LoL DFS Targets: Thursday, October 1st
Hey, Grinders! Here I will break down my top team and player picks for DFeS LoL GPPs and cash game contests on DraftKings, as well as the justification and reasoning behind my picks.
Picking players and teams for LCS Worlds is a bit tricky. Here we have 16 teams from all over the world, each of which has rarely played against any of the other teams attending Worlds this year, with the exceptions being a few unofficial tournaments (IEM, Dreamhack, etc.) and teams that qualified for worlds from the same Regional Qualifiers. The tournament groups have been split up so that every team in a group is foreign to the others (no more than two American, Korean, Chinese, European, etc. teams in one group). This means that all we have to go by when we draft our teams and players are known team strategies and individual player skill and what we can expect from them if their play remains consistent going into the variance that will be the first few days of LCS Worlds.
When deciding picks, I will compare team strategy and the champion pools and skill levels of individual players to make educated predictions about which teams and players will have favorable matchups with the best expected fantasy upside and production. I will use KDA to justify a player’s fantasy point production relative to their turnovers (deaths) or, in some cases, to emphasize notable fantasy upside in a player pick with a higher than average KDA.
Below is a rundown of the DraftKings LoL roster setup and scoring system.
Top
KOO Smeb: $7,500 (vs. paiN Mylon)
Smeb has earned himself a reputation as one of the best top laners in the professional Korean League of Legends scene during both the Spring Round Robin and Summer Split of the LCK earlier this year. Smeb has an expansive champion pool and has shown a great deal of comprehensive ability and mechanical skill with each champion in his pool consistently over the LCK season. KOO Tiger’s coach, No-Chul Jeong, takes full advantage of Smeb’s abilities when devising the team’s game plan before picks and bans even begin. Whether Coach Jeong decides to put Smeb on an offensive or defensive/supportive champion to fit KOO’s team strategy against paiN, you can expect Smeb to be heavily involved in team fights and taking objectives with his teammates during all stages of the game. Smeb has earned an average KDA of 4.43 over the LCK 2015 Summer Split, and while he gets three times as many assist as he does kills (LCK Summer Split 2015 season stats: 117 K – 94 D – 299 A, over 42 games), he is an extremely consistent player who could score upwards of 10 assists along with several kills and very few deaths. He will be going up against paiN’s top laner, paiN Mylon, who is a good overall player and top laner in his own right. Smeb has the clear advantage in this matchup though; while Mylon is a decent top laner (he is one of the best in the Brazil professional LoL scene), Smeb is leaps and bounds his better when it comes to individual player skill and experience, and the KOO Tigers as a team will take full advantage of paiN’s weak fight initiation and team fighting skills in both the early and late game, opening up many opportunities for Smeb to get ahead of Mylon while he produces the consistent statistics we can expect from his performance during the LCK Summer Split earlier this year. Even though Smeb is the most expensive top laner of the day one slate, he is my top pick at the Top position for cash game lineups.
iG Zz1tai: $5700 (vs. FNC Huni)
Zz1tai will be going up against FNATIC’s Top laner Huni in what will be an intense clash between China’s and Europe’s best respective Top laners for the 2015 Summer Split. But Huni being one of the best Top laners in Europe doesn’t mean he will be on any kind of even ground going up against Zz1tai in this matchup. Zz1tai has an incredibly vast Champion Pool, while Huni has only been comfortable playing a few select champions in the new meta. Zz1tai has frequently played highly offensive based champions (carrys) for most of the LPL Summer Split making him a serious threat that FNC will be at a loss to deal with. Expect iG to attack Huni’s lacking champion pool during picks and bans to open up some offensive opportunities for Zz1tai and his unique style of Top-carry he has shown a great deal of consistency with this season. Look to handcuff Zz1tai with iG’s Jungler, iG Kakao (I will talk more about Kakao below) and Mid, iG Rookie, who will be working together closely during the early game to keep the pressure on FNATIC. With Zz1tai on a carry champion against a struggling Huni relying on some of his weaker Top picks, consider Zz1tai as a value play in both GPP and cash games that will have great upside and a high floor for both kills and assists that will offset the low to moderate amount of deaths he may pick up in this favorable matchup for him going into what is expected to be the closest match of the slate.
CLG ZionSpartan: $6,400 (vs. FW Steak)
ZionSpartan has played a major role in carrying CLG to worlds this year. With a 4.17 KDA average over the summer split (73 Kills, a relatively low death count at 48 Deaths, and 127 Assists over 19 games), he will remain consistent even through the Top meta change brought about by the recent LCS Worlds patch. He has a champion pool big enough so that he can’t be easily targeted by the enemy team during picks and bans, and versatile enough so that he can pick safely against his opponent’s picks. He will be going up against FW Steak, who has been a somewhat lackluster Top laner for the entire season, and who will not have many comfortable picks in the new patch. Expect ZionSpartan to lay into Steak and be a force to be reckoned with for other members of FW. ZionSpartan will be a viable pick with a soft matchup in both cash and GPP contests, with significant upside to fill the statistics with a high floor and many assists, a few kills, and only one or two deaths per game.
