eStar v LNG Esports

Team World Elite v Royal Never Give Up

Nongshim RedForce v Afreeca Freecs

DWG KIA v Hanwha Life Esports 

 

Unexpected battles for the top seed in both the LPL (Team WE v RNG) and the LCK (DWG v HLE) with most teams at the top of the tables being teams we had not predicted at the beginning of the split. LNG should have a firm hold on their match and there is a wildly 50/50 match in the NS v AF. This is a fun slate, who do you have? 

Game #1 eStar v LNG Esports

Cann’s Pick:  LNG Esports

Game #2: Team World Elite v Royal Never Give Up

Cann’s Pick: Team World Elite

Game #3: Nongshim RedForce v Afreeca Freecs

Cann’s Pick: Afreeca Freecs

Game #4: DWG KIA v Hanwha Life Esports

Cann’s Pick: DWG KIA

Fantasy Value Breakdown

Captain

Favorite: icon (LNG: $11,7000) LNG v ES is the largest gap on paper for this slate. icon has not been a huge kill heavy mid laner but he is safe and playing a much easier opponent in irma, whom estar does not play through in the slightest. H4cker (jungle) will be someone icon will need to watch out for but if he gets through laning phase safely he will put up numbers. 

Value Pick: GALA (RNG: $10,800) GALA is fourth among all LPL players in terms of kills (60) and is at a 7.0 KDA. This indicates that he plays safe but also finishes kills in teamfights which will be key to beating Team WE tomorrow. Jiumeng will be a tough opponent but getting a captain at sub $11,000 opens the door for a lot more aggressive lineups. 

Top Lane

Favorite: Khan (DWG: $6,400) While it looks like HLE has gotten a better grasp of their top lane situation, Khan is just so strong at laning. He averages a lead in gold, XP, and CS over his lane opponents while Morgan and Dudu both average deficits. This is a safer play from this matchup and I expect Khan to win this head to head. 

Value Pick: Xiaohu (RNG: $5,600) This is a value pick for the cash. Breathe is a decent top laner but can be prone to making mistakes when he feels comfortable. I think this could be an opening for RNG to punish him for being too overzealous. I would not pick Xiaohu in any other instance other than needed to save money. 

Jungle

Favorite: beishang (TWE: $7,000) beishang has a 9+ KDA and 50 total kills. This is the biggest gap in the TWE and RNG match with Wei having just a touch over 4 KDA and 34 kills. The most surprising thing about this comparison? Wei is part of more of RNG’s kills (72%) compared to beishang and TWE (64%). This tells me Wei is heavily reliant on his team while beishang is not always present for fights and instead can win through finding individual fights or smaller skirmishes. 

Value Pick: Arthur (HLE: $5,800) This may be the biggest steal of the day. If he was not into DWG, there is no way that an almost 60 kill and gank heavy jungler sits at sub $6k. The only metric I could readily find where Canyon edges Arthur is in the death category where Canyon has only died 26 times to Arthur’s 33. This is a slick pick and if HLE wins this series you bet your bottom it is through Arthur. 

Mid Lane

Favorite: Cryin (RNG: $7,200) You can coinflip and pick either Cryin or Shanks here. Shanks is on the better team but is more expensive lowering the overall value of the pick. Because you are spending less, you can invest money elsewhere. Even if TWE wins 2-0, I don’t see Cryin getting hard rolled in the mid lane. 

Value Pick: Chovy (HLE: $6,800) This is the anchor of HLE and everything runs through him. He has a 7.8 KDA and there aren’t many mid laners I would choose over him. He has 61 kills and almost 100 assists. ShowMaker has struggled to make the impact that he is known for and if that continues, Chovy can run away with this match.  

ADC

Favorite: Light (LNG: $7,600) This pick is easiest because the ES ADC is horrible. In a meta defined by the ADC, rat just cannot get it together. He has a sub 3 KDA and has almost as many deaths as he does kills (34) and is averaging being down almost 500 gold to his lane opponent at 10 minutes which is an impressive feat in itself. Light isn’t anything exceptional, he just isn’t rat.

Value Pick: Deft (HLE: $6,600) Deft is an interesting pick up. Along the same lines as picking someone from RNG into TWE, picking up skill players from the underdog teams could have a high upside. Some upside to this pick is that Deft is the LCK kill leader at 70 kills in 14 games. The HLE bot lane focuses on gaining advantages while the opposing team tries to deal with the HLE midlane Chovy. While ShowMaker will be able to deal with Chovy better than others, DWG may win this match, but Deft and HLE will get their punches.   

Support

Favorite: Iwandy (LNG: $5,600) With the largest gap on the slate being between LNG and ES, this is a pretty easy pick up. Iwandy is a versatile support who has proved himself thus far with a 4.8 KDA and a whopping 83 assists (2nd most in the LPL). He has an easier task going up against the ES bot lane of ShiauC and rat who have underperformed thus far. Now I don’t think ShiauC is a bad ADC, it just isn’t working on ES. 

Value Pick: Ming (RNG: $4,800) This match will be very telling on the actual quality of Ming. RNG has ran through all of their competition but most of that competition has been sub par. Even their match against Suning, the case could be made that Suning are not on the same World Championship level as they once were. The price here is the draw but there is a lot of risk picking up these underdogs.

Team

Favorite: Team WE ($5,200) This is the top team in the LPL. They will hit 200 kills in this series and they are averaging 10% more gold earned than their competition. As the Spring Split has continued to grow in their early game abilities while holding onto their top of league mid/late game rating. I am worried because both teams have avoided most of the top tier competition up until this point, so this could be a real test for both sides. 

Value Pick: Team Hanwha Life Esports ($4,000) This will be a closer series than most think. Both HLE and DWG and 4-1 and HLE’s only loss are to T1, who also took DWG to a full 3 matches. That loss also was week 1 and this team is running on another level at this point. Chovy is a legitimate superstar and Arthur is looking like one of the best junglers in the LCK. Super cheap price for a 4-1 team here. 

Cann’s Example Lineup

DraftKings Classic 

$50,000 Salary Cap

Captain (x1.5): Juimeng ($12,000)

Alternate: Cryin ($10,800)

Top: Breathe ($6,000)

Jungle: Arthur ($5,800)

Alternate: beishang ($7,000)
Mid: Chovy ($6,800)

ADC: Light ($7,600)

Alternate: Ghost ($7,400)

Support: Iwandy ($5,600)

Team: Team WE ($5,200)