LoL Playoffs: Third Place Matchups
The Saturday LCS slate may not be for the championship but the stakes are quite still high. Finishing in third may not have been the goal for favorites like Immortals and H2K Gaming, but this is still important for them to attend Worlds in October. Late surging teams like Team Liquid and Fnatic had their momentum fizzle out in the semifinals but they look to prove they can be one of the top teams heading into the Summer Split.
Once again, it is also important to note that there is a bonus for the players and team slot for “games not played” which only applies to players from the winning team. This bonus is 20 (DK) or 10 (AD) points per GNP for each player and 15 (DK) or 5 (AD) points per GNP for each team. Again, this bonus only applies to the winning team. In conjunction with this article, be sure to head over to the Rotogrinders eSports research tools to dive even deeper with in-depth stats you won’t find anywhere else! Let’s hop onto the rift and get started.
H2K (-177) vs Fnatic (+145)
I certainly thought I would be writing about the classic Fnatic vs Origen matchup for this slate but a series of misteps from H2K and superb play from Origen lead us to this battle for 3rd place for EU Spring. Fnatic fell in a much more expected fashion to the first place G2 team that looks very strong heading into the finals. Though the two teams are playing at a relatively even level, I think H2K has much more fixable flaws than Fnatic. When I look at this matchup for fantasy, I feel comfortable mixing a few players from each team in my lineup, but I will be leaning more heavily towards H2K. Ryu and Febiven are both viable even though they are facing off against one another and this is one position I actually favor Fnatic at but only by a small margin. The biggest advantages for H2K will be in the top lane and the support discrepancy is also quite large when comparing Vander to Klaj. I won’t be highlighting Odoamne as a player I’m targeting, but I think he is a fine option. He has a pretty high floor but his ceiling isn’t incredibly high and his mediocre kill participation has not really improved much in the postseason. In the current tank meta, the gap between the two players is smaller than it was at the beginning of the season. Much like the mid lane, I also think the jungle battle is interesting and both Spirit and Jankos are viable fantasy options even in the same lineup. I don’t like Spirit quite as much because he doesn’t have the same proficiency on a ton of champions the way Jankos does. That being said, if he gets his hands on Kindred or Nidalee he is a serious carry threat and I expect him to have at least 1 game where he puts up a large kill total. At the end of the day, I think H2K will be hoisting the non-existent 3rd place trophy and they are capable of pulling it off in 3-0 fashion. I think the veteran experience in best-of series play will net Fnatic at least one win. H2K is also who I’m most comfortable with to fill my “team” slot on both DraftKings and Alphadraft.
Players to Target:
-Febiven – (DK $6,700, AD $7,400) – From a skills standpoint, this matchup is very close to call and I’m actually comfortable with grabbing both Ryu and Febiven in a DK lineup. One advantage that Febiven has for his value is the fact that he is the primary carry and catalyst for his team. H2K has a variety of players that can beat you, which sometimes puts Ryu in a secondary carry role. With the weaker mid laners in the NA matchup, mid lane is one position I’m prioritizing EU players for. Febiven had the 2nd highest kill participation % in the regular season so look for him to at least grab some assists along with high kill potential.
-Jankos – (DK $6,200, AD $7,800) – I prefer this play on DraftKings but he still has value on both sites. Jankos apologized for his poor performance in the teams loss and I’m expecting a rebound performance against Fnatic. He did play poorly in that series against Origen but we can’t forget that Jankos was in the top 3 among EU junglers in kills, assists, kill participation, and damage per minute.
-Forg1ven – (DK $7,200, AD $8,000) – Typically I will avoid Forg1ven because his salary is usually the highest on the slate and makes it difficult for him to fall short of hitting value. On a smaller slate like this one, it’s worth grabbing a stud like Forg1ven. Despite losing against Origen, he still has 13 kills and 23 assists and with the way EU games have been playing out, it’s not out of the question to expect 10 points per match from CS alone. Fnatic’s support Klaj, has a knack for giving up unnecessary deaths so I think Forg1ven will capitalize on Fnatic’s weakest link. If Ryu is held in check by Febiven, Forg1ven should be in line for huge fantasy numbers.
