Thoughts on the LCS Playoffs

April 21, 2016 Izlain

So the Spring Split has come and gone, and with the end of the regular season I didn’t have fantasy LCS to play anymore, which meant that I didn’t talk much about the professional side of the game. Over the past few weeks however, there was plenty of playoff action, which means I have something to talk about once again. It’s been an interesting half of a season so far, which brings us up to the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) and then the Summer Split shortly thereafter. There’s also a big ass patch for the mid-season, with a bunch of new features that will likely shake up the summer split for all of us, not just the pros. I’ll get to that bit in another post though. For now, let’s talk about the playoffs.

During the first weekend in April, the Quarterfinals went down. I didn’t watch much of the European LCS, but during the course of that weekend Fnatic beat out Vitality, and that was surprising considering the shaky season Fnatic seemed to have (again, I didn’t watch much of the EULCS), and Vitality seemed to be the superior team prior to playoffs. The same goes for the other matchup between Unicorns of Love and Origen. Though I called Origen as one of the powerhouses for Europe at the beginning of the split, but they didn’t deliver on that as much as I thought. They were no Immortals, let’s put it that way (more on them later).

In NA, more surprises were abound. TSM looked to be a powerhouse for North America, but they struggled throughout the split. Cloud 9 had a shaky start to the season but finished strong and were the clear favorites in this matchup. They managed to take a game in the series, but TSM dismantled them. It was surprising. Where was this TSM all spring? Less surprising was Team Liquid taking down NRG, particularly with how well Matt and Dardoch performed as rookies. NRG never really stood a chance this split. They need to find better talent in a couple of roles.

The following weekend the semi-final matches were played, and in Europe we saw G2 take down Fnatic (expected) along with Origen continuing it’s streak to defeat H2K. The latter team seemed pretty consistent during the split but didn’t have it when it counted. Origen moves on to the finals against G2, but there is a clear expectation there.

In NA, I was rooting for Liquid to take down CLG. Honestly I don’t think CLG is that good of a team, despite winning the summer split last year. Darshan pulls off some pretty amazing stuff, and Aphromoo has his moments, but I’m not too big on their other players. I think CLG of last year was a better team. Liquid felt like the new hotness. I wanted the rookies to win and for Piglet/Fenix to get some real recognition for their efforts. I think a different top-laner might make up all the difference. Why don’t they pick up Impact? Imagine that team? But it was not meant to be, as CLG took the series 3-2, and moved onto the finals.

The most shocking part of the entire playoffs happened in the other semi-final game. Immortals, the team that only lost one game the entire split, though looking a little weaker towards the end, was expected to completely dismantle TSM. But this wasn’t the TSM from the split, nope that part of their lives was already done. They put together a monster series, and swept Immortals right under the rug 3-0. It was incredible to watch. The tilt was real. I’m really beginning to love esports!

The finals were less exciting, and more exciting at the same time. CLG vs TSM, the dream. The rematch. The same result. Meh. Again, less impressed with this year’s CLG as opposed to last year’s. More impressed with TSM stepping up when it mattered, but they still lost overall. In Europe, G2 triumphed over Origen, as I expected. A new crown over there, the same crown for NA. Either way, it was a fun split, and I look forward to watching all summer long. MSI soon, I may have more thoughts.

Fantasy LCS Review: Season 6 Spring Finale

March 25, 2016 Izlain

So the final week of the spring split has come and gone, and just as I suspected, I ended the split in second place. I managed to beat out Tacktix by a considerable margin, despite having a couple of low scoring members on my team. Over the course of the split, I ended up losing to Tyvokka all three times I faced him, and once to each of the other teams. That was good enough for a 4/5 standing by the end, which saw me finish in second. It was clear earlier in the season that no one was going to surpass Tyvokka mainly because he owned most of the Immortals team, and they only dropped a single game, causing him to only drop a single game. He dominated the rest of us, and it was a struggle to even get second place. Surprisingly, after a 1/5 start or something to that effect, Tacktix managed to snag third place due to having earned more points than Judentus. Either way, not a lot of surprises in this post. Let’s take a look at the final matchup:

As you can see, Jensen super under performed, but he just didn’t get many points in Cloud 9’s trouncing of Echo Fox, and then C9 lost to Team Liquid in the second game of the weekend. Odoamne and Rush both had low totals as well, but my support, team, mid and ADC more than made up for things. Thankfully Tack had low numbers across the board, so it was easy pickings to finish out the split. I’m looking forward to watching the playoffs, but for now fantasy is over. I’m hoping to convince these guys to go ahead and play again during the Summer split.

