Fantasy LCS Week 2, Who Do I Start?

If you're like most Fantasy LCS participants you likely snorted in derision at that one guy who started Kerp before last week's LCS, and then devolved into tears as Kerp decided to generate the most fantasy points of anyone in week 1. Now you're looking for a way to get that same leg up on the competition with a risky pick. Well you're in luck cause I've got a short list of the low, and high, risk high reward picks to try to grab a few surprise points in week 2. 

Low Risk, High Reward:

It's common knowledge at this point, but bears repeating that MrRallez is the best semi-unconventional pick for week 2. MrRallez has had a habit of generating strong numbers, even in games that were heavy losses for his team. Week 2 sees MrRallez and the SupaHot Crew face off against the struggling Copenhagen Wolves, and the even more struggling Gambit Gaming. Both GG and CW have some of the weakest bot lanes in Europe making it almost guaranteed that Rallez will be able to carry both SHC, and your Fantasy team to victory. 

People seem to be of two minds about the Millenium players, some have leapt onto the hype train completely, others point to the strength of their opponents and remark that MIL won't do as well in week 2. The reality is a bit more in the middle. Despite their abysmal record last split Millenium has always been a strong fantasy points earning team. Their strong individual players and excellent early game strategies helped them get out to many early leads. It wasn't until their mid-late game where their inability to close games would rear it's head and they'd have those leads turned around. Their history of mid game troubles suggest that even in losses Millenium can be expected to post reasonable numbers, and if they should win... well we've already seen Kerp post the highest numbers of anyone in the LCS in week 1. 

Medium Risk, High Reward:

The rest of SHC. While SHC does have a relatively easy week 2 lined up for them they still warrant a medium risk assessment. They're medium risk because unlike teammate MrRallez the rest of SHC do not have a history of putting up huge numbers in defeat, if Europe decides to be good old unpredictable Europe this week starting SHC members into a defeat could lead some people to get burned. Even in the face of possible EU inconsistency taking a shot on an SHC member is a reasonable bet, especially if there's no one better available. 

After their somewhat Abysmal super week many people abandoned the Fnatic players, apparently forgetting the streaky nature of the team. While Fnatic's slump from All Stars did continue in week 1 there's some hope in the form of the wins they did pick up at the end of the week. Fnatic still has very strong players who can generate incredible numbers when they're winning and in week 2 they are up against a relatively reasonable schedule in the form of Gambit and Millenium. If the Fnatic slump is over starting their players could generate some of the best numbers in the LCS this week. 

While most people will likely scoff at this placement the numbers still show that Altec is a strong sleeper pick for Fantasy LCS. In his 3 losses with EG during super week Altec posted a 3.5 KDA, better than Doublelift, thanks to his total score of 14 kills, 6 deaths, and 7 assists. The only reason Altec appears to have been so low scoring on the fantasy LCS website is because of that game he missed lowering his potential score. If Altec can continue to generate scores like this it wont matter if EG wins or loses he'll still be a strong, safe pick on par with MrRallez. I only list Altec as medium risk, instead of low, because we've got just the one week to look at, but Altec certainly has the potential to be one of the best sleeper fantasy picks in the LCS. 

High Risk, High Reward:

Despite the entire team's struggles during super week CompLexity's RobertxLee showed why he is the breakout star of the team, and why I'm recommending him here, in their win against Cloud 9. His incredible 8/1/3 performance that game generated most of RobertxLee's fantasy points for week 1 and showed us all just what he can do if given the opportunity. Week 2 could be that opportunity. While mid laner Pr0lly will sadly be absent for the team they still face likely the easiest possible competition in the form of EG. RobertxLee remains a risk because we've only seen the one breakout performance from him in the LCS, but he's proved both in that game and in the challenger scene that he can run rampant over people. If CompLexity can generate an early lead for Robert there's a strong chance Robert will generate incredible numbers this week. 

Obviously I left off the more obvious teams and players because everyone knows teams like Alliance and TSM will consistently do reasonably well, but if you think there's a lesser known pick I missed, or if you just think I've got it wrong, leave a comment with who and why. 

Just how did Denial lose against Curse Academy?