Immortals (-337) vs Team Liquid (+262)
This game is full of storylines and there may be better storylines and level of play when it comes down to it. Immortals seems to be completely lost in the current meta and they might be one of the biggest disappointments in the last year or so of NA LCS play. However, if you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen it coming. Team Liquid looked like they had a chance to scrape their way into the finals but they finally fell to CLG in a grueling, yet entertaining, 5 game series. Team Liquid versus Immortals feels near impossible to get a read on after what we’ve seen in the playoffs thus far. I expect Immortals will finally wise-up to the meta but will they be able to execute it? We know Team Liquid can but only to a certain extent. This may go 5 games or it may be a sweep in either direction. Either way I expect it to be a bloody series with high kill and assist numbers meaning it should be a big series for fantasy. One player I am staying away from will be Reignover. He is one of those players that, despite his talent, he doesn’t net a large amount of kills. This makes him very reliant on assists and if the team falls behind the way they did in the TSM series, his value drops considerably. That risk is just too much to bear at his current price. Every other jungler in this slate has at least one game 5 kills in their last 8 games while Reignover has only one game with 3 kills or more in that span. I’m not high on the bottom lane of Immortals either, especially against Matt and Piglet so while I’ll be considering a couple plays on the Immortals side, Team Liquid looks like the team to stack even though it carries some risk. The prices on DraftKings make them incredibly high in value and potential.
Players to Target
-Poebelter – (DK $7,800, AD $8,300) – I’m not going to cut any corners on this one: Poebelter got destroyed by Bjergsen, along with the rest of IMT. So why am I high on Poebelter this week? Well for one, it’s almost certain that IMT has taken the time to adapt to the current meta by now. This will only help Poebelter and may even put him in position to carry more with Huni being forced onto a tank. The mid lane is also one of the weakest positions for Team Liquid which means Poebelter shouldn’t be at risk to the same fate he fell to against TSM. No mid laner has higher assists potential than Poebelter, who lead the position during the regular season by a massive 27 assists. I like this play in GPP’s as well considering his ownership numbers will likely be pretty low. There is still concern that Immortals will fall flat as they did last weekend but Team Liquid presents more opportunities for good team to capitalize on than TSM has recently.
-Piglet – (DK $6,000, AD $7,800) – Those salaries seem like small prices to play for potentially the best fantasy player of the slate. We’ve seen Piglet deliver time and time again so he is my “must-have” player for this slate after backing up my call from last week. Despite the losing effort, he managed to put up over 20 kills and 21 assists and he continues to post a high kill participation which means those stats are hardly a fluke. Piglet and Matt have become one of the strongest duos in the NA LCS and with IMT trending downwards, I expect another massive performance from Piglet. Prefer on DraftKings but he’s a requirement to roster in any cash game.
-Matt – (DK $4,300, AD $7,100) – Matt and Piglet are a great fantasy pairing for this slate and I’ll be loading up on both in my lineups. His ridiculous assist numbers, 84 through 8 playoff games, is just too good to pass up on. He has even hit the 10+ assist bonus in 5 of those games, further boosting his value. The supports currently in the meta really highlight his style of play and until that changes, I’ll be slotting Matt in my lineup whenever I can.
-Lourlo – (DK only $5,200) – Playing a top laner against Huni once seemed like daily fantasy suicide, but that just shows how far this Immortals team has fallen. Here’s how I expect this matchup to turn out. Either Huni finally starts playing these meta top lane tanks and Lourlo goes even in lane, but provides value in teamfights where he excels anyways. The alternative is that Huni continues to play carry top laners but Lourlo scales up and provides value in teamfights while Huni becomes less and less effective as the game goes on. Both scenarios present the opportunity for Lourlo to get his usual assist numbers and at $5,200, he has good value as a sort of punt/contrarian play in the top lane.