Here’s the recap of the whole split, where you can get a snapshot of what happened throughout. I still love that .01 win from week one, and apparently this past weekend was my biggest win of the split. No surprise that Pobelter was my best player, he was very consistent except for that one game that IMT lost. Let’s take a final look at the top players for Spring:

Once again, week 9 saw several members of IMT in the top 5. That was a given, but it was surprising to see Piglet get back to the top. He was inconsistent for me and I stopped starting him a couple of weeks back. He also snuck back into the Spring top 5, but the ADC I replaced him with is there too. I guess it would have been better to start Piglet as my flex pick last weekend instead of Jensen, but no one saw that coming with how well C9 has been going, and then it didn’t really matter since I won anyway. But I still managed to make good picks if 3 of the top 5 scorers were under my command.

Anyway, that’s it for this split. We’ll be back for the Summer split provided I can round these guys up to draft again. Until then.

Fantasy LCS Review: Season 6, Week 8

March 16, 2016 Izlain

I didn’t forget to post about my fantasy league standings last week — there weren’t LCS matches that weekend, IEM took place instead. I only caught one game of the final, and of course SKT bring home another tournament trophy despite having a shaky split at times. The following weekend, we were back to the normal schedule, so of course this week I have more to talk about, although it’s going to be more of the same. Immortals continue to carry Tyvokka to victory, and that means I lost another game, putting me in a three way tie with both Judentus and Tacktix, but I maintain possession of 2nd place by virtue of the most points between the three of us. It’s funny, that Tacktix was on the bottom of the pile for so long and has now managed to tie for 2nd place, and it’s also surprising that I’m only shy 200 points of Tyvokka’s total despite having lost 4 more games. Tacktix is still the only one who has been able to take him down, but that happened to be the one week were Immortals dropped a single game. His fate has been directly tied to theirs, but rest assured this won’t happen again in the summer split. We’ll keep more of those players away from him next time. Lesson learned. So as we already knew, I’m not going to every get away from second place, though this final week of the split will determine who actually claims it, because a loss to Tacktix would mean I could potentially drop all the way to fourth. We’ll see how it turns out.

I was fortunate for the bad game CLG had on Saturday, because it kept Ty from totally crushing me. Aphromoo did nothing for me despite trusting him and putting him back in. Jensen pulled his weight as did Pobelter and Emperor, but Rush and Odoamne under performed, But when all five members of Immortals are putting up 50+ points it’s nearly impossible to top. I did make one small change going into next week:

I’m putting Kasing back in due to favorable matchups, and the fact that he did well for me before and Aphro has done shit all split. My projections look strong, and I’ve only lost to Tack once, so I think I’ll be able to hold onto second place. I don’t see Judentus beating Tyvokka, but even if he did I think I will still win the point total tie breaker battle. If so, I’ll have retained my rank from the split prior, and under similar circumstances too, though that time Judentus took 1st place only because he beat me on a point total tie breaker. It will be interesting to see if it comes down to that. With 1st place out of reach, it’s the only thing I have left keeping me interested. That and being able to rub in that Tacktix sucked wind.

It’s very surprising to see Shiphtur at the top of the points list for the past week, but he did it once before and that’s why I picked him up briefly, but never started him. I also owned Hjarnan and played him once, wish he would have had those numbers when I did. It’s rounded out by Immortals players (no surprise there) of which I still own Pobelter. On the top players for the spring list, I own three, but that still isn’t enough to content with weekly top players. Having those more consistently gets you wins I’ve come to learn. Ah well. Here’s to 2nd place next week!

Fantasy LCS Review: Season 6, Week 7

February 29, 2016February 29, 2016 Izlain

Finally, after a three week skid, things turned around. It’s fortunate that they did as well, because this means that I’m back in second place! After taking down Judentus in week 7, I entered a 3-4 tie with his team, but I inched ahead in overall points for the split, so I own second. However, with only two weeks of games left before the end of the split, It is currently impossible to beat out our current first place team. If I was to win out, I only have 5 wins, and he’d still have 6 even if he lost out. So it is what it is, but I’m still determined to finish second (again). Summer split will be different. Tacktix was able to pull off another win this week as well, finally defeating Tyvokka, who has been undefeated along with his team Immortals until this weekend. Yeah, Immortals finally dropped a game, and then looked like they might drop a second on Sunday, but still managed to win. They’re still arguably the best team in North America, but they got kicked down a notch. It’s likely that’s the only game they lose, and the same goes for our league member. Either way, things look like they may have turned around and my tinkering with the lineup on a weekly basis has paid off. Let’s see why:

My European players performed decently enough. Considering there were weeks when I had teams give me 5 points, 31 points from G2 is pretty good. Steeelback and Odoamne delivered decent amounts, and Kasing got me a little better than Aphromoo had been, though I still have Aphro waiting in the wings if needbe. Rush had a stellar weekend. Piglet had a better showing that the past couple of weeks. Really the only disappointment was Pobelter, and that’s odd because he’s been consistent the whole time, but makes complete sense given their loss on Saturday. Either way, I still did some tinkering for next week. I either need great performances from these players, or for Immortals to drop another game (not likely given their schedule).

