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Fantasy LCS lessons learned from the 2015 Summer Split

Riot·8/5/2015, 10:00:00 PM·0 votes·5,070 views

We did it! We made it through another Fantasy LCS Split emotionally and mentally intact (mostly).

Winners, smile smugly knowing that you are definitively the best person in your group of 4/6/8 friends. Non-winners with the highest points-for, shake your fist indignantly at the heavens, for you were screwed. Non-winners with the highest points-against, mutter something bitter about luck and next year.

But whether you won or lost this time, you were part of a crazy and explosive Fantasy Split! Teams rose and fell with the frequency and recklessness of Bilgewater tides, and it took master captains with near-superpower-level prediction skills to navigate them well. Let's take a look at what we learned this Split.

Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda

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I wish I could travel back in time to give myself some Fantasy LCS advice for this Split -- don't worry, I would've shared it with you too! Here's what I would've said.

  • Trust No One: I went into my drafts believing that I could rely on Team Liquid, Team SoloMid, H2K, and Fnatic (and maybe even Cloud9 with their new mid laner Nicolaj "Incarnati0n" Jensen). Those were still (mostly) decent Fantasy teams this Split, but consistency was really only on the menu for one team! Fnatic was the only consistent team we could rely on week in and week out. Most of the time, we were better off just playing to the weakest schedule each week, instead of starting our "best" players.
     
  • Respect the Baby Boomers: Not your parents -- those new LCS squads fresh from the Challenger scene! Most of us were shy of new teams because Challenger squads have historically struggled during their first Split in the LCS. But, before this Split, that's always been due to their lack of experience. Origen taught us that we really can trust "new" LCS teams when they're stuffed with veteran players. They sold late in the draft due to people's uncertainty, and had tons of upside.

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  • Mids Don't Matter: Before this Split, mid laners have always been the hottest commodity in Fantasy LCS drafts. This time around, it was more important to have one of those potent top lane carries. Kill-happy top laners like Diego "Quas" Ruiz, Seong-hoon "Huni" Heo, and Eon-yeong "Impact" Jung scored significantly higher than their more passive counterparts, while it was pretty easy to find a decent mid laner late in the draft. Some of us found out a bit too late that we couldn't afford to draft top laners last, like we have in previous Splits.

Best Value Draft Picks

There's no greater feeling in Fantasy LCS than watching a player you took a risk on in the draft turn into a consistent point-delivering stud.

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  • Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng: CLG's veteran ADC was nowhere near the top of the draft list, even going undrafted in almost 30% of leagues. Every week, though, his consistency and outplay mechanics carried him to the No. 1 Fantasy spot of the Split!
     
  • Lee "Rush" Yoonjae: I saw Yeu-Jin "Reignover" Kim get picked in the first round of the draft. I saw William "Meteos" Hartman and Lucas "Santorin" Larsen go in the top rounds too. But smart owners grabbed Team Impulse's Rush late, and enjoyed owning the only non-ADC to break into the Top 5 scorers of the Split!

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  • Ryu "Ryu" Sang-wook: Fantasy owners believed in some of the H2K players on draft day, but mid laner Ryu wasn't one of them. Despite going undrafted in the vast majority of leagues, he was the most reliable player on the squad, scoring almost as many total points as his ADC Petter “Hjärnan” Freyschuss, but without as many big swings.
     
  • Jesper "Niels" Svenningsen: Very few Fantasy owners trusted Origen at the start of the Split. Niels was only drafted in half of the leagues, and was started in less than that! And while he wasn't the No. 1 ADC at the end of the Split, he broke into the Top 5. You couldn't ask for more from someone you picked up in the final round!

Worst Value Draft Picks

Even the best plans get sabotaged by things outside of our control. This is when we like to fall to our knees and curse the Fantasy LCS gods.

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  • Noh "Ninja" Geon-woo: I'll admit it. I drafted Ninja with my last pick as a pure upside speculation. And while Ninja looked great once he was able to play, it took four and a half weeks for his visa problems to get sorted out. Even the strongest Fantasy teams struggled to carry that dead weight for half the Split.
     
