Evil Geniuses versus Dignitas was closer than expected with Dignitas staying even in every early game and winning game two after multiple throws from both teams. Evil Geniuses pulled away in the mid game with coordinated teamfights and fantastic engages and move on to face 100 Thieves next week. Today’s match of Cloud9 and Team Liqiud is the most competitive rivalry in the LCS since 2018 and should produce a great match. The winner will earn a spot against TSM for a chance to secure a worlds spot.
Here’s a core lineup for two players who will be vital for the gameplan of each team for DraftKings on August 8
| MVP | Zven | $15,500 FD, $16,500 [MVP] DK |
| MVP | ||
| FLEX | ||
| FLEX | CoreJJ | $9,000 FD, $7,000 DK |
Since coming back to the starting roster it’s taken some time for Zven ($15,500 FD, $16,500 [MVP] DK) to get back into form. Right as playoffs are starting it seems that Zven is back to his old self, getting pentakills and utilizing his strong laning to assist Blaber in the ealy game with river control. When Cloud9 was dominating the league in spring of 2020 and 2021, Zven was crucial in Cloud9’s success. Not from dominating his lane two against two and getting kills in lane but gaining control early on and using his pressure to help Blaber get early scuttle crabs and dragons. Zven had a fantastic week to close out the season with a cumulative score line of 18/2/16 and is looking strong going into the postseason.
CoreJJ ($9,000 FD, $7,000 DK) is the cheapest player pick on DraftKings and the second cheapest player pick on FanDuel. It would be a shame not to include him in your lineup for that price. While support is traditionally what its name implies, a support, CoreJJ carries from the support role. Since joining Team Liquid almost three years ago, CoreJJ has been the best player on the team and one of the best players in the league. This makes him one of the best players in this series if not the best. Cloud9 have had their way with Team Liquid everywhere but bot lane and CoreJJ will need a great performance if they want to pull off the upset.
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• Two risky picks of players who haven’t had great splits but will be crucial in this historical matchup
• Which player is the most important in this series for both teams
• How the top lane dynamic will play out based on previous matches
• Strategy on how to build your lineups for the different FanDuel and DraftKings roster formats
For Sunday’s match both DraftKings and FanDuel are on the single game format.
MVP Picks
Tactical ($14,500 FD, $15,900 [MVP] DK) has been Team Liquid’s most consistent carry throughout the split. Throughout Team Liquid’s struggles in the summer split, their bot lane of Tactical and CoreJJ have been the bright spot of their changing roster. Tactical suffered from a sophomore slump in spring 2021 after an electric rookie of the year split in summer 2020. He seems to have fixed his problems of over aggression and bad positioning which hurt Team Liquid’s championship aspirations in spring 2021 and is looking great heading into playoffs. While his deaths per game are still among some of the highest in his position, he led the LCS in kills per game among players who started every game.
Blaber ($12,500 FD, $14,100 [MVP] DK) is always the most important player in a Cloud9 versus Team Liquid series. With every single lane almost equal in terms of individual skill jungle becomes the most important player in the game who can influence every lane. In the three best-of-five series between Cloud9 and Team Liquid in the spring split (Lock-in final and two times in the summer playoffs) Blaber consistently smashed Team Liquid in most of the early games resulting in huge Cloud9 early game leads. With Santorin playing less than half of total games for the summer split Team Liquid won’t be one hundred percent with their early game coordination which will give Blaber the opening he needs to blow the game wide open.
Tier One Picks
Jensen ($14,500 FD, $10,000 DK) has had an up and down season due to the mid lane meta shift at the start of summer. At the beginning of the split mid lane was all about AD bruiser/marksman champions like Viego, Lee Sin, Lucian, Tristana, and Nocturne. Throughout Jensen’s career he has never been one to quickly pick up new champions and playstyles which has hurt him in the past. Jensen always looked uncomfortable on these champions as opposed to his assassins and control mages. Towards the tail end of the season the meta flipped back to Jensen’s preferred style due to repeated nerfs to all the AD champions which he was clearly more comfortable on. Moving into playoffs we should see Jensen back to his normal self on some of his best champions like Twisted Fate, Orianna, LeBlanc, and Azir.
Fudge ($10,500 FD, $8,400 DK) has become Cloud9 most consistent player and right now their best player as the rest of the lineup hasn’t returned to their spring split form. Fudge has become even better than what he was in spring split which was proven by his first team all-pro selection and MVP consideration. During the spring playoffs Fudge worked perfectly with Blaber to shutdown Alphari’s strong lane phase and turn Cloud9’s perceived disadvantage into a massive advantage.
Tier Two Picks
It seems crazy to have Perkz ($13,500 FD, $10,200 DK) as a tier two pick at the start of playoffs, but he had a terrible split by his standards. Perkz was near the center for many of Cloud9’s problems throughout the split. His naturally aggressive playstyle was exposed by other teams during the split because of Cloud9’s weak team cohesion after subbing out Zven. Perkz found himself racking up deaths early in the split with teams punishing his cocky laning phases. Towards the end of the split, we saw Perkz get back on track but still no where near his spring split level. While “Playoff Perkz” is always something that opposing teams need to worry about, teams may have figured him out.
It difficult to get a read on Santorin ($11,500 FD, $9,000 DK) going into the summer playoffs. He played in less than half of the regular season games for Team Liquid and missed the end of the spring playoffs (which included two series against Cloud9) due to health issues. The bulk of games he played in the summer split were at the beginning where the jungle meta was completely different than what it is now. Rumble was still the best jungler and Santorin almost exclusively played Rumble and looked shaky on every other pick.
Gameplan
Historically Cloud9 vs Team Liquid is roughly a coin toss. They have a head-to-head record of 4-4 in best-of-five series with a game score of 18-16 in Team Liquid’s favor. Out of the eight times they’ve met outside the regular season, four of them have needed all five games and two needed four games. Safe to say that we aren’t likely to see a sweep and it will be a very competitive series from the jump. Finding the correct balance of using your salary on players from different teams will be most important for this series as loading up on players from one team is unlike to yield a top placement.
Let us know about your wins on Twitter (@FantasyDFSX). We love to hear from you. Best of luck and have fun!
