The second day of the LCS Lock In Tournament played out similarly to the first. Plenty of one-sided affairs and a big upset. Evil Geniuses, Cloud9, and Immortals had dominant wins over Immortals, FlyQuest, and Dignitas respectively. TSM had a late comeback over Golden Guardians after being down over six thousand gold. Golden Guardians implemented the same strategy against TSM that 100 Thieves ran. They paired the Taliyah jungle with strong top and mid roaming champions to dive and punish Huni’s Gnar for a second time. Golden Guardians were successful in doing so taking a large lead going into the late game. However, this new Golden Guardians rosters’ inexperience showed once it came to late game teamfighting and objective control. They struggled to properly set up objectives and control major areas of the map when it came time to take baron. TSM was able to get into the pit and steal the baron, something that Spica is really becoming known known for. TSM regained control of the game as Golden Guardians lost confidence and we able to continually punish the Guardians mistakes. The last game of the day saw a back and forth game between CLG and 100 Thieves where WildTurtle really stepped up and showed his veteran presence in the late game and dominated with Jhin finishing with a KDA of 10/5/12.
Here’s the makeup of a lineup comprised of fantastic value picks for January 17 on FanDuel
MVP Deftly $9,500 FD
Top Lane _________
Jungle Spica $8,200 FD
Mid Lane PowerOfEvil $8,700 FD
AD Carry _________
Support _________
TEAM _________
Deftly ($11,400 DK [MVP], $9,500 FD) has amassed a 14/2/11 KDA over the first two games of the Lock In tournament and has looked fantastic on the best two AD carries in the meta right now, Jhin and Kai’sa. Deftly’s strong play has helped EG jump out as the favorite to make it out of group B as the number one seed and the only team with a 2-0 record after the first two days of matches. Deftly and EG should continue their control over group B up against a much weaker opponent in Dignitas. Deftly is only the fifth most expensive MVP options and is the best options as the others face much more difficult teams.
Either Xmithie is secretly playing for Spica ($7,000 DK, $8,200 FD), or Spica just continues to make miraculous baron steals saving games for TSM. Last season Spica was in the shadow of Blaber as the best jungler in North America, but after TSM strong end to the summer split people are starting to wonder who really is the better of the two. Spica really helped TSM survive in their game against Golden Guardians through objective control and bested Iconic, who was only playing in his second professional game,
In addition to Spica, PowerOfEvil ($7,800 DK, $8,700 FD) was able to take over in the late game on one of his signature champions, Orianna. Although his play is sometimes questioned because he isn’t very influential in the early game and would rather focus on getting resources for himself rather than helping the team, once the late game hits, his positioning and damage output is second to none. PowerOfEvil should have an easy lane against Pobelter from CLG and once the late game hits, he will take over once again.
Now what do you get if you sign up for $99 now?
- Full lineups for both DraftKings and FanDuel
- Which top laner will get all the resources in their game
- Who the next best North American AD Carry is
- Which support is the key to his teams success
For the January 17 LCS Lock In Tournament matches, DraftKings and FanDuel are running the same four game set making it the only available set for January 17.
Additionally, please note that several LCS teams are experiencing visa issues with their international/import players and will be fielding substitute players for the first week of the LCS Lock In Tournament. The starting players missing are: CLG’s starting top and jungle, Finn and Broxah, LCS newcomer and Latin America Superstar Josedeodo for FlyQuest, Immortal’s new OCE bot lane duo Raes and Destiny, and huge free agent signing Santorin for Team Liquid. Each of these players are confirmed to be out for week one of the tournament, so be very careful when choosing your lineup. Previously, FanDuel’s list of players didn’t accurately reflect these players’ absence and their substitutes weren’t listed. Now, FanDuel’s list of players includes these replacements and can be selected for the final day of the first week of the Lock In Tournament.
FanDuel Lineup for January 17
MVP Deftly $9,500
Top Lane Alphari $8,400
Jungle Spica $8,200
Mid Lane PowerOfEvil $8,700
AD Carry Tactical $10,300
Support Vulcan $7,300
TEAM Cloud9 $7,500
Remaining Salary $100
Alphari ($5,800 DK, $8,400 FD) looked fantastic in his LCS debut. He bullied Solo’s counter pick Malphite with Camille in the laning phase and was able to constantly draw sidelane pressure. In Europe he his known for his top lane carry play and perfect weak side gameplay, both carried over in his first game in North America. Ssumday from 100T is viewed as one of the top three top laners in the region, expect Team Liquid to put many resources early into Alphari through jungle ganks and mid lane roams to shutdown Ssumday and allow Alphari to play from ahead.
It was difficult to not pick Tactical ($7,400 DK, $10,300 FD) for another MVP selection. He is most likely the best mechanical AD carry in the LCS, it’s just a question how long before he becomes more valuable from a macro standpoint than someone like Zven. Tactical versus FBI will be the matchup to focus on from all the games tomorrow. Let’s just hope for FBI’s sake that 100 Thieves either picks or bans Samira because you do not want to let that fall to Tactical.
Cloud9 ($5,800 DK, $7,500 FD) and Vulcan ($6,200 DK, $7,300 FD) dominated FlyQuest in a bounce back performance from their effort against Evil Geniuses. Cloud9 had a near perfect game against FlyQuest giving up zero kills, controlling every major objective and only giving up one tower during the whole game. They dominated from start to finish and was kicked off when Vulcan found a beautiful engage on Johnsun early in the laning phase which gave Cloud9 first blood. Vulcan continues to show his mastery of the tanky engage support champions. If Vulcan gets his hands on any of Nautilus, Leona, Alistar, or maybe even the newest support Rell he will be kicking off all the fights for Cloud9.
DraftKings Lineup for January 17
MVP Deftly $11,400
Top Lane Alphari $5,800
Jungle Spica $7,000
Mid Lane PowerOfEvil $7,800
AD Carry Tactical $7,400
Support CoreJJ $5,200
TEAM Evil Geniuses $5,400
Remaining Salary $0
As many of the players on DraftKings have drastically different prices in comparison to their FanDuel prices, swapping CoreJJ ($5,200 DK, $7,600 FD) and Evil Geniuses ($5,400 DK, $7,400 FD) for Vulcan and Cloud9 still gives you two strong picks that allow this lineup to just fit under the salary allocation.
The MVP from the summer split, CoreJJ ($5,200 DK, $7,600 FD), had everyone’s number the entire summer 2020 season. You could argue he had the best Blitzcrank, Bard, and even Thresh in the entire world. Most top players can say that they are the best at one or two champions at any given time but I don’t think anyone could claim that they had three. That’s the level CoreJJ was playing at in 2020. He set to go up against a rising bot lane in FBI and Huhi from 100 Thieves but even last year and in the playoffs showed that he was miles ahead of second. Team Liquid versus 100 Thieves should be the closet match tomorrow, expect CoreJJ to be at the center of Liquid gameplay.
With Team Liquid only playing one match so far in the tournament, Evil Geniuses ($5,400 DK, $7,400 FD) looks to be the best looking team so far. They upset Cloud9 to spoil Perkz’s LCS debut and destroyed Immortals in the first match of the second day. Evil Geniuses has another relatively easy match against Dignitas, expect them to quickly take control of the game resulting in many towers and dragons which should lead to big points.
Best of luck and have fun!