Jungle
iG Kakao: $5,400 (vs. FNC Reignover)
Kakao is believed by many to be the best Jungler. Period. Maybe even the best Jungler at worlds right now? We will see about that soon enough, but for this first game I am willing to believe the hype. Kakao just came off of an amazing display of his Jungling prowess in the 2015 LPL Summer Split and will look to continue and abuse his unique playstyle of extremely aggressive early game lane pressure that he has developed over the season going into this matchup. Expect him to take advantage of FNATIC’s weak champion picks in their Top and Jungle by setting up plays early and often. Kakao will spend as much time as he can afford helping Zz1tai and Rookie win their lanes, so look to handcuff him there for an added boost to your fantasy point production at a low price.
EDG Clearlove: $6,900 (vs. BKT 007x)
EDG vs. BKT is expected to be a sweep in EDG’s overwhelming favor. Why would you want to pick a player who will be in a blowout game? Because of BKT’s goto playstyle: BKT’s playstyle is known as a “high chaos” playstyle, or the “take a lot of incredible risks to get kills and push advantages, and just hope those risks work out in our favor” playstyle. Unfortunately for BKT, they don’t have much adaptability after their goto playstyle gets shut down in game one, and so will play an entire set of giving as many kills as they can to EDG. This gives us a perfect pick in EDG Clearlove, who has earned a whopping 10.46 KDA average (148 Kills, 61 Deaths, and 490 Assists over 42 games) in season long stats with a huge champion pool of both offensive and defensive based champions. EDG is a team that has perfected the strategy of turning small advantages given to them or by exploiting the mistakes of the other team into an overwhelming advantage by the time they reach the mid and late game. Clearlove is at the center of this strategy, creating as many early and mid game opportunities as he is allowed by the other team, and pushing every advantage gained into more pressure in every lane, and so more kills and assists. Clearlove has incredible upside to be the top scoring jungler of the slate. Consider rostering him in both your GPP and cash game lineups, as he is an extremely consistent player with a high floor and ceiling as well as an incredibly soft matchup.
Mid
KOO KurO: $8,200 (vs. paiN Kumi)
KurO is a player who has been strong all year, although he has had a few slumps when learning new champions. At the end of the LCK Summer Split he showed that he had been able to deepen his champion pool and mastery with the powerful Mid picks he had struggled getting comfortable with earlier this year. He will be going up an inexperienced paiN Kumi (the top ranked Mid player of Brazil, but paiN as a whole has little experience against top teams that have been playing for years, like the KOO Tigers) who has been known to favor less powerful and unconventional Mid picks, regardless of whether or not they have been strengthened or weakened by recent game patches. KurO has had a consistent 6.00 KDA average (270 Kills, 105 Deaths, 359 Assists over 58 games) for the entire season, and has mastered his now very broad champion pool, bringing a lot of strategic counterpick options the Tigers will take advantage of against paiN. While paiN Kumi also has a deep champion pool, he will be up against a far more experienced player in KurO, who has worked hard to tailor his Mid play with current patch strengths to work against his lane opponents consistently in every matchup of the LCK Season. Expect KurO to continue with his consistent lane dominance in this game against an inexperienced Kumi.
FNC Febiven: $6,800 (vs. iG Rookie)
Febiven is an absolute monster in Mid, and can often win his lane all on his own without help from his Jungle or Top. He prefers to play very powerful and mobile high damage champions that get kills quickly and early on in the game, and he does so consistently. Febiven earned a 6.18 KDA average (with 90 Kills, 34 Deaths, and 120 Assists) over the Summer Split, taking his team to Worlds with an undefeated score of 18 wins and no losses. iG will likely look to attack Febiven’s hyper carry (champions that excel at earning kills and assists early and carrying games during the later stages) champion pool during picks and bans, but Febiven has quite a few champions he can fall back on and still put up a consistent stat line of several kills, very few deaths, and a moderate amount of assists with huge upside and a high ceiling to earn the 10+ kills/assists bonus in what is expected to be the closest game of the slate.
EDG Pawn: $8,000 (vs. BKT G4)
I talked a bit earlier about how BKT will be playing their hyper-aggressive high-risk, high-reward playstyle into the all around higher skilled team with a strategy built around punishing the hyper-aggressive playstyle when mistakes are made: EDG. EDG Pawn has one of the biggest champion pools in Mid for the 2015 season, of which hyper carry champions make up the majority of picks at Pawn’s discretion. In a game where deaths are expected to be frequent for BKT during all stages of the game, and punished with more deaths as the game progresses. Expect Pawn, a Mid player who has earned a 5.43 KDA average (244 Kills, 109 Deaths, 348 Assists over 42 games) over the LPL Season, to pick up a good portion of the kills EDG will earn in their game against BKT. Pawn’s lane opponent, BKT G4, has an incredibly small champion pool he has been comfortable playing this season, and he will very likely be outmatched by the far more experienced player Pawn. Even at the price of $8,000 of your $50,000 salary cap, expect a safe floor and extremely high ceiling with huge upside for your GPP lineups. Look to handcuff Pawn with Clearlove and Deft for some added fantasy production if you can manage to fit all or a combination of the three into your lineup.