I’m back up against Tyvokka, so basically I’m betting against Immortals, which hasn’t done much of anything for me each time I’ve faced this guy. Still, I have a higher projected total, so maybe I’ll get lucky. I’m not holding my breath. I did pick up Emperor from G2 and Jensen from C9, along with throwing Aphromoo back into the mix just because of his schedule being easier than Kasing’s. I don’t like taking Piglet out (because he’ll probably have a 60 point weekend now that I didn’t start him), but historically Emperor has had more points more often. Team Liquid had a great weekend, but they have had other great weekends this season and they were usually followed by stinkers. I just don’t trust them and want to try for as many wins as I can get before this whole thing is over. We’ll see how it goes.

Ironically, the only player up here that is owned and was actually played last week was Sneaky. I own Jensen and Emperor now, and Tyvokka has owned Fenix the whole time but never once played him. When looking at the season top 5, I still own three of the players, but Pobelter was the only one I’ve played (and every week too). Perhaps some of them will stay up there. That’s all the observations I have for this week. See you soon.

Fantasy LCS Review: Season 6, Week 5

February 16, 2016February 21, 2016 Izlain

It’s that time of week again to break down the past weekend’s LCS action. This time I managed to completely lose the gambles I took in setting my roster up. I dropped Rush because he wasn’t performing at the expected level, and then C9 have a dominant weekend. Of course, Dardoch put up huge points the week before, and this weekend he didn’t, so that swap was immediately reverted. I also put in GBM as a flex, and now NRG look like a middle ground team, and are failing to live up to my expectations. So of course, he put up mediocre numbers. Despite Aprhromoo being a great support, he doesn’t bring in the numbers either. Overall it was just a down day for all of my players so I was thoroughly beaten and I have done a pretty big overhaul of my roster this week just trying to stay competitive. I’ve now dropped to 2-3 and in 3rd place overall, but Judentus is only a game ahead so I have time to re-take 2nd place, but it looks like Derpy is going to win the league overall because just like his IMT players, he can’t lose a game. So at this point I’m basically only fighting for 2nd place, as even Tacktix won’t be able to do much about his positioning on the leader board at this point. Kind of sucks to have the wind taken out of your sails so early into the season, but there’s always the summer split, where we most certainly won’t be letting Derpy get all of the IMT members again. My theft of pobelter and someone else owning the team is the only thing keeping him from godlike fantasy points.

Let’s take a look at the matchup anyway, to see where I went wrong:

When you see the names on my side of the board when compared to those on the other, I see a pattern. He has a good mix of NA and EU players, I have all NA. I have some of the biggest names (aside from Dardoch) though, and he has a couple questionable players. Seemed like an easy win. But then you get teams like NRG who have really dropped the ball, TL who still can’t stay consistent, and CLG that doesn’t score many points whether they win or lose. On the other hand, he’s got a mix of the same, it’s just that my players dropped the ball a bit more. Needless to say, some sweeping changes were in order.

I now have three slots taken up by the EULCS. It hurt me to do it, but I dropped Impact. He just isn’t getting me the points necessary to stay competitive. He’s a great top laner but their team needs work. Perhaps he’ll be better in the summer. I picked up Odoamne, whom I’m not too familiar with but has decent projections and week-to-week scorelines. H2K is performing well too, so that should keep him more consistent. I brought Rush back because there aren’t really any other good junglers available. I’m sticking with Piglet because he’s consistent and has flashes of brilliance. Support wise I don’t see anyone projecting higher than Aphromoo that isn’t already spoken for. Because of the top players sections on the Fantasy LCS website, I decided to pick up Steeelback, who has managed to crack the top 5 overall in the spring, so he should be a better flex pick than what I’ve had if he keeps it up. Lastly, I picked up G2 esports because they have been doing really well this split over in Europe so I hope they’ll give me more points from the team slot. So yeah, here’s to being hopeful I can right the ship.

No one on my team did shit last week, so no appearances on the top 5. I still have Pobelter and Piglet up there for the Spring, and as I mentioned, Steeelback is playing for me too, and his numbers are right there with piglet. Hoping for better things out of next weekend!