Tips to maximize your Fantasy experience!

by Reece "SabrewoIf" Dos-Santos

Following its success during the Season 4 Summer Split, the Fantasy LCS system is back and re-tuned for the coming Spring Split of Season 5. I'd like to outline a few tips to help your Fantasy LCS experience be as enjoyable as possible.

1. Fantasy LCS isn't region locked.

One of the best parts of Fantasy LCS is the fact that you don’t need to stick within your region like when playing League of Legends itself. You can join a league with anyone from North America, EU West, EU Nordic East, Brazil, Oceania, Latin America North, Latin America South, Turkey and Russia.

However, this freedom should be taken in moderation as the drafting period takes place when the owner of the league decides to start it, meaning it’s in your best interests to join leagues with people you have a good means of communicating with. It is also in a league owner’s best interest to ensure each of the players in their league is available for one specified time to draft. Poor draft organisation can lead to having to wait for 1 minute per round for each missing player which can really slow down and drag out the process since each missing player is a guaranteed 10 minute wait (for the 10 available draft slots).

2. Tactical drafting, know the scene.

One of the cleanest ways to secure a Fantasy win is to be tactical about every single player you draft. When you go to draft a player, think about what they could bring to your team and how they play rather than simply if you like them or if their estimated scores are high. A close eye should also be paid to who is left on the board when it comes to your turn and who is most likely to be picked by your rivals (TSM players and Mid Laners go really fast). Sometimes drafting a player who might be outside of your original game plan can help you secure worthwhile trades and deals later on.

The scoring criteria are as follows:

Players:
Kills: +2
Deaths: -0.5
Assists: +1.5
CS: +0.01
Triple Kill: +2 bonus points
Quadra Kill: +5 bonus points
Penta Kill: +10 bonus points
10+ Kills: +2 bonus points
10+ Assists: +2 bonus points
Teams:
First Blood: +2
Dragons taken: +1
Barons taken: +2
Towers destroyed: +1
Victory: +2

If you know that a particular player is known for being bloodthirsty it might be in your best interest to pick them up; however, it is also a good idea to have a backup player available to swap in for the games where your bloodthirsty player might gift away too many deaths. Teams that have great objective control are also very worthy pick-ups, as that is basically the whole criteria of a team’s points spread. Players like Kerp were goldmines of points on days where they hit their stride but in matches where the pressure was reversed, an oasis of points can quickly turn into a drought.

One of the biggest missteps people make during the drafting process is tunneling too hard on estimated point values. While they’re there to guide you, they’re not a prediction of the future. This is where knowledge of the scene and of the true value of every player to his team comes in handy.

As an example: Copenhagen Wolves and Counter Logic Gaming have for a long time played a style that heavily favoured their AD Carries. Woolite and DoubleLift owners prospered as a result of this. On the flip side, Seraph and Youngbuck owners didn't see as much of a flood in points due to their more supportive playstyles and tendency to be the men to take one for their team, usually in order to help said carries.

3. Stay alert on player news.

Sometimes the unexpected can happen, a player can be hit with an expected illness or be banned from playing for a week. One case to be aware of in the coming season is ZionSpartan’s inability to play for CLG in the first week. There were a few moments in the last season where certain players were unable to attend and one rare moment where Copenhagen Wolves flat out forfeited a game. When a player is unable to play their substitute is later added to the free agents pool where anyone can pick them up, meaning you could be left in a bad position if someone tactically signs them before you can and you’re left with a player who isn’t playing. Quick reactions and an alert watch over the scene can help you not befall any of these fantasy tragedies.

4. Don’t overlook supports.

A common thing I saw from drafting periods was the overlooking of support players in comparison to Mid Laners and AD Carries who were drafted off rather quickly. An A-Tier support can and often is the difference between a win and a loss in Fantasy LCS. In a lot of cases, the sheer amount of assist points picked up by players like Yellowstar and Aphromoo can help clinch tight matches. While it’s easy to see kills and carries as the most important factor to gaining points, supports will usually pick up the most assists on their team and assists are worth only 0.5 less than kills. In addition to this, supports won’t be getting points from stats like kills, CS, or kill streaks, and they often pick up a lot of deaths in tough games. So investing early in a high-assisting and or low risk-taking support can really aid your season.

