League of Legends DFS: Thursday, October 1st
It’s here. You know what I’m talking about. It’s the debut of eSports on DraftKings as day one of the League of Legends World Championship begins Thursday morning. Many of you are probably seeing DFeS for the first time, but it’s actually been around for a while now. Both Vulcun and AlphaDraft (just acquired by FanDuel) have had eSports contests for several months, but now it’s reaching the mainstream. Ideally, this brings in a new segment of players who may have never found the sites us Grinders already know and love. DraftKings didn’t skimp on the prizepools, either. Not only are they large enough to be enticing, but they’re filling at an alarming rate, which is great news for potential growth.
For Thursday’s slate, we’ve got a mixed bag of heavy favorites and games that could go either way. SK Telecom T1 (SKT), KOO Tigers and EDward Gaming (EDG) are very significant favorites. Counter Logic Gaming (CLG) and ahq e-Sports Club (AHQ) are both favorites as well, but not overwhelmingly so. Fnatic (FNC) vs Invictus Gaming (iG) is the lone pickem.
Top
Zz1tai, iG $5,700 – Pegging how iG vs. FNC is going to play out is the most difficult part of the slate. Fnatic was a stunning 18-0 during the summer split, while iG toiled in the LPL this past season finishing third with an 8-8-6 record. Zz1tai’s performances were questioned at times throughout the season, but he delivered in a big way in the regional finals and led iG to Worlds, posting an insane KDA of 50/30/80 in nine games. Twenty of those deaths came against EDG. Fnatic is no EDG. We should try to avoid players in games that could go either way in cash, but Zz1tai is a good option in both cash and tournaments at his price.
Jungler
Karsa, FW $4,900 – Winning a League of Legends DFeS tournament is going to mean finding the right plays on underdog teams. Flash Wolves may not be the favorite here, but are not enough of an underdog that we cannot expect that a strong percentage of the time that they will either win or turn the game into the type of bloodbath that results in players on both teams having strong fantasy performances. Similar to Zz1tai, Karsa picked up his play in the LMS regional finals, posting a KDA ratio of 6.4 and a kill participation of 77.3%. If Karsa picks an aggressive champion out of the jungle he is very capable of putting up a big score against CLG.
Mid
Faker, SKT $7,800 – The chalk. Highly owned and with good reason. Faker is regarded by most as the world’s best League of Legends player. A trip through YouTube to watch the dozens of montages of Faker mercilessly destroying his opponents is a rabbit hole worth falling into. $7,800 is a fair price to pay for a player of his quality and style. He’ll lane against H2K’s Ryu and will not struggle to have a lead very early on. Ryu’s Creep Score Differential at 10 minutes in this summer’s EU LCS was a -1.9 whereas Faker’s CSD at 10 was a +5.4 and in a much more difficult league. That kind of swing will be insurmountable for Ryu and have Faker looking for easy solo kills.
ADC
AN, AHQ $7,200 – Going up against Cloud9 in a game which the masses may favor C9, AN is perhaps my favorite pick of the slate. C9 ran the gauntlet to qualify for worlds after a disastrous summer season, twice coming down from 2-0 to win best of fives 3-2. Sounds impressive, and it is, but it doesn’t count for much here. AHQ is a solid favorite, but I still expect C9 players to be heavily owned in both cash and tournaments as new players will want to roster North American players. There’s always upset possibility, but I’m not seeing it here. I like AHQ to win and I think that likely leads to a big box score from AN.
Support
GorillA, KOO $6,100 – With one of the highest Kill Participations in the Korean league at 76.2%, GorillA is an excellent pick to get your KOO exposure in their game against paiN Gaming. Hailing from Brazil, not much is expected from paiN at World’s. Their style isn’t going to translate well on the international stage, likely leaving them struggling to deal with the early pressure that superior teams are going to put on them. The average game length for most Korean teams is quite high with KOO’s sitting at 38.5 and although it’s difficult to expect paiN to last that long, if KOO sticks to a slow bleed style of play there will be more opportunity for fantasy points.
FLEX
I won’t list any specific player here, but it’s worth talking about what we should be doing with this spot. In most slates I think it will be best to flex one Support and then either an ADC or a Mid. Flexing a Support opens up your roster by freeing a lot of salary and may be necessary if we want proper exposure to ADCs and Mids playing for favorites or teams that could get into bloodbaths. Consider using your flex spots to pair up an ADC and his Support, and don’t be afraid to pick underdogs in tournaments. Just be careful with how large of an underdog a team, because teams like paiN and Bangkok Titans have very little chances of success here.
Team
Counter Logic Gaming $3,800 – CLG is the least expensive team that is also a large enough favorite to reasonably expect a win, but not so heavily that it makes it unlikely that the game will end too early. That alone makes them a strong option for our team slot. There’s a lot to consider when choosing a team. The scoring is such that picking a team that wins is surprisingly unnecessary so long as the team you choose hangs into the late game and has significant objective(Turrets and Dragons primarily) success of their own. A team that wins game under 30 minutes will receive two points for the win and two bonus points for winning under 30 minutes, but that may not always be enough to compete. A team that wins games in 25 minutes could quite easily be outscored by a team that loses in 40 minutes. With all that in mind, the best plan for the team slot will generally be to pick a team that is affordable and ideally a small favorite, but heavy favorites are fine as well, especially in cash.