Most people have seen the Denial (DNL) vs Curse Academy (CA) clip from their game in the North American Challenger play in where Denial's vision control allows them to create an incredible display of objective rotations. It exploded on twitter when it happened as well as front paging on the League of legends subreddit almost immediately, follow this link if you need a refresher.

In the run up to the above clip Curse Academy has made two critical mistakes. The first is their vision control has entirely collapsed, the only vision they end up with is around Dragon which they were trying to get control of, and their own base. The second critical mistake is that they have mistimed the dragon. They rush down to get vision control around dragon and find themselves waiting around, which results in them starting to pull back in confusion as the clip starts. Denial knows the dragon is still not spawned, and they've seen CA set up around it.

Denial knows that trading mid inhibitor turret for dragon is not only basically free it's the better trade. The problem that generates the play in the clip is that CA has already started with drawing from dragon in utter confusion when Denial attempts to run up mid. Denial knows they can't afford to get caught in a straight up fight with their team being so heavily poke/disengage focused. They also know from clearing it out that CA has no vision on Baron or the route over to Baron.

From this the clip plays out, Denial hides in a pink warded bush in hopes of a face check. Curse Academy avoids the face check temptation but Denial quickly change plans and take the mid inhibitor thanks to the time involved in CA taking the long way to check Baron. CA pursues denial towards bottom lane eating poke and getting split up along the way allowing Denial to win the fight. All told Denial secures multiple kills, the middle inhibitor, and the bottom inhibitor turret before backing away to heal.

At this point is where the confusion comes in for most people, because honestly Curse Academy has completely lost this game. Against competent teams it's simply impossible to win from this situation. Denial has a lead, an inhibitor down, a second exposed inhibitor, and a poke/disengage team composition. If Denial were SKT T1 K the game would have roughly 5 minutes left before they kill the nexus regardless of who were taking CA's position. If League of Legends had Starcraft's restart from replay feature, this would be the Kobayashi Maru of League of Legends. Any strong team playing in Denial's position as of the end of that clip will win against anyone else 100% of the times they don't throw.

What Denial should have done at this point is push up the mid and bottom minion waves, then 5 man siege bottom. The combined pressure of the super minions mid and Denial's incredible poke is enough that the only way to defend the second inhibitor is to dive. Except a dive won't work unless Denial screws up as they have Karma's team wide speed boost, and Jayce's speed boost to escape any hard engage attempt from Curse Academy. Denial's team composition is purpose built for this exact situation and it should have allowed them to sit bottom sieging the inhibitor until it inevitably fell.

Instead what Denial actually exposed just how lacking in experience they were. Instead of pushing up after they healed Denial set up around baron and indecisively contested with Curse Academy for ward control of the area. It would be a full 10 minutes of indecisive moves and mostly farming from Denial that allowed Curse Academy to reduce the gold gap and eventually steal the first Baron of the game completely turning it around.

When they should have continued being decisive and pressed their advantage, Denial instead showed their inexperience allowing Curse Academy to farm themselves back into it which ultimately lost Denial the game.

What we can take away from All Stars

All Stars has come and gone this weekend and while a "slumping" Korean team has once again swept an international event there are still some lessons we can take away from the event.

Korea has it figured out.

A lesson we mostly already knew but is good to have a reminder as more and more people are discussing what western teams have to do to catch up. It's clear by by how utterly slumping Korean teams have dominated the last few international events that Korea's support staff and deep rosters have made their teams a cut above.

SEA's underdog story is not repeating anytime soon.

There were some rumblings that SEA's representatives at Season 3 Worlds were not the best of the region. There were occasional suggestions that TPA, or TPS would have put on a better show even with their changes. Now TPA has been destroyed out of two international events in a row and it's finally put those ideas to rest. The SEA scene seems to have imploded since TPA won season 2 and they've clearly got a long way to go before they're competitive again.

NA is closing the international gap.

