(+165) Rogue v MAD Lions (-210)

(-280) Cloud9 v Team Liquid (+115)

LCS-LEC Grand Finals begin on Sunday, where MAD Lions has made a meteoric rise in the post-season through the winners to finals, whereas Rogue has handedly defeated G2 on Saturday, and has shown their own improvement. Support and middle lane are the most contested positions in Europe’s match, whereas Team Liquid’s Blaber in LCS should absolutely demolish jungle substitute Armao in the North American finals. Let’s look at the picks for the day.

Captain

Blaber ($10,500)

Sunday is jungle diff across both regions: Blaber has been by far the most impressive jungler in North America, leading every statistic aside from KDA, and the 2nd place in Santorin is nowhere near playing due to health issues. Jungler Armao had a poor showing in Proving Grounds and has been a bottom 2 jungler throughout his LCS career. It’s a miracle Armao looked competent against TSM, but Cloud9 is way, way too far to cross. Pick up Blaber as captain and you’ll run Armao into the ground. Alternatively, the best player on MAD Lions is Elyoya who is capable of controlling the field against Inspired.

Alternatives to consider: Elyoya ($10,800)

Top Lane

Armut ($6,000)

Armut vs Odoamne is a real flipper. You’re stuck between a rock and a hard place for top lane: Alphari is the best top laner on the day, but he’s saddled with the worst jungler by far. Armut has the better team (currently), but Odoamne is more consistent and has shown insane highs across the split. I think Rogue vs MAD is a real 50-50, but the last time they met MAD blew Rogue out of the water. Either accept the coinflip, or try to go even by choosing Alphari versus Fudge, but this is a very difficult decision; I prefer Armut due to jungle advantage.

Alternatives to consider: Alphari ($5,800)

Jungle

Elyoya ($7,200)

MAD jungler Elyoya could have been considered for MVP if MAD had finished in a bye position for play-offs. He was one of the most impressive junglers across the regular season combined with his noviceness- this being his first professional split- offered an extremely pleasant surprise. Inspired is a good player, but Elyoya has been a main carry and a powerful force for the Lions. If Blaber isn’t your captain, 100% pick him up. I consider him a necessity.

Alternatives to consider: Blaber ($7,000)

Mid Lane

Perkz ($7,400)

Perkz has ramped up over the split for Cloud9 and despite a brief stumble, he is 100% the best mid laner in North America. He crushed Jensen the last time they played, and it likely isn’t anything changed; if anything, TL’s situation has gotten worse now that Armao has been subbed in, basically presenting a free meal to Perkz and Blaber. Between Humanoid and Larssen, I fully believe that Humanoid has finally fit all of the pieces together and is ready to re-enter as Larssen’s archnemesis. I’ve been burned before though, and while I 100% value Perkz, I slightly value the consistency Larssen provides; but you really can’t go wrong with either.

Alternatives to consider: Larssen ($7,200)

ADC

Zven ($7,800)

ADC Zven has been the most consistent ADC in the league after leaving TSM in 2020, he was one of the only parts that looked solid in 2020 summer when the team was falling apart, and Tactical just hasn’t stuck out to me as remarkable since this split began, and he is one of the weaker points on the roster at this point, as much as it pains me to say. For an EU pick, I’d recommend Carzzy, who looks exponentially better across the course of play-offs since they began.

Alternatives to consider: Carzzy ($7,400)

Support

Kaiser ($5,800)

While CoreJJ may be the slightly better player relative to Kaiser, the support role in LEC has been pretty meagre as of late; Kaiser, LIMIT, and likely Treatz have been the exception: Kaiser has absolutely been on fire across play-offs. He’s one of the players that also looked relatively good at MAD’s decrepit worlds run in 2020 alongside Humanoid. His opponent in Trymbi has looked like the most inconsistent player on Rogue and highly exploitable. For a secondary choice, I’d grab Vulcan due to his synergy with Zven and strength across the map.

Alternatives to consider: Vulcan ($5,600)

Team

Cloud9 ($5,200)

I consider Cloud9 to be the more “sure thing” relative to MAD vs RGE, Armao isn’t even LCS caliber, much less capable of competing in the best of 5 finals against the best team in the league. Across the pond, I favor MAD’s against Rogue due to their strength in play-offs so far.

Alternatives to consider: MAD Lions ($5,400)

Stacks

Blaber & Perkz

Cloud9’s mid-jungle 2v2 brings a healthy amount of aggression and can squash Armao throughout the game, the weakest link on Team Liquid. Blaber has won MVP for a good reason due to his consistently impressive jungle performances, and I’m willing to bet he’ll run a train over Armao in the finals.

Elyoya & Kaiser

I think Rogue unironically have the better solo laners relative to MAD, but the massive advantage the Lions have is their supporting case in Elyoya and Kaiser: players capable of attacking at ideal times, and balancing their own exp/gold and the distribution of those resources to their solo laners. Humanoid has been looking much better, and a good factor in that is his jungler and support’s strength.

Alphari & CoreJJ

These two are the best chance at TL potentially upsetting C9; I don’t think it’s possible, but Fudge has been inconsistent in the past and I don’t think he’ll hold up well against Alphari. CoreJJ will have to do his best to help spread that top lane advantage (typically isolated in nature) across the map. It’s a real 2v8 angle, but hey, stranger things have happened.

Top Picks: Elyoya, Blaber, Perkz

Grand-finals in the west is the tale of two junglers: Elyoya and Blaber are two relatively novice players who have proved themselves on the biggest domestic stage time and time again. Perkz is just an experienced solo laner capable of facilitating MVP Blaber through consistently mechanically checking and outplaying his opponent.

Top Value: CoreJJ, Humanoid, Alphari

Each of these guys are a bit of an underdog: CoreJJ and Alphari likely need no introduction, it’s the biggest advantage TL are capable of leveraging against Cloud9, although they play unideal positions for that responsibility. Humanoid has been on-and-off, but he has really looked on during this play-offs run; I think MAD vs RGE entirely depends on Humanoid and Trymbi’s form during the match.