The Perfect Fantasy Team

Riot·Aug 18, 2014·1 votes·43,730 views

The Fantasy LCS’ initial drafting phase made and broke countless teams during its inaugural season. Some participants showed foresight by picking “sleepers” such as Kerp and leapt to the front of their respective leagues, while others opted for safer, more traditional picks like YellOwStaR and were equally rewarded. On the other hand, some owners simply chose players they liked.

But what about the perfect draft? Without the gift of clairvoyance, predicting the most valuable players during the pre-season draft proved a difficult feat. Now, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, we’ve done the work for you and drafted the perfect fantasy team based on players’ points per game (PPG) for the season.

Here are the results:

Top: Kev1n [18.13 PPG]

Jungle: KottenX [17.11 PPG]

Mid Lane: Kerp [22.72 PPG]

AD Carry: Rekkles [23.49 PPG]

Support: YellOwStaR [18.63 PPG]

Flex: Creaton [22.60 PPG]

Team: Fnatic [15.75 PPG]

The Fnatic duo of YellOwStaR and Rekkles received MVP in the EU LCS three times between the two of them, giving Fnatic more MVPs than any other team in Europe this split. Meanwhile, Millenium’s Kerp, Creaton, KottenX, and Kev1n simply proved consistent point generators throughout the season, symbiotically feeding off each others’ success. (Millenium’s support, Alexander “Jree” Bergström, trailed his teammates slightly as the third highest support).

The members of Millenium enjoyed a highly successful Fantasy season.

Fnatic decisively won the team pick, as they came within the Top 3 of all point-generating categories; they had the most towers destroyed; second most first-bloods, dragons, and victories; and third most Baron kills.

If you were clever (or lucky) enough to draft any combination of these players, you definitely enjoyed a lucrative fantasy season. But while these six players and Fnatic have proven themselves extraordinary individuals both on the Rift and in the realm of Fantasy, observant fans may notice an unexpected theme to our team.

Europe vs. North America

Rekkles and YellOwStaR garnered more than 1100 points together and helped spur Fnatic’s mid-season rise.

Many fans considered Europe the “weaker” LCS region this split, especially in the opening weeks, with inconsistent results by even their most talented teams. But in the Fantasy League, Europe completely ran over their North American counterparts, outright winning every conceivable head-to-head matchup.

Let’s start with each region’s highest individual players for each role:

Position	Europe	North America
Top	Kev1n (18.13)	Quas (16.58)
Jungle	KottenX (18.60)	NoName (16.04)
Mid Lane	Kerp (22.72)	XiaoWeiXiao (20.21)
AD Carry	Rekkles (23.49)	Vasilii (20.91)
Support	YellOwStaR (18.62)	Mor (15.60)
Team	Fnatic (15.75)	Cloud9 (14.43)

The top European players scored more points than the North Americans in every single position. North America came closest to their trans-Atlantic rivals in the team category, where Cloud9 trailed Fnatic by only 1.32 PPG, while we found the largest gap in the support role, where YellOwStaR trounced the North American supports with a 3.02 PPG lead over Mor.

Once we expand to the Top 3 for each position overall, Europe’s success becomes even more apparent.

Position	1st Place	2nd Place	3rd Place
Top	Kev1n (18.13)	sOAZ (16.86)	Quas (16.58)
Jungle	KottenX (18.60)	Shook (17.11)	Cyanide (16.35)
Mid	Kerp (22.72)	Froggen (22.17)	xPeke (20.53)
AD Carry	Rekkles (23.49)	Creaton (22.70)	Tabzz (21.10)
Support	YellOwStaR (18.62)	Nyph (16.54)	Jree (15.60)
Team	Fnatic (15.75)	Alliance (15.43)	Cloud9 (14.43)

North America only appears twice on the Top 3 list, and both times in the third place position. Top North American teams like Cloud9 and LMQ, have been unable to convert their strengths into points relative to the top European teams.

Other Notable Accomplishments

These are just a few of the highlights from the very first Fantasy season, and below we’ve included a couple more. But if you consider yourself a stats aficionado, then delve into the post-season Fantasy Stats Tab and share below what intriguing trends or factoids you discover!

We’ll drop a couple more stats below and leave you to explore the rest on your own.

Most Points in a Single Game*

Place	Player	PPG	Position	Team	Week
1st Place	Rekkles	55.51	AD Carry	Fnatic	Week 9
2nd Place	Shiphtur	51.84	Mid	Dignitas	Week 1
3rd Place	Sneaky	51.26	AD Carry	Cloud9	Week 10

*This ignores the chaotic Alliance vs. Millenium game at the end of the season which featured Froggen, Nyph, and Wickd with 68.36, 66.94, and 64.63 points respectively (also omitting the other players in this game).

Most Points in a Single Week

Place	Player	Points	Position	Team	# of Games	Week
1st Place	Diamond	117.89	Jungle	Gambit	4 Games	Week 11
2nd Place	Froggen	116.94	Mid Lane	Alliance	4 Games	Week 11
3rd Place	NiQ	116.36	Mid Lane	Gambit	4 Games	Week 11

Have any more feedback on Fantasy LCS? We'd love to hear to from you. Click here!