  • William "Meteos" Hartman: I just know that somewhere, some poor Fantasy owner had both Ninja and Meteos on their roster. If that was you, I'm sorry. You paid a high price for Meteos in the draft, he gave you weak points for 5 weeks, and then suddenly dropped out of the LCS right when Ninja showed up. Painful.

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  • Konstantinos "FORG1VEN" Tzortziou: In my draft guide for the Split, I argued that FORG1VEN was a contender for a first-position draft pick. Whoops, sorry about that. Gambit struggled for most of the Split, and ADC Fantasy points go where the team goes.
     
  • Petar "Unlimited" Georgiev: Copenhagen Wolves were an underdog Fantasy gold mine in the Spring Split, but they couldn't manage a repeat performance this time around. Owners were left hanging in Week 6, when the team lost several players, including Unlimited.

Goodbye for now!

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It's been a wild ride, friends. What lessons did you learn this Split? We've got plenty of time to reflect, commiserate, and celebrate before the next Fantasy season. For now, though, enjoy the Playoffs carefree. Don't worry about how that awesome outplay in mid lane will impact your Fantasy scores -- just bask in its glory.

Josh Augustine's favorite champion is Gangplank, 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.

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17 Comments

Toa of Death8/5/2015, 10:45:37 PM2 votes

I wish there was Fantasy for Worlds. ;_;

Furi8/5/2015, 10:44:00 PM1 votes

Lesson: Don't buy into new player hype unless its FNATIC :p can't tell ya how many leagues first picked Incarnation.

Niels was a hell of a sleeper pick, I got him in both the leagues I participated in. I'd argue he was the biggest surprise player of the year. I'd give him Rookie of the Split too to put the icing on the cake.

TurquoiseYoshi8/5/2015, 11:24:54 PM1 votes

I learned that I'm a genius for picking Rush and Apollo in the first 2 rounds, and picking up Fnatic (the team). Rush was my first pick, and it totally paid off.

The Lexer8/5/2015, 11:42:02 PM1 votes

I don't know why anybody thought Forg1ven was first pick worthy. He didn't put up good points on SK, who was basically the Fnatic of spring split. SK may have been amazing, and Forg1ven's few deaths per game is nice, but when you have the least deaths and still mediocre fantasy points, moving to another team might screw you up, and sure enough, it did.

Raise The Gnar8/6/2015, 10:55:32 AM1 votes

All CLG roster (with altec as my flex) got 1st in an 8-man league with a record of 7-2, damn mid split slump. XP Everyone laughed at me for doing it, but its me who's laughing straight to the bank with this, HAW, HAW HAW HAW HAW, HAWWWWW!

I did it last split too and came in 2nd (with the most points for) in an 8-man league as well. CLG does great in fantasy but we screw up in playoffs XD Hopefully not this time.

cloman1008/10/2015, 12:21:47 AM1 votes

wow i went all out on OG and won most. but then traded out all subs for gv and it killed me in week 9. at least piglet got enough points for one win our of my 8:P

TrollFan018/5/2015, 10:35:29 PM1 votes

I had Huni, Santorin, Febvian, Doublelift, Yellowstar, and Team SoloMid as my fantasy squad for most of the weeks. I fininshed 1st of my league with a 8-1 record.

Dizzilla8/18/2015, 10:15:35 PM1 votes

I really wanted to get in on this fantasy team stuff. But i don't have the time to sit through drafts or bother finding 3 people to play with. I'm not interested in gambling. I just would like to see how the players I'd put together in a team would do. (doublelift would have been my first pick from season 2 on. HUGE doublelift fan here) But i never got the chance since you have to first find 3 people who all have their own computer and be able to be on at the same time. (i know 3 people who play league but 2 of us have to share a computer, the other is on a different shift than us) Maybe next year we'll be able to have solo play for fantasy? Maybe be in a regional pool if there has to be something to compare it to. I like the idea of making teams with a set amount of points to spend on different picks and each pick being worth different amounts based on overall values but a 4 person group is a little much for some of us to come up with.