5. Don’t judge a player based on one week’s performance.

I myself was a victim of this as I removed Amazing from my squad immediately when he failed to score any points worth mentioning one week very early on, I was then disappointed when he went on to find his stride and become a key player for TSM securing a lot more points. Just because a player has a bad week doesn't necessarily mean they deserve the boot. Manage your team with a calm mind and properly evaluate who is a good fit for your team. The best time to make some roster changes, if needed, is not until week three or four in my opinion, because by then you have a good backlog of performances to make a more informed decision on.

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by Reece "SabrewoIf" Dos-Santos

Team Rosters Solidified as Spring Split Schedules Arrive!

The Spring Split Line Ups are ready, the players waiting...all we need now is for Opening Day to arrive! I can't wait! You can't wait! Let's start up the pre-season #HYPE!

NA LCS ROSTERS

EU LCS ROSTERS 

Support Lanes 101: To Dive or Peel

by Jerrod "Thousand Eyes" Steis

Choosing when to dive or peel is probably one of the biggest mistakes made in low ELO support. A lot of supports have kits that function well for both diving the enemy and keeping their carry safe. Doing the wrong one at the wrong time can cost your team the game. The full answer isn't as simple as “Oh, you’re Leona, you dive.” It requires an analysis of your own team, the enemy team, the status of both team's carries in terms of power and what cooldowns are available.

First, take a look at your own champion before anything else. What kind of support are you? Tanky supports have a better time diving the enemy than mage supports, but that alone doesn't decide it. Keep in mind, just because it is easy to dive doesn't mean you should. There are champions like Leona and Alistar that are great at diving into the fray and being a huge nuisance, but they sometimes have to sit back and peel. That being said, there are mages that can effectively “dive” or at the very least use their spells to interrupt the backline. Janna is great example of someone who fits that bill. She can throw tornadoes back deep and even flash ult if she wants to sacrifice herself to disrupt a fight in an extreme way.

Once you’ve established what your champion is best at, look at your team composition. Every decent team comp will have an ADC, the same one you helped grow and feed. Is this an ADC that needs to be protected and, if free from enemy interference, can win the game for you? An example of this kind of ADC would be Vayne or Kog Maw. These ADCs absolutely require help from somewhere if they want to stay alive long enough to output damage during a fight. Others, like Caitlyn or late game Tristana, are a bit safer in their range and escapes. They still are the backbone of damage on your team and need to stay alive.

Of course you could make the same argument for any ADC, so it’s kind of irrelevant in the grand scheme of it all. What is more important is looking at your solo lanes and junglers. Do you have an assassin or traditional mage in mid? Keep in mind that you’ll have a larger backline to keep safe in a fight if you have a mage, while assassins will need help creating picks and killing off the enemy. If you look over at top lane, you can have a multitude of different champions, and the same goes for jungle. There’s hyper tanks, bruisers, assassins, mages, supports, etc. Overall as a general rule, the more big bodies you have to clog up the middle of a fight, the more reasonable it is for you to dive. At least when looking purely at your own team's comp.

The reason for this is that you’ve got a much more cluttered area going on in the middle of the scuffle and as each of the team's tanks and bruisers are trying to get past each other, both ADCs will be outputting damage.

Next up, you want to take a similar look at the enemy composition. Pick apart what their strengths are. Have they got an assassin like Zed that can jump into your team? That’s a point towards peeling in that case. If they have an Anivia, however, you can go in the other direction and try and get in her face.

Finally, what I could consider the most crucial part is evaluating the gold distribution. Once the teams have gotten into game a bit it’ll become clear who on the enemy team is a threat, and who on your team is dangerous as well. Going back to the Zed example, if the enemy Zed jumps on to your ADC in a fight, but he’s 0/4/1 and doesn't have any of his spike items(brut/botrk) he isn't going to do anything. If the carry is someone like Lucian or any other ADC with mobility, they can just kite him around and be fine. If the same Zed jumps in but instead of 0/4/1 he’s actually 3/0/2, then he is a problem and kiting him out most likely won’t be enough. You’ll have to sit back on your ADC and keep them safe.