Gilean spends most days writing about eSports and occasionally shouting about them. You can follow him @HHGilean

56 Comments

im CrisAug 18, 201423 votes

Way to stir up the EU > NA thing again...

Gaxx DAug 18, 20145 votes

Yeah, I already see those "that's because in EU games don't end before 50 minutes, so they get a lot of points" and "NA can't farm, so they don't get points" and the likes.

FietAug 18, 20145 votes

I don't think that first argument will work, when NA just broke the longest game of the season record with an 80 minute game and EU featured 20 min surrender by SK to alliance also a 23 minute base race of Alliance vs Fnatic and a bunch more fast games like that this season. So no one will probably start that one.

GornothDragnBoneAug 18, 20144 votes

yeah but the regions are still pretty much even, and we're both behind korea and a bit behind china. that's what people should focus on

VenoxisAug 19, 201410 votes

Haha, your argument is even worse, you can't pick outliers as your examples, you have to get the average game time of all the games played in both regions.

im CrisAug 18, 201424 votes

Well EU did have more games that lasted longer but still, I don't like it when our regions talk trash. We need to focus more on being better than China and Korea

College DebtsAug 19, 20143 votes

I think EU games are pretty fun in the playoff, regular season sucks though

LithenaiAug 19, 20149 votes

One of the things that I really note is that points are based on kills and what not and while NA has some really aggressive teams they're actually really low kill games most of the time. They're not worse or better really it's just totally different styles of gameplay in the two regions.

For anyone to look at the points and just flat out say one region is better than the other is like saying oranges are better than tomatoes. They're not really comparable.

Blind MinionAug 22, 20142 votes

I would probably say that whoever killed the enemy nexus (won the game) the fastest gets the points; that is the objective of the game, after all.

RinquaOct 3, 20142 votes

And now we've reached the point in the discussion where the only logical conclusion remains that Fantasy Sports are a waste of time and predict absolutely nothing.

BrothercrispAug 19, 20145 votes

It's two different regions and two very different ways of gameplay. I think American LCS has a more fast phased gameplay, especially with the addition of LMQ and the roster changes of all top teams has made most games really fun to watch :) But it's not only that. I think that the skill gap between american teams and EU teams is very different as well. During the entire split you couldn't really predict which of the 5 american top teams (DIG, LMQ, TSM, C9, CLG) would take games of each other. Alliance however, dominated almost the entire split and Fnatic dominated the last half as well. Overall, I think american LCS has been more enjoyable because of this low skill gap. I doubt anyone can predict which region will win in a head on tournament.. Honestly I think EU = NA. :>

SloreDemonAug 31, 20141 votes

NA gets less points and is subsequently more boring because most games they tip toed around trying not to fuck up. some teams like LMQ had a go-at-you style of gameplay in the beginning of the split kinda diminished a bit. I wouldn't call it a skill gap within regional teams NA throws. EU (with the exception of Alliance) was just as volatile as NA; teams throwing back and forth and leaving you out to dry fantasy wise (fucking sk gaming week 7)

LandreinSep 2, 20141 votes

The hilarious thing is that Europe this year looked a lot like NA this year. Back then EU was very competitive while C9 dominated NA. It resulted in a very embarrassing season for NA as C9 wasn't used to competition due to there being no good NA teams to challenge them at the time. We will see if Alliance escapes that issue. Even though Alliance dominated Fanatic in the season, I think Fanatic is still very strong which may be a big difference between EU and last year's NA where None of the NA teams were strong.

The influx of new blood from EU, China, and Korea have made NA stronger than they ever were, and TSM, C9, LMQ, and poor forever 4th Curse are all looking much stronger. In any ways, I'm excited to see the NA teams and Alliance and Fanatic throw down in worlds. I'm still looking forward to that day the NA teams beat Korea. (sorry NA bias there)

BronziIIaAug 21, 20143 votes

Well if your server laggs who get's the riot points?

LandreinSep 2, 20144 votes

Careful guys. Don't take this article to mean anything more than it says. It is discussing fantasy points, not player skill. I read an article a while back discussing teams getting points and how some rack up points while the others don't. It has a lot to do with dynamics of teams, lengths of matches, strategies employed, total deaths in a game, etc. Not necessarily regional play skill. The ONLY thing this article says is if your Fantasy team had more European players on it, you probably got more points on average.

ModiciousSep 2, 20145 votes

TSM has only 2 NA Players . LMQ is a Chinese team. C9 is the only real NA team representing NA at worlds

Joe DropsAug 19, 20147 votes

How does this lead to EU > NA? If achieving higher number of points meant something, Millenium would be the best team in Europe. Instead, they're sixth place. This proves nothing in that regard. It does prove that "Fantasy LCS" results tells very little about real LCS results.

DemDemonsAug 26, 20142 votes

no FNC would be first place look at there points

SloreDemonAug 31, 20141 votes

i think the EU>NA is in terms of enjoy-ability to watch. NA games are boring as shit most of the game because as whole they try to play the super rotations game (thank c9 for introducing it).

