EU LCS W7D2 - Projections and Thoughts

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Alright, EU Day 2! Despite going 100% against my model (told me to pick 4x UOL, 2x FNC) I still managed to come up positive thanks to some aggressive head-to-head choices. Anyway, on to Day 2.

Team Projections and Odds

As happened with today's games, my model is pretty much always going to tell me to play whoever is facing CW. While CW haven't necessarily given up the most kills when they lose, they are pretty much always heavy underdogs which means their opponents will be some of the safest plays you can make.


Anyway, it's never a good idea to just blindly pick SK (especially since they're relatively expensive tomorrow), so lets take a bit of a closer look at this particular match-up. A couple things I always look for is a simple check to determine whether a particular game has the potential to turn into a messy affair, which is obviously ideal for fantasy. To do this I take a look at a teams kills/game relative to their overall win rate. There's an extremely close relationship here, and by identifying whether teams land above or below their expected value we can say that they are sloppier or safer, more aggressive or more passive than average.

Yellow = CW ; Grey = SK

This chart shows us a couple things. First and foremost, there's an incredibly tight correlation between a team's winning percentage (total wins / total games in the current season) and their average kills-per-game. However, some teams, notably SK gaming, deviate pretty heavily from this average. What this chart essentially says is that obviously FNC players have the best aggregate stats, they're always winning! However, SK as a team is much more aggressive, getting many more kills per game (this data even includes today's lackluster affair) than their record would suggest.

Importantly, because this chart shows that SK outperforms their record, what it also means is that when SK is favored, we can similarly expect them to outperform their odds as far as kills are concerned.

Yellow = CW ; Grey = SK

This chart tells a similar story, but from the perspective of deaths, and the story makes sense. CW has played relatively cautiously this split, despite winning only 2 games (stick with what ... doesn't work I guess?) However, we again see that SK outperforms their record as far as deaths are concerned. This tells us that their aggression can also be to a fault. What's cool for us is that this means that SKs aggression has a chance to result in a game with more than expected kills and deaths, which is pretty much exactly what we're looking for in a DFS match-up.

Unsurprisingly my model really likes whoever is playing CW. This time around it's SK, so all aboard the CandyPanda train!

Alright, so now that we all know my favorite team for tomorrow, let's think about some of the other match-ups. Unsurprisingly my model likes the odds associated with H2K, UOL and FNC. For a tournament lineup, it could definitely make sense to run some stacks from the GIA / GMB game, as they'll likely be relatively low owned due to uncertainty around the outcome.

One thing I'll add here, with the news of Kikis leaving UOL, there's some risk there. However, this will also be his last game with them, so there's a chance he wants to go out on a bang. He and the team made the decision to part ways last week, and it very clearly didn't negatively affect his performance today. Take that for what you will.

Favorite Players by Position

Top: As far as average projections, there's verry little between Huni, Csacsi, freddy and Odoamne. So it's really a matter of preference here and who fits nicely into your lineup. Vizicsacsi and freddy122 even cost the same tomorrow, so feel free to literally flip a coin here, I might.

Jungle: Svenskeren and Kikis are by far my favorite two junglers today, especially after the disappointing performance Reignover put up on Rengar today, I'm probably putting him in the metaphorical doghouse for a few games. If you're playing in a tournament, Amazing and Jankos are great choices as far as potential production in the event they win (if you want to pay $8k for Amazing tomorrow, you better be playing in a tournament... that price is insane).

Mid: Same story, but I can't justify paying $9,500 for Ryu tomorrow. His value just isn't there, when Febiven and Fox are both substantially cheaper, and even PowerofEvil can be slotted in for a small amount of salary relief. Again, Froggen, Pepii and Nukeduck are all great value if you're playing a tournament lineup stacking their respective teams.

ADC: Alright, this will probably be my biggest point of debate tomorrow: do I pay up for Hjarnan or not. I absolutely love CandyPanda and Hjarnan, and even Rekkless is way up there. However, Hjarnan's price tag pretty much puts him out of the equation unless you want to supplement him with MrRallez. Honestly, Rallez is so cheap that it could make sense to roster both him and Hjarnan in a HWW. You know at least one of them will have a huge game, and possibly both if the game gets out of control.

Support: There's literally no difference between kaSing, nRated and YellOwStar. Pick whoever fits in your lineup, as there's a bit of a drop after those 3. Don't pick Mithy, he's crazy expensive. Unless you're playing in a tournament, in which case pick him, as zero others will and in the (31%) chance of an OG win, you'll win everything.

Alright, that's it for me, happy drafting! If you are still trying to figure out what I mean when I say cash game or tournament lineups, check out this brief little write-up here, and you can sign up for AlphaDraft here: http://bit.ly/1D2g2Lc. See you out there!