The Next Fantasy LCS Kerp
For those who ended up betting on Kerp, he was the biggest surprise pick of the whole season, skyrocketing to the No. 2 overall player in Average Points per Game. With Millenium's tendencies to teamfight often in long games, Kerp led all mid laners in kills (142 to Yu "XiaoWeiXiao's" Xian 114) despite dying the second-most amount of times (90 deaths trailed only by compLexity's Neil "pr0lly" Hammad at 92).
But who is this split's Kerp?
Febiven
Well, this one's pretty obvious, but it had to be mentioned. Fabian "Febiven" Diepstraten was one of the most hyped mids coming out of the Challenger Series when he swapped over from H2K Gaming and he's certainly proven himself on the way towards the top of Fantasy LCS. He currently leads all mid laners in assists and is tied for second in kills; the Fantasy comparison to Kerp is nearly identical (Kerp was first in kills, second in assists for mids).
Although it's still early, Febiven's averaging 5.75 kills/game, a pace that exceeds even Kerp's 5.07 kills/game -- and he’s beating him in assists, too! He's been spot-on with Zed and Xerath, but remains untested on other champions, the sole question mark on his hot start. Meanwhile, Kerp's champion pool was quite diverse (he played 12 different champions, only XiaoWeiXiao and Remigiusz "Overpow" Pusch played more) featuring Fizz (19.2 pts/game in six games), and other lethal threats such as Twisted Fate (25.0 pts/game in four games) and Ziggs (34.3 pts/game in four games). As the season continues, it will be important for Febiven to adapt to the various champions that rotate in and out of mid lane, much like how Kerp was able to do.
The team surrounding Febiven is also a similar composition to that of Kerp's. We've yet to see Fnatic drop a game until this week, but there have been some issues finishing off opponents, evidenced by their inability to close out Roccat in Week 2, as well as struggling against a winless Gambit squad. These two games are major factors in Fnatic's rather long 43:09 average game length, well over Millenium's 40:54 during the 2014 summer split.
On top of that, both Febiven and Kerp have had solid junglers in Kim "Reignover" Ul-Jin and Markus "KottenX" Tingvall, respectively. Reignover currently leads LCS junglers in assists; KottenX led the rest of the junglers in assists last split as well. All these factors point towards Febiven being one of the top Fantasy stars; and even if he drops off his record-setting pace, he's still a prime candidate to be this split's Kerp.
PowerOfEvil
Unicorns of Love is the type of team that loves to fight their opponents all the time. And no one embodies that style more than their mid laner, Tristan "PowerOfEvil" Schrage, who is always looking for opportunities to play as aggressive as possible. Don't be too worried about PowerOfEvil's farming capability; both he and Kerp were in the bottom five of all mid laners for creep score (CS) in their respective seasons.
Even though he's slightly off-pace of Kerp's production, we once again are looking at a major playmaker on an unrefined team. Every playmaker has a set of key champions that can create space and win games by themselves. While Kerp had Fizz, PowerOfEvil has gravitated towards Syndra, even choosing her when Scatter the Weak had been severely weakened. After an upcoming buff that will make this key crowd control ability more consistent, there could be a possible spike in Fantasy production for PowerOfEvil (especially since teams already target ban his Cassiopeia).
There is one glaring weakness in PowerOfEvil's game that may prevent him from hitting Kerp's marks. Despite playing for a team that loves to teamfight, he isn't racking up enough assists. If we examine the Orianna game he played against Elements (beware: missed Shockwaves), there is plenty to be desired. Orianna is the type of champion who can play an utility role that earns a bunch of assists and in this particular example, PowerOfEvil fell short. The upside is that the Unicorns of Love are a new team to the LCS. With proper maturation, they can perfect their synergy with each other, giving him ample time to get back on track.
Lastly, key areas to look at for Febiven and PowerOfEvil moving forward are their performances during their team's losses. Kerp was able to stay as the highest scoring mid laner in losses, managing to average 16.3 pts/loss. We've seen PowerOfEvil fall short of that mark (and Febevin's one loss shows promise), but there are plenty of games left in the season to be played. And if you haven't taken a good look at them in action yet, I encourage you to do so for the sake of your Fantasy team.
