League of Legends: Thursday, October 8th
The League of Legends World Championship is back for the second round of group stage games. The format is a little different for this week’s games as each group will finish out individually over the course of the next four days. This means each team plays three games each day with one against each of its three group opponents.
Unfortunately, this does come with a side effect as DraftKings has given us three two-game slates. While this isn’t particularly appealing, I have been told that in the future they do in fact plan to allow us to choose players multiple times if their team has more than one game on a given day. For these next four days, though, there will be split slates. As such, here are a couple of choices from each of the three Thursday slates.
Early slate
KOO Tigers(-175) vs. Counter Logic Gaming(+143)
Flash Wolves(-290) vs paiN Gaming(+229)
brTT, paiN $6,700 – Throughout the group stage thus far, paiN has showed that they are no pushover. They already pulled the upset against Flash Wolves on Sunday and their performances have given us just enough reason to think they could pull it off again. While FW remain the favorite, brTT’s upside and relative consistency make him a worthwhile consideration. Even in losses brTT finds the score sheet enough to be a safe pick in all formats.
Smeb, KOO $6,800 – Despite being the highest priced top laner on the slate, Smeb is still an easy go-to here. At only $100 more than Steak, who is not nearly as skilled, Smeb’s upside wins in a landslide. Already having posted a 7/1/7 line against CLG in their previous meeting, Smeb now gets CLG again in a game that is likely to contain more than its share of kills. By far the least risky option for your top lane slot.
Middle slate
KOO Tigers(-550) vs. paiN Gaming(+396)
Counter Logic Gaming(-150) vs. Flash Wolves(+123)
Gorilla, KOO $5,700 – This is an exposure pick more than anything else. KOO players are extremely expensive in this slate, but Gorilla maintained a relatively affordable price. It’s going to be exceedingly difficult to fit PraY and his $10,800 price into an acceptable lineup, so taking his lane partner who happens to cost almost half as much is the best we can hope to do.
Pobelter, CLG $7,800 – Pobelter has not one, but two zero death performances thus far at the World Championship. Although CLG and Pobelter took a beat down against KOO, his line for CLG’s other two games came in at 5/0/25. He’s also sporting a Kill participation of 86.5% at Worlds. Is that number unsustainable? Perhaps so, but remains exactly the type of number we want to see when selecting players for our lineup. Significantly cheaper than his KOO counterpart KurO.
Final slate
KOO Tigers(-221) vs. Flash Wolves(+178)
Counter Logic Gaming(-450) vs. paiN Gaming(+336)
Maple, FW $6,000 – Many consider Flash Wolves to be something of a top-heavy team where Maple leads the way, carrying the likes of Steak, who has been called the worst player at the tournament by some. Maple’s line through three games sits at 9/4/18 despite only one of Flash Wolves three games being a win. That’s as much consistency as we can ask for when picking a player from a team who we know is not favored to win. We aren’t going to be able to stack together KOO and CLG, so a player like Maple is a perfect fit to save on salary and likely receive a strong point return even if his team is defeated.
ZionSpartan, CLG $7,100 – Surprisingly, Smeb had a particularly bad game against FW last week and given that Zion can be had for $200 less, it makes him a more attractive option. Zion’s line against paiN was a different story, posting a 7/2/8, good for 38.74 points on DraftKings. We have little reason to think this game won’t be a CLG win with a real possibility for 15 or more kills from CLG as a whole. Top laners playing on favored teams is becoming one of the musts of League of Legends DFS with the current trend of the position seeing far more kill potential than in the past. Punt elsewhere, pay out of the top lane.