, we'll look at the players we're excited to start each week in the LCS, and the players with schedules or situations that make us hesitant to start them. As always, feel free to share your own opinions or ask questions in the comments below!
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For Fantasy Week 2, We Love...
Cloud9's Hai (vs. TIP, CLG)
Most teams have one tough matchup and one easy matchup this week, which is actually ideal for fantasy points. As owners, we want to be confident that our players will get at least one win, and still have one other match that could drag out for awhile and give everybody involved plenty of time for team fights. (Remember the golden rule of fantasy LCS: Lots of team fights = Lots of points).
And boy did Hai get a lot of points for a Support. He snagged 21 in his lone match last week -- almost doubling his top laner Balls' points-per-game and landing him way ahead of everyone not named Rush on C9. Hai's chess-like shotcaller style is perfect for fantasy owners: he's on the frontlines, leading the charge every time.
At the time of this writing, Cloud9 hasn't announced whether or not Hai will be starting this week, but I assume he will because of how big of impact he had last week. You need to keep an eye on the C9 roster, though. If we find out that Hai is going to sit out even one match, use your imagination to replace this entire section with paragraphs about how awesome C9's Rush is.
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H2K's FORG1VENGRE (vs. FNC, G2)
H2K and Immortals were the most intimidating squads in Week 1, due to their dream-team combination of individual skill and smart macro play -- or, as FORG1VENGRE says, they, "Don't play Solo Queue."
Fnatic is the biggest potential stumbling block for FORG1VENGRE this week, but I think he'll be able to contain and counter Rekkles' surprising aggression that upset Origen's bot lane last week. And in H2K's wins so far, Forg1ven has been the biggest benefactor, averaging 24 points per game last week.
G2 stomped their opponents pretty hard last week too, keeping the enemy ADCs in check, which may make you hesitant here. But that's actually a good sign for this week's matchup. G2 should provide some resistance (most likely in the mid lane, where G2's strongest), but H2K is a much higher caliber team than either EL or ROC and should still ultimately win in a longer match.
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Renegade's Freeze (vs. TIP, DIG)
The top four ADCs in Week 1 were all in NA, where the games lasted much longer than they did in EU. It might surprise you that Freeze ended up in the #2 spot, ahead of even the untouchable WildTurtle. But that's the perk of Renegades apparent slow-and-patient playstyle.
As Renegades continue to go for clean, methodical strategies, their games will go longer and give Freeze plenty of time to put some kill notches on his weapon of choice. This week offers two of their weakest opponents at once, which is better than most of the other teams' schedules. And Team Dignitas had some long matches of their own last week.
But We Hate...
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Unicorns of Love's Fox (vs. FNC, OG)
The Unicorns of Love mostly put up great fantasy scores last week against SPY and GIA. Vizicsacsi was the #3 top laner and Hylissang was the #8 support. But mid laner Fox didn't get as involved in the fights and actually had the lowest points-per-game on the squad, averaging 15 (#12 mid laner).
It won't get easier this week as he faces off against two of the best mid laners in EU: Febiven and PowerofEvil. Both of those teams stumbled a bit in Week 1, which leaves the door open for a UOL upset, but I'm not ready to take that bet just yet.
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Liquid's IWDominate (vs. CLG, FOX)
Liquid had the longest game times in Week 1 (61 minutes and 43 minutes), which makes all of their players attractive prospects for fantasy. In fact, Piglet was #2 overall last week despite losing both games!
But you can really only start Piglet and Fenix (and maybe Lourlo) with 100% confidence right now. They're clearly the core of this team, and TL has shown they won't hesitate to swap out the rest of the roster with subs to find a combination that works best.
That's a pretty frustrating situation for fantasy owners, but it's gotta be even worse for IWDominate, whose sub Dardoch looked fantastic against TSM. If there's going to be any sort of time-sharing here, you have to avoid this position entirely.
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Echo Fox's Froggen (vs. TL, NRG)
As soon as you read that stat about TL having the longest matches last week, your inner-theorycrafter should've perked up and started scanning the teams they're playing this week for potential sleepers who could benefit from long games. If you did that, you probably did a big dramatic gasp the second that you saw Froggen -- the patron saint of long games -- on the list. But, hold onto that gasp, buddy. I think that pick is a trap.
Here's why: Echo Fox has a super tough schedule that'll likely end in double losses this week. Remember how we talked about at the start of this article that we want one "guaranteed" win in our starter's schedule. Both opposing teams have the raw player skill to roll over the rookies on FOX. There will be great weeks to selectively start FOX's studs, but this doesn't look like one of them.
Josh Augustine's favorite champion is Veigar, 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 at Daybreak Games. He’d love to talk with you on Twitter.