You still want to do the same for your own team, too. If the enemy team wants to dive deep into your team to kill the 1/6/2 ADC while your solo laners go to town in their backline, don’t make the mistake of trying to help the ADC. While it’d be nice to have that ADC get back in the game, they are currently your weakest link and you need to play to your strengths. If you help the ADC rather than helping your solo lane bruisers/assassins you run the risk of having a lose/lose situation where both the ADC die and your solo laners didn't do enough. It’s a similar concept as when a jungler ganks a lane that’s already winning but a little bit. You put your eggs in the basket that looks like it’s gonna win.

As you can probably tell, trying to do this decision making on the fly is pretty hard. It’s one of the things that makes the professionals a cut above the average player. After you break it down a few times it gets more and more doable, eventually to the point that it becomes second nature. Learn your matchups and use them to help you understand what to do when, and don’t flounder in making your choice.

TL;DR:

Look at your champ’s skills (Better at dive or peel?)

Look at your team’s skills and needs (Need lots of peel? Can dive free?)

Look at the enemy team’s skills and needs (They have a lot of protection? Want all over your carry?)

Look at how gold is distributed (Assassin fed, Carry not? Vice-Versa?)

Be sure to check out my other articles:

Support Lanes 101: How to Pick your Support

Support Lanes 101: Part 1.5: (Pocket Pick Supports)
Support Lanes 101: Itemization Choices
Support Lanes 101: Warding
Support Lanes 101: To Dive or to Peel
Support Lanes 101: Be the Annoyance
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By Jerrod "Thousand Eyes" Steis 

Giants Join H2k and 8 other teams in the EU LCS!

H2k and Giants breach the gates of LCS after a successful expansion tournament for both teams.

By Anel “Musinlol” Musinovic

H2k - Miles Ahead of any Challenger Team
Odamne, loulex, Febiven, Hjarnan & Voidle

H2k goes completely undefeated and therefore sweeps their way into the LCS. They have been trying for a long time and with their poor performance vs CW they failed the first time around. Everybody was expecting H2k and Millenium to swoop their way into LCS, but only H2k deserved their faith.

Strengths: H2k showed next to no weaknesses. Febiven, especially, was extremely strong but also Odamne was looking promising. Febiven was even impossible to ban out. We saw Reason Gaming try but they ended up getting 3-0’d due to Febiven going big. 

When you win every single game it is hard not to look good but loulex also did fine. In the whole of Expansion tournament we only saw him pick out Lee Sin, Jarvan & Kha’zix. Despite the Lee Sin being banned out often, no one tried to ban out all three of these champions which I would have loved to see. Questions might be made around his champion pool, but he has some time to work on it for the LCS if that is the case.

Weaknesses: With all games won, weaknesses might be hard to find but Giants botlane did seem to dominate H2k’s botlane of Hjarnan & Voidle. Being a challenger team previously they might struggle against the better LCS teams in laneswaps or wave management. They will scrim the LCS teams coming into LCS so they might have fixed some of it.

Giants - Avoiding Relegations

Werlyb, Fr3deric, xPepii, Adryh & Rydle 

Giants 3-0 Reason Gaming twice in a row and sends themselves into LCS! The Spanish side surprised everybody with their 2-1 win over Millenium and made themselves serious contenders. Many wonder if Giants are really LCS level, and they will be trying to avoid that last spot and the relegations.

Strengths: Definitely the botlane in Adryh & Rydle. Rydle landed some amazing skillshots and Adryh had an exceptional performances on Jinx. Rydle is definitely a quality Thresh but it will be interesting seeing him on other champs as well.  They seemed like an LCS-level botlane but we will have to see how they do going up against stronger botlanes. Rydle will definitely be happy that Gamers2 decided to released him. 