ADC & Support
EDG Deft: $8,600 (vs. BKT Lloyd)
Deft has earned a KDA average of 6.14 over the LPL Season, averaging a ratio of 3+ kills and 3+ assists per death. He has a wide range of champions to select from his pool and has shown proficiency with all of them over the entire season, as well as a few sneaky champion picks he has used on occasion when some of his preferred picks were banned away from him, racking up huge scores in those games as well. Expect a big game and some high scores from Deft and his support EDG Meiko ($6200) during the mid and late game.
CLG DoubleLift: $7,600 (vs. FW NL)
DoubleLift is a player that shines when he gets to the late game, and in this close matchup he will be riding on the back of ZionSpartan, Pobelter, and whichever jungler CLG decides to roll out (though Xmithie has been confirmed to be in attendance for Worlds, they’ve spent the last month practicing with Huhi, and so I haven’t written up either of them here since it still has not been officially confirmed which will be playing). Once Doublelift makes it to the late game, he and his support, CLG Aphromoo, will be the dominating force between the two teams in what is expected to be the second closest game of the slate. Having earned a 5.04 KDA (117 Kills, 49 Deaths, 130 Assists over 19 games) during the NA LCS Summer Split, Doublelift has shown a great deal of consistency with the top ADC picks of the meta and is not afraid to rely on any unconventional picks he has become comfortable with if necessary. This makes him a little unpredictable, but the value of rostering him into your lineups is his consistency in filling the stat sheet, and how much of an opportunity he will be offered in the later stages of the game if his team manages to get him there. Doublelift is a great pick for cash games and definitely has some notable GPP upside, especially when paired together with Aphromoo($5400).
FNC Rekkles: $7,000 (vs. iG Kid)
Rekkles has one of the highest KDA averages at Worlds at 10.67 (99 Kills, 21 Deaths, 125 Assists) over 18 undefeated games during the EU LCS Summer Split. He consistently fills the stat sheet and has a comfortable champion pool to pick from, making it hard for any team to force him into an uncomfortable pick. Rekkles and his support, YellOwStaR ($5300), will be the crutch that FNATIC will rely on to win in the later stages of the game if their Reignover and Huni end up not being able to handle Kakao and Zz1tai (they are expected not to). This makes a Rekkless/YellOwStaR handcuff a sneaky and viable option to draft into your GPP contests.
iG Kid: $6,700 (vs. FNC Rekkles)
With a strong Top and Jungle on their team, look to a more than capable ADC/Support game closer combo to fit into your GPP lineups with iG Kid and iG Kitties ($4300). Like FNC Rekkles, Kid has a comfortable champion pool to pick from to reflect his team’s late game based strategies and tactics where him and his support will be the decisive playmakers. Although Kid only has a KDA average of 4.08, he is the more experienced player and on the team that is slightly favored to get him powerful by the late game through a strong early game from their top and jungle. The early game advantages his team earns will lead him into the mid and late stages of the game where he will have plenty of opportunities from his Top, Jungle, and Support to make plays and fill his stat sheet. Look to roster him and his support, iG Kitties, into your lineup as low owned picks with moderate upside in your GPP contests.
Teams
invictus Gaming (iG): $3,400 (vs. FNC)
FNC vs. iG is expected to be the closest game of the slate. Both teams look to build early game advantages through early game strength of key players’ champion pools (most notably: Febiven, Zz1tai, and Kakao), early teamfights for dragon, and persistent lane pressure from their Junglers. They then try to push those advantages as quick as they can to help create opportunities to take towers and barons in the later stages of the game. This game is an example of what I had talked about in my first post: two heavy late game teams that will play a safe and strong early and mid game looking for small trades to build up to a late game with multiple baron fights and team fights. iG, being the more experienced team, coming from the LPL, where most teams had players that were better on average than most european teams FNC has had the opportunity to play against, and having the better advantage in two key positions for the early game, will be the team to draft in your GPP contests.
Counter-Logic Gaming (CLG): $3,800 (vs. FW)
The second closest game of the slate will be CLG vs. FW. Both teams play very similar to FNC and iG, in that they will both run an early game offense through key players. In this matchup CLG has the advantage though. This is the game CLG proves they are worthy of getting to worlds this year. Steak is completely outmatched by ZionSpartan, Maple is going to be in a tough matchup against Pobelter, and Karsa will struggle against the strong picks of either Jungler CLG puts in their lineup (it is unconfirmed whether Xmithie or Huhi will start). CLG will be looking to push their early game advantages into winning teamfights and taking objectives safely with the help of DoubleLift and Aphromoo in the late game.
Thank you for checking out my article. Stay tuned for more of my top picks for each slate.
Have any questions or comments? Leave them in the box below or contact me direct on Twitter: @VinTheBeardDFS