We already knew that Cloud 9 at their Hai point has been competitive with the best of Europe. Fnatic and Cloud 9 had a 4-4 head to head record before the event and it was one of the initial story lines people were quick to latch onto for all stars. Then Hai's lung collapsed and everyone expected that a weakened Cloud 9 would be knocked out of All Stars in the group stage. Instead Cloud 9 with Link subbed in the mid lane took second in the groups taking games off everyone but SKT. If a weakened Cloud 9 can take games off the best of EU and China it's not hard to imagine CLG and TSM, who were only just behind C9 during the spring split, could have similar results. This means potentially great things for NA fans at worlds as the summer split looks to be an even stronger split than spring was.

EU might be in trouble.

Certainly the most unpopular opinion to take away from All Stars, but one that needs to be considered anyways. Fnatic is 3 time EU LCS winner, making them clearly the best of Europe. If the best of Europe only manages a pathetic 1-5 record, barely escaping groups by beating TPA, at All Stars it should set off warning bells for EU fans and players alike. Those warning signs are made worse when you remember that the entire top half of the EU LCS has opted to make no roster changes. EU currently seems to sit content because they were all just a game or two back from Fnatic, but if Fnatic  is not competitive on the world stage then being slightly better than them should definitely not be the goal.

Worlds promises to be incredible. 

Riot already promised that Worlds would not have byes this year and now we've been given a little taste of what the Worlds format might look like. A full group stage with more than a dozen of the best from around the world is exactly what League fans have been clamoring for. And with NA promising to be even stronger leading into worlds we could be in for some amazing games this fall.

NA's influx of foreign talent is not a death knell, it's a challenge

It seems in the wake of LMQ qualifying for NA LCS and players like Amazing and Seraph being imported by NA teams all the talk is about allowing foreign players into the NA LCS. Complaints about holding down NA talent range from pointing out more than 1/4th of NA LCS will be foreign players to the fact that only 3 of 8 junglers will be from NA in the next split.While NA players predict doom for NA, in truth the importing of foreign talent is completely the opposite.

The only solid argument against foreign players boils down to it having a negative effect because it removes NA competition. Often people cite the StarCraft 2 WCS where a lack of region locking has had a clear deleterious effect. It is certainly true that the WCS lack of region locking has exacerbated a problem in the StarCraft scene. You must live in Korea and play on the Korean SC2 server in order to be competitive and Korean players flock to other regions looking for a sure spot that they otherwise would likely fail to grab in Korea. The lack of region locking and the allowance for players to telecommute means local players never get to play those at the top level, and as a result never get the practice needed to be true competition without moving to Korea.

Unlike the WCS, the LCS requires players to show up and play live, in studio, every week; as well as qualify playing via the local server over an extended period. There is no WCS style show up for a week and otherwise play online via Korean servers from Korea. The LCS requirements are stiff enough that if you so much as don't live in the same state as the studio you're going to have a bad time which Curse, TSM, and Gambit have all attested to. This means even foreign players coming into the NA LCS are forced to play on the NA servers with and against the NA players.

Not only is bringing in foreign players not creating a WCS style scenario, it's also actively improving the global LoL scene as a whole. Players are becoming more valuable, lured over with promises of more money and better amenities. In order to keep all their own talent being bled away foreign organizations have to pay more and treat their players better. The knowledge that teams with big American bank rolls are willing to pick up talent from anywhere gives every player a stronger bargaining position, as a direct result every player is able to earn more and live better as a pro player.

On top of raising potential earnings Foreign players also help native players improve skill wise. It's no doubt that the NA players of season 3 were simply not on par with EU, China, or Korea, no matter how you look at it they were going to have to get better. Foreign competition doesn't just immediately improve the scene with an influx of new talent, they also serve as free personal trainers for every local player who runs across them in solo-queue. The way to beat the best is to compete against the best, and now NA players have access to more pros on an even higher level. The short term is players like Oddone, Elementz, Scarra, and other players who were not world class find themselves out of a job, the long term is they've been challenged to use a free sparring partner and get to the level they always needed to reach to be a world champion.

The truth of the matter is that any player replaced by foreign talent likely had low chances on the world stage anyways. It's hard to have that thrown in your face, but it's not the beginnings of the scene's apocalypse. It is an invitation, a challenge, to finally dig down deep and become the player required by a World Champion team. The NA LCS is going to be much stronger this summer thanks to the influx of new players, and the challenger scene will be better when relegations come about thanks to months of practice against a new set of best in NA players who've raised the bar.