League of Legends DFS: EU LCS - Thursday
The first week of the League Championship Series was chalk full of surprises, upsets and, well, embarrassment thanks to Team Impulse in North America. I’m here by refusing to call it a perfect game by Immortals and rather referring to it as the perfect loss by Impulse. I can only hope they’ve got a better effort to give for the remainder of the season.
Week two gives us a chance to use what we learned from the first two games of the season and hopefully adjust to the new landscape more quickly than the field. Player pricing on DraftKings continues to fluctuate heavily based on how they perceive matchups, so we must be quick to adjust.
If you missed week one in Europe or want a refresher, here is a great recap from GrindersJ.
Odds & Matchups
G2 Esports (-165) vs. Giants Gaming (+135)
ROCCAT (-160) vs. Elements (+131)
Origen (-192) vs. Unicorns of Love (+156)
Team Vitality (-278) vs. Splyce (+220)
Fnatic (+111) vs. H2k Gaming (-135)
Top
Vizicsacsi, UOL ($5,700) – An 0-2 start to the season was not something anyone saw coming from Origen, but here we are. Clearly, they remain a contender and a possible favorite to finish at the top of the standings for the split. That said, Vizicsacsi’s lane opponent sOAZ leads the league in deaths with 11, three more than the next worst. Meanwhile, Vizicsacsi was one of the top performing players in all of Europe. He posted a 10/2/10 combined line with the Unicorns looking like they’re poised to pick up where they left off, even despite the departures of PowerOfEvil. Origen is going to get in the win column soon, but they may have to wait.
Cabochard, VIT ($6,700) – Cabochard’s CSD@10 of 21 leads Europe by a significant margin and we have little reason to think Wunderwear and Splyce will be able to slow him down. Wunderwear has already died eight times this season. Splyce came into the season with genuine excitement around the team and their possible upside, but poor play has them sitting at 0-2. Cabochard’s KP% in his first two games is just 54.5, but stomaching bad participation rates out of the top lane is something we just have to deal with. It’s worth nothing that his KP% in the summer was a respectable enough 69.6, so we have reason to believe some positive regression is on order.
Jungle
Trick, G2 ($6,200) – Jungle pricing is discounted just enough that we can rationalize fitting in the most expensive jungler on the board in Trick. He’s leading the league in assists with 21 and is second in KP with 87.1%. Trick was more involved in his team’s game plan than any other jungler, and in an aggressive, damage dealing way. Jungle Graves and LCS mainstay Lee Sin lead him to lines of 4/0/7 and 2/1/14. The performances earned him Rookie of the Week in the LCS. Of course, it also sky rocketed his price, but not enough that he won’t remain my top option.
Spirit, FNC ($5,600) – Trick hype aside, Spirit is still my favorite European jungler. Although Fnatic were beaten by Vitality, they still proved that they’re going to remain a top team despite the disappointing offseason they had. H2k presents a very difficult matchup in the game of the week, but it’s close to a flip of a game and I think Spirit’s influence out of the jungle has a chance to be the deciding factor.
Mid
Betsy, ROC ($7,200) – Despite coming away from week one with a CSD@10 of 12, Betsy’s combined line of 5/3/6 with a 61.1% KP was a disappointment. He’ll certainly have a chance to get himself into the kill column more often against Eika and Elements. Although Elements did defeat Splyce, they still remain bottom of the European barrel. Eika’s statistical output suggests he’ll be far behind coming out of the lane phase in the majority of Elements games. Look for Betsy to have success in the box score for the first time this season on Thursday.
Fox, UOL ($6,600) – Surprisingly, Origen’s PowerOfEvil debuted on his new team with a -13 CSD@10. Not quite the upgrade Origen signed up for. POE will surely get there sooner or later, but until he does, former SK Gaming mid laner Fox just may take advantage. Fox lead all mid laners in both kills and deaths last season. The deaths are ugly, but not a huge concern for fantasy purposes. Aggression is good and you don’t come away with lead in both categories without being an in-your-face kind of player.
ADC
Hjarnan, VIT ($8,100) – With one kill and five assists, Hjarnan had one of the worst statistical outputs a carry will have all season for a weekend in which his team even won a game. Despite a damage share of 31.7% and a positive CSD@10, the kills just were not there for Hjarnan and Vitality. Sadly DraftKings did not exactly discount his price despite the low fantasy output, but Splyce was the worst team in Europe last week and unless they show significant improvement, they’ll likely be played off the Rift with ease by Vitality. That will nearly always lead to satisfactory KDA and fantasy score for the winning teams primary marksman.
FORG1VEN, H2k ($7,400) – Rekkles is the fan favorite and was certainly a big part of Fnatic’s record setting summer split, but FORG1VEN actually posted superior CSD@10 numbers than Rekkles last split. FORG1VEN is somewhat obvious in that he’s surprisingly affordable and even cheaper than Rekkles despite H2k being the favorite here. Although I like Fnatic’s chances as spoken of with Spirit, it’s necessary to have exposure to an ADC on a team that is favored and can be afforded with ease.
Team
The favorite: Team ROCCAT ($4,400) – G2 is also an excellent option, but it seems reasonable to save $400 for the team facing Elements. Yes, Elements beat Splyce. They’ll beat other teams, too. Team Impulse of North America is the only team who may never win a game. Continue to pick against Elements.
The upset: Unicorns of Love ($3,800) – Is there such a thing as a revenge narrative in professional League of Legends? PowerOfEvil left the team he came up with to move to greener pastures and you would certainly think the Unicorns would love to make him regret it.