Weaknesses: The three other players, Werlyb, Fr3deric & Pepi has shown that they can be shut down, especially against better teams as H2k. They are really aggressive but sometimes when they shouldn't be. They will have to fix a lot of team problems if they want to have any chance of avoiding relegations. They will be trying to avoid finishing last so they can choose not to face Origen in the relegation matches.

By Anel “Musinlol” Musinovic

EU LCS Expansion Tournament: H2k vs Giants Gaming

By Reece "Sabrewolf" Dos-Santos 

With the demons of past failed LCS attempts behind them, H2k took to the stage against Giants Gaming; both teams coming off back-to-back 3-0 sweeps against their first round opponents.

Pick/ban phase

Interestingly, because of how the teams chose to be set up, Giants remained on red side for the whole series. What they aimed to get out of this strategy, however, will remain an enigma.

H2k was relentless in their ban strategy of taking out the threat of xPepii by removing Xerath, Leblanc and Syndra in all three games. Giants, on the other hand, opted to try and adapt their banning to remove one key component of what dismantled them in the previous game: banning Febiven’s game one Jayce in game two and Voidle’s game one and two Janna in game three.

Pick-wise, both teams displayed good variety of picks and compositions. H2k played a poke strategy with Corki and Jayce in game one before moving on to more team fight orientated compositions in games two and three. The only person that played the same champion in all three games was Rydle on Thresh, a champion that worked quite well for him in the series, especially in game three.

Into the Games

One thing that was noticeable to me across this series was the performance of the bottom lane of Giants. While the action in the bottom lane was often overshadowed by the standout performances of H2k’s top half, Adryh and Rydle put up a very good laning phase in all 3 games. Adryh’s Sivir in game one had a 20 minute CS lead six minutes in, in game three they also heavily bullied out the bottom lane of H2k to the point where Hjarnan’s Sivir only managed to get back into the game off the back off the performance of the rest of his team. Despite the consistent lead in Giants’ bottom lane, there was simply nothing the pair could do when faced with the absolute demolition that Loulex, Odoamne and Febiven put up.

Game one saw three consecutive counter ganks from Loulex on the middle lane as Fr3deric tried his hardest to shut down Febiven but subsequently he ended up just pushing himself and xPepii further behind. Giants made a little comeback with 4 kills and the first dragon but the next three went to H2k and Febiven and Loulex slowly choked the Giants out. 

Game two saw a similar story of Giants’ falling behind on a solo lane early on. Odoamne took complete control of the game on Irelia getting a huge cs lead and 4 kills early on. Febiven’s Orianna also played a heavy part in their team fight presence in backing Odoamne who went nuts decimating the Giants in any way possible. One thing that was a slight let down for H2k was Loulex’s tendency to over commit and go in to deep without the proper protection in order to set things up for his team.

While these attempts proved non detrimental in any way, a team in a better position than Giants would have been able to easily pick on these small positional missteps. The biggest error for H2k in game two was over chasing a good fight they could have used to push into the base, gifting two unnecessary kills to xPepii’s Ahri.

Similarly in game three, Loulex’s presence across the map in the early stages was heavy and the H2k solo lanes quickly took control of the map. Odoamne’s Irelia had Werelyb’s Maokai in his back pocket for the whole game and Febiven’s Ahri was a huge threat; however due to H2k’s tendency to make missteps and positional errors, particularly on Loulex’s front, the game took a lot longer to close out than it  should have. H2k’s dragon control was also very lax allowing Giant’s to pick up three, but the fact that this simply did not matter at all proved how far ahead and how oppressive the solo lanes of H2k were throughout this series.

If I had to pick an MVP throughout this series I’d have to give my vote to Febiven, he had a super commanding series knocking xPepii down and keeping him down across all three games. He remained a constant deadly threat and made team fighting very difficult for the Giants.

With this H2k finally live up to their growing hype since the days being Cloud 9 Eclipse and earn their way into the EU LCS as its 9^th team.

by Reece "SabrewoIf" Dos-Santos