Fantasy Love/Hate: Week 3
Riot·2/4/2015, 9:48:49 PM·0 votes·11,024 views
Teams continue to rapidly rise and fall in these first few weeks. It's impossible to predict the final standings, but we can help you pick a few Fantasy LCS prospects to jump on board with or dump to the bench.
Don't let their 1-3 record scare you. ROCCAT is the best losing team in Europe right now. Victory was within grasp in all but one of their games, and they even kept up with Froggen and crew's legendary late game stall until the very end. Their losses have been against Fnatic, SK Gaming, and Elements -- the top three teams in the region.
Even in their losses, ROCCAT still managed put up decent team points (13 pts/game average right now). Last week, ROCCAT scored more points (31) while losing both games than teams like Unicorns of Love (28) and MYM (18) did while going 1-1. This week's opponents (Giants and MYM) should be much easier, clearing the way for more first bloods, objectives, and quick wins.
Cloud9 gave us a glimmer of hope in their match against Team Liquid, suppressing Chae "Piglet" Gwang-jin while Hai "Hai" Du Lam went crazy in the mid lane, scoring more points in that one match (22) than he did in Week 1 (18).
But their follow-up match against Counter Logic Gaming was an embarrassing mess, and Hai had the most dirt on his hands. He carried deaths instead of his team, lugging around more than half of Cloud9's total deaths for most of the match. By the end, he was almost 100 cs behind his opponent and only had a weak 3/6/2 record to show for it.
At least two of those deaths were caused by foolish mistakes, like impotently following a fleeing Vi into a blind mid lane, where Zaqueri "Aphromoo" Black's Dark Binding guaranteed a quick 3v1 kill and loss of Hai's blue buff.
Cloud9 still has plenty of opportunity to turn this split around, and they have shown some signs of returning to their former glory. But we're not ready to rely on Hai, who appears to be the fantasy player suffering most from C9's struggles right now. Stash him until you know it's safe.
Loulex (vs. SK Gaming, Gambit Gaming)
The No. 4 player in Europe is almost certainly available for pickup in your league right now. Does that sound like a trap? It probably is. Only Froggen, Bora "YellOwStaR" Kim, and Martin "Rekkles" Larsson beat Jean-Victor "loulex" Burgevin's score (55.58) in Week 2, but you should be very hesitant to start him this week.
In Week 1, Loulex was #76 overall, earning only 11 points. H2K Gaming found some footing when facing off against the less-than-formidable MYM and Giants last week, but they haven't earned our trust yet. Their match against the 0-4 Gambit Gaming should be a nice point-booster next week, but SK will almost certain shut them down.
If you have room, consider stashing him on your bench. He's not yet reliable enough to start.
Josh Augustine's favorite champion is Vladimir, 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.
We Love...
Froggen (vs. Meet Your Makers, SK Gaming) Like his team, Henrik "Froggen" Hansen got off to a rough start this season, despite only playing against one team with a winning record. He's shown some inconsistency: he was the No. 1 mid laner last week, but No. 8 the week before. But I saw two things that convinced me to start him this week, despite his formidable SK Gaming matchup. The first reassurance was seeing Froggen and his teammates channeling the old CLG.EU trademark of long games. And as we know, "long games" roughly translates to "many, many points oh god yes thank you!" in fantasy speak. By the end of their hour-long match against ROCCAT, it didn't matter if Elements won or lost (they won). The previous 63 minutes had been full of fights and objectives that led to massive stats for both teams' players, with Froggen topping the charts with a 5-3-7 KDA and almost 500 creep score (cs). The second reason I believe in Froggen this week is how he described his mindset in his match against Copenhagen Wolves. He made mistakes early on when he was under pressure, and his team fell behind. That, Froggen said, annoyed him. Thankfully, Froggen responds to anger like the Hulk: he swapped into all-out-aggressive mode and dove onto those pesky opponents trying to shut him down. That response netted him the