The first ever LCS Lock In Tournament was a complete success. Cloud9 almost managed to pull off another sweep against Team Liquid in the finals but they were shutdown quickly by Alphari in game five. Team Liquid is moving into the spring split as the favorites to win and have the current best three players in the league, Alphari, Jensen, and CoreJJ.
Here’s a partial lineup that includes players who had strong performances in the Lock In Tournament that will carry over into the regular season for February 5 on DraftKings
MVP Zven $12,000 DK, $10,400 FD
Top Lane _______
Jungle _______
Mid Lane Damonte $7,200 DK, $9,200 FD
AD Carry _______
Support Huhi $5,400 DK, $7,400 FD
TEAM _______
During the Lock In Tournament Zven ($12,000 DK, $10,400 FD) averaged the most points per game among players that started every game for their team. He recorded the second highest KDA across the entire tournament, averaging the third most kills per game, and least deaths per game across all players. With the meta become more AD carry centric and less focused about the mid and jungle dynamic, AD carries should be the best position to select as MVP. While Cloud9 does have Perkz on their roster, during the Lock In he underperformed compared to expectations with Zven doing the heavy lifting for Cloud9. Zven is going up against one of the weakest bot lanes in the LCS, Stixxay and Newbie, he should be able to use his strong laning to open up fast for Cloud9 to explode the game through bot.
Damonte ($7,200 DK, $9,200 FD) ultimately failed 100 Thieves in their semifinal series against Cloud9. 100 Thieves chose to take a different direction with Damonte in that series, putting him on more laning focused carry oriented champions from game two onward. Damonte’s best style is playing the supportive roaming mid laners such as Twisted Fate and Galio where he shines in making plays around the map and spreading his lead to other lanes. This could have been 100 Thieves trying out a different style as the matches in the Lock In Tournament ultimately didn’t matter with regards to the standings. Therefore, now that we are in the regular season Damonte should be back on his best playstyle.
Huhi ($5,400 DK, $7,400 FD) had a great series against Cloud9 showing that he can compete with one of the best bot lanes in the LCS, Zven and Vulcan. Huhi patience with the hard engage champions is what made him so good in the Lock In. His Alistar and Rell in the Cloud9 series were fantastic to watch. Utilizing the flank to cc and knock in the important targets on Cloud9 almost led 100 Thieves to victory. Should Huhi carry these performances into the regular season, we will see him in the all-pro voting.
Now what do you get if you sign up for $99 right now?
• Full lineups for DraftKings and FanDuel
• Which players Lock In performance will carry over
• Which team to potentially go all in on
• How to manage the salary cap for Friday’s matches
Now that the LCS is back to best of one’s, both DraftKings and FanDuel are back to the full roster classic game style. A seven play roster consisting of one MVP (1.5x points), one player from each role, and one TEAM pick. Additionally, Broxah is currently still in Europe dealing with visa issues and is therefore unable to compete. Griffin will continue to be the starting jungler for CLG. While Immortals made the decision to play their entire academy roster in their quarterfinal match against 100 Thieves, their main roster will be starting for week one. Lastly, CLG has made a last minute benching of Pobelter. He was benched due to “attitude issues” and will be replaced by rjs, CLG academy mid laner, who was their academy top laner last split but does have experience with mid lane. Please not that FanDuel has not yet added rjs to their player database and is therefore unable to be picked.
DraftKings and FanDuel Lineup for February 5
MVP Zven $12,000 DK, $10,400 FD
Top Lane Ssumday $6,600 DK, $8,400 FD
Jungle Dardoch $6,600 DK, $7,800 FD
Mid Lane Damonte $7,200 DK, $9,200 FD
AD Carry Neo $7,400 DK, $9,200 FD
Support Huhi $5,400 DK, $7,400 FD
TEAM Dignitas $4,800 DK, $7,500 FD
Remaining Salary $0 DK, $100 FD
Ssumday ($6,600 DK, $8,400 FD) absolutely trashed Fudge in 100 Thieves’ semifinal match against Cloud9. He made it incredibly difficult for Cloud9 to come back in that series as Ssumday turned Fudge into a liability. It feels like we are now seeing the true Ssumday as this is by far the best team that has been built around him. His carry potential was put on display in the quarter and semifinal matches, busting out Jax to counterpick Camille. Being able to dominate lane on scaling late game champions is very impressive, something we haven’t seen from Ssumday in a while. In the series against Fudge, he was up an average of 24 cs at 15 minutes. If he can dominate his lane this hard against one of the best teams in the league, imagine what he will do to the middle of the pack and bottom teams.
With CLG’s dysfunction this early on into the season, I really like Dignitas for Friday’s matches. Their 1-3 record and failure to get out of the group stage of the Lock In Tournament didn’t do them justice for their performance. Despite their poor record, they had great showings in losing efforts against Cloud9 and Evil Geniuses, two teams who went to the finals and semifinals respectively. Dignitas should be viewed as favorites over CLG in each team’s first match of the season. Dardoch ($6,600 DK, $7,800 FD) has been known has a “coinflip” jungler, often taking big risks that can either win or lose the game for his team. However, he is going up against Griffin, probably the worst performing jungler last year and one of the worst players in the whole league. Neo ($7,400 DK, $9,200 FD) will be joining aphromoo in the bot lane, who seemed to revitalize his career with Dignitas last year. Aphromoo just missed out on making the all-pro team in the summer split, Neo should be able to find success early in the LCS with a reliable support. The biggest question for Dignitas ($4,800 DK, $7,500 FD) this offseason was the acquisition of former 100 Thieves players FakeGod and Soligo. However, they put up solid performances in the group stage of the LCS Lock In Tournament and are much less of a question mark moving into the regular season.
If you aren’t as high on Dignitas another option to consider is choosing players from the FlyQuest versus TSM series. The players in that series are similarly priced to most of the Dignitas players. Another choice is if you think that 100 Thieves against Evil Geniuses isn’t a lock for 100 Thieves you could swap them for some Team Liquid players. However, you would then need to find some cheaper players elsewhere. Either by selecting a cheaper MVP or taking players from an underdog team.
Let us know about your wins on Twitter (@FantasyDFSX). We love to hear from you. Best of luck and have fun!