Ampion1337Aug 19, 20145 votes

NA beat EU in Battle of the Atlantic, at IEM Katowice, and at Allstars. Nuff said

KendorraSep 1, 20141 votes

Eu has always beaten NA at worlds. Enough Said.

RutherfordiumAug 19, 20145 votes

I don't like how they acted like Europe scoring higher fantasy points was some sign that EU is better than NA. I don't know which is actually better, as neither has played each other, but the whole idea that scoring better fantasy-wise equals more skill is dumb because EU players only played against other EU players, and NA players played against NA players.

All this shows is that the skill gap is greater in EU than NA, because the top players in Europe were able to dominate harder and score more points than the top players in NA. I could gather together a bunch of silver teams and put them in an LCS-esque environment and calculate fantasy points. Some of them might outscore Rekkles and Kerp. Does that mean they're better? Hell no.

College DebtsAug 19, 20143 votes

I don't even how fantasy points are calculated, I don't think it has anything to do with skill gap either. It's weird how Millennium members (6th seed in EU LCS) take 3/5 spots as the highest fantasy points. Perhaps the # of kills gets you the most fantasy points?

I definitely agree that fantasy points says nothing about a region's strength though.

GAOn0E94TaAug 19, 20141 votes

exactly. EU also scored higher than China and Korea. I guess EU is the best region, lol.

College DebtsAug 19, 20142 votes

I wouldn't be surprise if NA/EU are stronger than China, China is vastly overrated I don't get why people put it in the same sentence as Korea. I mean a slumping Korean team can sweep OMG without a sweat in All-Stars, the gap between China and Korea is huge. ATM, it's Korea >>>>> China/NA/EU >>>>>> SEA >> Wildcards

antonioli123Aug 19, 20143 votes

Well I do know one thing. Losers always have excuses. No matter what..

KendorraSep 1, 20141 votes

True

WhyIPlayThisGameAug 19, 20143 votes

too bad NA will still completely destroy any EU team in the playoffs

KendorraSep 1, 20141 votes

I hear this every year, and every year i see the european team getting slightly ahead of the NA teams at worlds. ( it's slightly do, so it could be different this year, what i honestly doubt ) I have watched both the NA and the EU games. And I think that the teams strenght are in this order: Alliance >>> TSM/Cloud9/LMQ/Fnatic >>> SK Gaming This is still my opinion tho

shikadaveAug 19, 20142 votes

Xerath

Omega PuddingAug 19, 20142 votes

Even before the season started I knew that EU would accrue the greater number of fantasy points, the only problem at the time was choosing who would be the best options. As the article stated in the Spring split EU was WAY too inconsistent; players and teams were all over the place, whereas in NA it was very consistent to know who would be the big players. Now that the summer split is over, the roles are nearly reversed. EU was very consistent this season and NA was all over the place, I mean who would have expected C9 to be so far down in the standings for the first few weeks?

In hindsight some of those dominate players we expected to come up big in NA started out so terribly. My first pick was Balls because he was a monster in the Spring split, but the 2v0 lane swap meta really hurt C9's dominate attributes and as a result he wasn't netting any points and I had to drop him (I think I picked up Mimer or something and the exchange went well from there).

I am from NA and so prefer NA, but when it comes to the fantasy league I would prefer to pick EU because their games do tend to go longer and there is a lot more random fighting rather than strategic map play so the point spread will usually be higher. So if we are arguing based on fantasy league EU > NA, but in game...well, we'll just have to wait till worlds to solve that one. :)

Gaxx DAug 19, 20142 votes

Especially for you, and every person who thinks the same out there (that EU games are oh so long compared to NA) I've calculated average game length from both leagues, starting from week 3 (don't have the average game time from first 2 weeks). Instead of following trend of complaining about long EU games do some freakin research, you lazy prick, be a better American than those stereotype ones. Average NA game time from week 3 - 11: ~39 minutes (you can add about 2 seconds here) Average EU game time from week 3-11: 39 minutes 21 seconds. Shortest game in week 1 for NA: 27:13 Shortest game in week 1 for EU: 23:25 Shortest game in week 2 for NA: 28:12 Shortest game in week 2 for EU: 31:05

If you really believe that NA games are super fast paced, while EU games drag for hours - think again.

KendorraSep 1, 20141 votes

Thank you for finally giving us numbers

EzgeraAug 19, 20142 votes

To be honest: If you are going to do some stats about most points/game, do it the right way. Yes, the Alliance/Millenium game was chaotic. Still it was a game of this split, and a (casual) fantasy game. There is simply no reason not to take Froggen, Nyph and Wickd as the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place there. Mention why the statistic looks that way, but dont fake the statistics.

This appplies even more as in the "most points per week" Froggen with week 11 takes 2nd place. THis is also heavily influenced by this 68 points game.

TLDR: Do it properly or don't do it.

FedejeAug 20, 20142 votes

The thing is, NA LCS featured one of the closest splits in LCS history. All NA teams were fighting for top spots while EU was a Battle between few top teams to squash bottom teams thus giving certain European players more points than their NA competition.

guitjexdAug 28, 20142 votes

LOL is the best game ever

KendorraSep 1, 20141 votes

You are my Hero