League of Legends DFS: European LCS - Thursday
Week 4 of the League Championship Series is here and features a key game between G2 and Origen. Sitting in a 3-way tie for 5th place, Origen’s first third of the season hasn’t gone according to plan. G2 on the other hand has been the surprise of the season in Europe, deservingly sitting in a tie for 1st along with H2k.
Speaking of H2k, they remain Europe’s best team even without Ryu. SELFIE will be in action for another week and could be for the foreseeable future. If and when Ryu returns, it will be a noteworthy boost, but if he is unable to return during this split, the downgrade to SELFIE could be a problem in the playoffs. H2k isn’t the only team dealing with roster changes, visa-issue driven or otherwise. Tabzz has replaced Safir as ROCCAT’s ADC and Rudy will be Unicorn’s second temporary jungler while star Diamondprox is out.
I’ve received a number of questions on Twitter and the RotoGrinders forums regarding how best to keep up with these moves and typically recommend checking team’s official Twitters for news. Teams often break their own news as opposed to insiders doing so like in traditional sports. Feel free to hit me with any questions in the eSports section of the forums or on twitter at wazzu24.
Odds & Matchups
Team Vitality (-278) vs. Elements (+220)
Fnatic (-438) vs. Giants Gaming (+328)
Origen (-161) vs. G2 Esports (+132)
Unicorns of Love (-180) vs. ROCCAT (+147)
H2k Gaming (-376) vs. (+288)
Top
Cabochard, VIT ($6,500) – Top lane is somewhat ugly for Thursday’s slate, but Cabochard sticks out as the best play by a wide margin. The Vitality top laner leads all of Europe in early game differentials and also leads top laners in total damage share. His champion pool this season has consisted exclusively of heavily involved damage dealers. He has yet to play any dedicated tanks. Opponent Elements’ quick start to the season was always too good to be true and it wouldn’t be a surprise if they fell directly to the bottom of the table. Lock Cabochard in.
Vizicsacsi, UOL ($6,600) – Vizicsacsi has been one of the most consistent top laners for fantasy this season, with only one game without multiple kills. Second for tops in CSD@10 behind Cabochard and by far the most kills, Vizicsacsi is perhaps being relied on more heavily with Diamondprox out of the picture.
Jungle
Spirit, FNC ($6,100) – The Spirit bandwagon has swerved, stalled and just about run out of gas just in time for a game against Giants Gaming. Disappointing individual performances on top of Fnatic as a whole looking lost throughout the duration of games have resulted in ugly fantasy results and Fnatic losses. Spirit’s KP remains under 70% and he has more deaths than kills, but Giants can cure just about anything for their opponents. Giants have 88 deaths in their six games this season with an embarrassingly low 38 kills. Spirit is your affordable Fnatic exposure. We can reevaluate where he is as a player for more difficult games.
Trick, G2 ($5,600) – This battle of teams who aren’t who we thought they were will be significantly impacted by Trick’s ability to make things happen as early as possible. A season line of 13/10/52 is outrageous for a relatively unknown Korean import. Trick is has been vital to G2’s success so far and an upset against still favored Origen could solidify his spot as one of the best junglers in the west. Just hope Trick doesn’t pull out the Udyr pick ever again.
Mid
Nukeduck, VIT ($7,400) – Although 13/9/24 line so far this season is modest for Nukeduck, lane opponent Eika is in strong contention for the weakest solo laner in Europe. Eika’s CSD@10 is the worst of all mids with six games played and his 17 deaths is behind only xPePii’s 18. I like Nukeduck’s chances of turning Eika into a First Blood and snowballing into a big late game. Elements are weak against every lane, but allow more CS to mids than all other teams with over 300.
Perkz, G2 ($7,100) – Along with Trick, Perkz is G2’s other young, rising star. The jokes of the still 17 year old laner shipping off to North America like so many before him all already running rampant. While the extremely small sample sizes that the LCS offers us keep me from quite being at that point, there’s no denying that the numbers to support these claims are there. A 310 GD@10, a 31.7% damage share and a kill total of 33 are just a few of his eyepopping statistics. Perkz’s success goes much deeper than that, though. The 13 kills against Unicorns of Love were impressive, but his positioning to attain these scores is what jumps out to me. His play on mobile mid lane Champions seems to be where he shines, assassinating opponents at will and skipping away untouched as if that’s an easy feat at the professional level.
ADC
FORG1VEN, H2k ($8,500) – With Splyce having shown signs of life recently, the opposing ADC has actually increased in value. SELFIE out-killed FORG1VEN last week 12-3 and that’s unlikely to repeat itself. His damage share actually fell a full five percentage points and still sits at 36.2%. A FORG1VEN fantasy bounce-back is inevitable. There’s plenty of value on this slate and little reason to not pay up at at least one carry spot. That spot should be the guy with a KDA three times higher than the next closest ADC.
Hjarnan, VIT ($7,800) – Beatdown from H2k aside, Hjarnan and Vitality will be expected to wipe the floor with teams like Elements if they are to compete for a bye in the playoffs. MrRalleZ is Elements best player and poses a genuine threat in the early game, but it’s not going to be enough. Lack of talent and experience at the professional level leads to miscommunication and poor positioning, which is exactly what ADC’s take advantage of.
Team
The favorite: Fnatic ($4,700) – The team slot doesn’t have to be complicated. This is a team priced under $5,000 and facing winless Giants.
The upset: G2 Esports ($4,200) – Records through six games seems to have influenced DraftKing’s pricing and resulted in G2 actually being $100 more expensive than Origen. I disagree that six games is enough to mean Origen and their roster aren’t the favorite. Still, I do like G2 here, but obviously Origen can be used as well given that they are cheaper than their underdog opponent. I acknowledge that may sound like a hedge, but this is just an odd pricing quirk.