clean double-kill in the teamfight shown above, during which he was presumably shouting, "You want to fight, punks? I'll fight you! I'll kill every last one of yoooooouuuuuu!" at the top of his lungs. Froggen should build up strong momentum in Elements' easy match against MYM, which will help him rise to the challenge against SK on Friday. With any luck, it'll turn into another hour-long bloodbath. Even if it doesn't, I suspect this is the last week that I'll need to tell you to start Froggen. WildTurtle (vs. Team Dignitas, Team Impulse) Despite some great plays on the Rift, Jason "WildTurtle" Tran has underperformed a bit in fantasy the first two weeks. He was the No. 9 ADC in Week 1 and No. 7 in Week 2. TSM has also been a bit of a question mark. Are they the real deal? Is WildTurtle going to lead them to another NA victory? Frankly, we don't care. We want fantasy points, and WildTurtle will give them to us this week, thanks to his incredibly easy matchups. Team Dignitas is a hot mess right now. They've only killed opposing ADCs twice in their four games so far, letting opposing ADCs amass an average KDA of 14. Impulse only won their bot lane in one match (against Team 8) and had a 2.06 average KDA in their other three games. WildTurtle and Jang-sik "Lustboy" Ham should have no problem snowballing out of lane in either of these games. And if Apollo "Apollo" Price puts up a fight, it might actually help WildTurtle's fantasy points. The biggest danger this week is that they'll win these games too quickly. ROCCAT (vs. Giants Gaming, Meet Your Makers)
Don't let their 1-3 record scare you. ROCCAT is the best losing team in Europe right now. Victory was within grasp in all but one of their games, and they even kept up with Froggen and crew's legendary late game stall until the very end. Their losses have been against Fnatic, SK Gaming, and Elements -- the top three teams in the region.
Even in their losses, ROCCAT still managed put up decent team points (13 pts/game average right now). Last week, ROCCAT scored more points (31) while losing both games than teams like Unicorns of Love (28) and MYM (18) did while going 1-1. This week's opponents (Giants and MYM) should be much easier, clearing the way for more first bloods, objectives, and quick wins.
But We Hate...
Hai (vs. Team 8, Team Coast)
Cloud9 gave us a glimmer of hope in their match against Team Liquid, suppressing Chae "Piglet" Gwang-jin while Hai "Hai" Du Lam went crazy in the mid lane, scoring more points in that one match (22) than he did in Week 1 (18).
But their follow-up match against Counter Logic Gaming was an embarrassing mess, and Hai had the most dirt on his hands. He carried deaths instead of his team, lugging around more than half of Cloud9's total deaths for most of the match. By the end, he was almost 100 cs behind his opponent and only had a weak 3/6/2 record to show for it.
At least two of those deaths were caused by foolish mistakes, like impotently following a fleeing Vi into a blind mid lane, where Zaqueri "Aphromoo" Black's Dark Binding guaranteed a quick 3v1 kill and loss of Hai's blue buff.
Cloud9 still has plenty of opportunity to turn this split around, and they have shown some signs of returning to their former glory. But we're not ready to rely on Hai, who appears to be the fantasy player suffering most from C9's struggles right now. Stash him until you know it's safe.
Loulex (vs. SK Gaming, Gambit Gaming)
The No. 4 player in Europe is almost certainly available for pickup in your league right now. Does that sound like a trap? It probably is. Only Froggen, Bora "YellOwStaR" Kim, and Martin "Rekkles" Larsson beat Jean-Victor "loulex" Burgevin's score (55.58) in Week 2, but you should be very hesitant to start him this week.
In Week 1, Loulex was #76 overall, earning only 11 points. H2K Gaming found some footing when facing off against the less-than-formidable MYM and Giants last week, but they haven't earned our trust yet. Their match against the 0-4 Gambit Gaming should be a nice point-booster next week, but SK will almost certain shut them down.
If you have room, consider stashing him on your bench. He's not yet reliable enough to start.
Josh Augustine's favorite champion is Vladimir, 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.