All five of the games on Friday were expected to go the way of the heavy favorites, but we saw three upsets and could have easily been four with Immortals’ crazy decision to base race against TSM when they had baron buff and triple teleport. On paper today’s matches should be the same, having the top five teams each playing one of the bottom five teams in the LCS. However, after yesterday it’s hard to predict.
Here’s a core lineup of strong players from two of the top teams for FanDuel and DraftKings on June 19
| MVP | ||
| Top Lane | ||
| Jungle | Santorin (TL) | $8,700 FD, $7,000 DK |
| Mid Lane | PowerOfEvil (TSM) | $9,800 FD, $7,000 DK |
| AD Carry | ||
| Support | ||
| TEAM |
Santorin’s ($8,700 FD, $7,000 DK) Rumble should be a must ban for teams moving forward. Santorin has looked fantastic on Rumble throughout summer getting Team Liquid leads in the early game plus amazing equalizers in teamfights. Teams need to get Santorin out of his comfort zone and on a different champion, if not Santorin will continue to run junglers over in the early game with his Rumble.
Since Dignitas made the shift in mid lane from Soligo to Yusui they haven’t looked the same. Dignitas is 1-3 since making the mid lane substitution and seemed to have lost their identity. PowerOfEvil ($9,800 FD, $7,000 DK) seems to have found his footing on a non-control mage pick in LeBlanc which should be scary for the rest of the league as that was his major weakness. PowerOfEvil has had two great back to back LeBlanc games and should be able to punish the weaker Dignitas mid laner.
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After Dignitas’ loss to Golden Guardians on Friday they announced that Dardoch would be subbed out for Saturday’s match against TSM. This is now the fifth benching of a starting player only two and half weeks into the summer season and now marks eight of the ten LCS teams sporting a different roster for the summer split (Only TSM and CLG have the same roster since the conclusion of the spring split). Academy jungler Akaadian will move up to the starting roster for at least Saturday’s match but will most likely play the rest of the weekend. Both FanDuel and DraftKings haven’t added Akaadian to their player database and therefore will be unable to be picked for Saturday’s matches.
MVP Picks
With Zven no longer starting for Cloud9 in the foreseeable future, FBI ($10,000 FD, $12,300 [MVP] DK) is clearly the top AD carry in the LCS. When 100 Thieves was struggling in the back half of the spring split, FBI was the only player to maintain top level performance. 100 Thieves has clearly gotten better from spring to summer with the change in mid lane which as alleviated some pressure from FBI to hard carry every game.
I think we’ve come to accept that while Tactical ($9,700 FD, $11,400 [MVP] DK) is mechanically great and one of the top AD carries in the LCS, he does have int moments from time to time. Tactical has had a very strong start to the split but struggled at points in the mid and late game with positioning and over aggression. Tactical is the riskier pick of the two but does have the higher ceiling due to the matchup of Team Liquid versus Golden Guardians.
Tier One Picks
Fudge ($8,000 FD, $6,600 DK) has been Cloud9’s best performing player since MSI. During the majority of the spring split his glaring weakness was the laning phase. More often than not Fudge would come out of most matchups down 15-30 CS playing a tank/utility style of champion and not receiving much jungle assistance whatsoever. Now Fudge’s greatest strength is his laning and mechanical proficiency on duelists. Top lane has not only become a point of focus for Cloud9 but a role they can play through. Fudge’s opponent Revenge has struggled in lane his last four games and has been the weak point for Immortals since falling off after their strong 3-0 start to the split.
With Alphari out until at least June 27, CoreJJ ($7,400 FD, $6,200 DK) has reprised his roll as the best player on Team Liquid. CoreJJ continues to be a cut above the rest of the supports in the LCS with regards to laning, early game rotations/roams, and coordinated engages. CoreJJ has a fantastic matchup against Golden Guardians and Chime, who hasn’t had the greatest start to his LCS career. Support can be one of the most punishing roles if you are not on the same page as your team and so far and Chime has looked pretty disjointed with the rest of Golden Guardians.
Tier Two Picks
Broxah ($7,600 FD, $6,400 DK) whipped out the Vi which perfectly fit in to the hard engage comp that CLG drafted with Sett, Galio, Kalista, and Rakan. Broxah had another fantastic game, this time resulting in a CLG win in which they dominated 100 Thieves from start to finish almost getting a perfect game. Broxah kicked off every engage for CLG by diving the backline of 100 Thieves bot lane with Vi’s ultimate completely shutting them down and leaving them with a score line of 0/13/0.
It’s hard to trust Jiizuke ($9,600 FD, $7,600 DK) whenever he gets a lead in a game, but he seems to always generate an early lead in most games. Jiizuke has somewhat reverted to his more “coinflip” playstyle taking risky all-ins and overextending in side lanes with no pressure on the other side of the map. While Jiizuke continues to perform well in lane phase getting a gold advantage in the early game, it’s not certain that he will have that lead five or ten minutes later.
TEAM Picks
Team Liquid ($7,900 FD, $5,600 DK) and Cloud9 ($7,700 FD, $5,200 DK) are the two TEAM picks I have the most confidence in. While Cloud9 looked a step behind against Evil Geniuses, they dominated Immortals in all three matchups so far in 2021 with Blaber running over Xerxe in the early game. Team Liquid just have the best matchup of Saturday’s games against Golden Guardians. While it’s clear that Golden Guardians is much better than they were in spring with regards to top lane it will still be extremely difficult for them to overcome the top teams in the league.
Gameplan
On paper four out of the five matches seem fairly clear cut where the favorite should come out on top. The matchup of CLG and Evil Geniuses will be the swing matchup for Saturday’s games. Both CLG and Evil Geniuses can look great one day and terrible the next which makes it difficult to predict who will come out on top. Most lineups will consist of players from the favorites for each match, therefore finding the most even matchup and taking a risk on players from those teams could be a winning strategy.
Let us know about your wins on Twitter (@FantasyDFSX). We love to hear from you. Best of luck and have fun!
