LPL/LCK Slate March 11th, 2021

(-1600) Team WE v Oh My God! (+750)

(-475) EDward Gaming v LNG (+305)

(+650) Fredit BRION v DWG Kia (-1200)

(+170) Afreeca Freecs v Hanwha Life Esports (-225) 

This is a shorter slate with big implications. There have been some serious surprises thus far about which teams are succeeding and those who are failing. This slate feels a little chalky which means I can almost guarantee this is n’t going to play out like normal. Either way, we are watching the LPL which means we should expect some serious fireworks!  

Game #1 Team WE v Oh My God!

Cann’s Pick: Team WE 

Game #2: EDward Gaming v LNG

Cann’s Pick: EDward Gaming

Game #3:  Fredit BRION v DWG Kia

Cann’s Pick: DWG Kia

Game #2: Afreeca Freecs v Hanwha Life Esports

Cann’s Pick: Hanwha Life Esports

Fantasy Value Breakdown

Captain

Favorite: Jiumeng (WE: $12,300) While Jiumeng isn’t the kill leader on the slate (110), he does have one of the best matchups in playing OMG. His lane opponent (Eric) is pretty abysmal this split with 84 kills and a whopping 77 deaths. Between the two bottom laners they participate in their team’s first blood kills between 25%-33% of the time, which if I am betting which side gets first blood in this matchup I am going Jiumeng.

Value Pick: Showmaker (DWG: $11,400) He is 8th in the LCK in kills (118) and second among mid laners in that same category. With DWG looking to avenge their only loss of the season to BRO, ShowMaker if looking to build on his 100 FP game from last series where he dropped 13 kills and 17 assists in 2 games. If you don’t pick up DWG players today that’s fine, but I just don’t know if I would recommend picking against them with the chip on their shoulder they have from their loss to Fredit.  

Top Lane

Favorite: Flandre (EDG: $6,400) The best part of Flandre is he is consistent. You really know what you are getting with him from the word go. He has a 4.4 KDA and 65 total kills. He plays really safe when he needs to (18.5% team death share) and participates in 24% of EDG’s first blood kills. I like that for this price you know you will get a pretty consistent source of points here.

Value Pick: Morgan (HLE: $6,000) Morgan has clearly stepped up into his role as the starting top laner for HLE. The upside to Morgan is that he is a pretty solid weakside player. He has a 4.0 KDA even with averaging deficits in gold (-106) and experience (-143) at 10 minutes which tells us that his impact is felt in the late game. While Kiin (AF) is a little more aggressive, we see he cost his team games because he gets caught in a side lane or he goes too deep. I like this pick a lot. 

Jungle

Favorite: Canyon (DWG: $7,400) I actually debated Canyon for captain on this slate. At the beginning of the split Canyon started really slowly which didn’t make sense because the meta really pushed for aggressive junglers. In the last few weeks especially Canyon has been on fire and now is second among junglers in terms of kills (112) and first in assists (214). He is the glue that keeps DWG together and as long as he is jungling for them, I would expect DWG to continue to be a force to watch out for. 

Value Pick: Dread (AF: $6,400) This is your kill leader among junglers in the LCK with 115 kills. If we are being honest, Dread may be the only reason that AF are one game out of playoff contention right now and 13-18 in all of their matches. 

Mid Lane

Favorite: Shanks (WE: $7,800) While on the subject earlier of consistency, Shanks should probably be at the top of that list. He is so consistently at the 70-75 FPPG and gets most of his assist points which average over 15 per match. He also participates in almost 30% of team WE’s first blood kills as well as being less that 18% of their team deaths. Not a bad investment in the slightest and one of my more comfortable picks on the day. 

Value Pick: Chovy (HLE: $7,200 I make it a regular thing to let my heart be broken by Hanwha Life Esports. Chovy leads all LCK mid laners in kills with 119 and has a team kill participation of 69%. With his 5.0 KDA and his over 25% kill share percentage, Chovy should be a big pay off if HLE plays up to their potential but there is always the chance they drop games they have no business dropping. 

ADC

Favorite: Viper (EDG: $8,000) Viper is a bad man and a lot of the time he goes unnoticed because EDG is kind of a boring team to watch. Viper is fourth among LPL bot laners in kills (114), fifth in KDA (5.3), and third in team kill share percentage (35.2%). I think his opponent (Light) and LNG are a discounted version of EDG which makes me comfortable with this pickup. 

Value Pick: Deft (HLE: $7,400) “Whaaaaat is loooove? Babyyy don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me. No mooooorrree.” That is my message to Deft and HLE at this point. Dude has an average of 72 FPPG, 68.0 over his last 10 series, but dropped TWENTY in their last match. Deft is third among all LCK bot laners in terms of kills (146) and is still over 30% of his team’s kills. What we need from him is some sense of consistency and not dropping eggs against laners who are statistically below you. 

Support

Favorite: BeryL (DWG: $5,400) Picking anyone but BeryL here seems really foolish. He leads the LCK in assists and will crest 300 in this series (293). I think if my memory serves me correctly his ADC (Ghost) is up to 4 pentakills (so you kill every enemy in a short period of time) and there may not be any other pentakills in the LCK this season. I would suggest even thinking about stacking these two and watching as they exact their revenge on poor BRO. 

Value Pick: Iwandy (LNG: $4,600) In terms of teams that could possibly upset I think Bolvada got it right when they said that LNG are closer than most may think. Iwandy has 199 assists and a serviceable 3.5 KDA. He participates in 70% of all of LNG’s kills which is one of the highest among LPL supports. Due to the fact that EDG isn’t a super explosive team, I think this series could go 3 and you could save some cash and grab some decent points with this support pick up. 

Team

Favorite: Team WE ($5,600)  Team World Elite has the third highest early game rating (62.2) while OMG has the third worst (35.9). The gold differential at 15 minutes is also pretty alarming with Team WE being +936 while OMG is -1634. OMG can’t secure towers and other neutral objectives so I fully expect them to quickly run away with this match. 

Value Pick: Hanwha Life Esports ($5,000) If I am being honest, you could make a case either going with HLE or AF. HLE’s players are more explosive and probably better in individual roles but in this value pick, you can choose whichever you have more faith in and save quite a bit of cash, especially with favorites being closer to $6,000.

Cann’s Example Lineup

DraftKings Classic 

$50,000 Salary Cap

Captain (x1.5): Jiumeng ($12,300)

Alternate: Viper ($12,000)

Top: Morgan ($6,000)

Jungle: beishang ($7,200)

Alternate: Dread ($6,400)
Mid: Chovy ($7,200)

ADC: Light ($7,000)

Alternate: Deft ($7,400)

Support: Vsta ($5,200)

Team: Afreeca Freecs ($4,600)