A Fantasy LCS Guide: Pick Your Pros!

It’s back! The Fantasy LCS league returns ready for the new Spring Split of European and North American LCS. The leagues themselves start officially on January 22nd and your favourite players and teams – as well as a bunch of new ones – will be back in action to fight for the title as Spring Split Champions, but before that you can prepare your own draft pick team ready to compete against friends and earn points.

The Fantasy LCS for the uninitiated is a competition that exists in other sports. You can have 4, 6, or 8 players including yourself in your own generated league and the draft pick is a live turn-based pick, so make sure you’re all online, logged in, and ready to select.

Professional players earn or lose points based on their performances for their League of Legends teams each week. Kills, assists, deaths, creeper score, and the weekly MVP award all give players points for their owners, which tally up into a total for the week. Your score will be matched against another person in your league and charted into your group league table, with columns for Wins, Losses, and Ties.

The fun of Fantasy LCS is that you can show off your game knowledge, such as an understanding of form and the Champion Meta, as well as learn about more teams or players. Pretty quickly you’ll find yourself rooting for the jungler of Team Coast or the support player for Roccat to bag you a few extra points to win for the week!

 

The Seven Picks: Writer’s Choices

Last year the best picks were Kev1n, KottenX, Kerp, Rekkles, Yellowstar, Creaton, and Fnatic for the Fantasy LCS ‘perfect team’ (Note: they’re all from EU) but with several of those players switching teams, dropping out of the LCS, or even retiring it’s time to move on and pick again and re-discover the star players of each league.

To keep it simple we’ll go through each pick option and explain the thought process behind the pro player selected and why they are the star choice for the 2015 Spring Split.

 

Top Lane: Pick – Quas (Team Liquid)
Attributes: Broad champion pool, experienced, calm under pressure

Photo courtesy of Reddit user Pitline810

With all fantasy sporting contests, knowing previous form is important. Quas was one of the top three scoring top laners from 2014 for Team Curse; a fraction shy of Kev1n (Millennium) and sOAZ (Fnatic) on average points per week but equally as impactful in winning lanes and providing a solid basis for team fights later in the game.

Both Kev1n and sOAZ will be absent from the 2015 Spring Split leaving the number one spot open for Quas, and with his renamed team boasting the new addition of a World Champion AD Carry you can expect even more assured performances from the Venezuelan thanks to the team improvements.

If Quas isn’t free though then other promising picks are CLG’s ZionSpartan, Team SoloMid’s Dyrus, Freddy122 from SK Gaming, and the wildcard Vizicsacsi for the Unicorns of Love.

 

Jungle: Pick – Meteos (Cloud 9)
Attributes: Expert knowledge, sharp timing, strong dueller

Photo courtesy of Bambog

Last season’s stats pointed out impressive work from Millennium’s jungler KottenX, despite his team’s run of poor form, and the expected high scoring of Fnatic’s supportive jungler Cyanide. Third place went to Shook of Alliance (now Elements) and with his two superior point-earners out of the way for the 2015 Spring Split you’d think the crown was his…

Standing in his way though is Meteos; the star player for Cloud9 and arguably the best mechanical and most knowledgeable jungler in the West. His deep understanding of the game’s tactics and champions, as well as an impeccable sense of timing, makes him a formidable ganker. In comparison, Shook is still a top-end player but notably he’s inconsistent; his playmaking abilities have come under scrutiny in recent months despite Alliance claiming the EU LCS Summer Split title.

Both of these players will be highly contested though, given their positions in top teams, so consider veterans such as SaintVicious of Gravity (formerly Curse Academy), Jankos (Roccat), or Diamondprox (Gambit). For a fresher blood then why not go for Loulex of H2K, Impaler of Team Coast, or Kikis of Unicorns of Love, who caused a storm at IEM San Jose with his successful use of Twisted Fate jungle.

 

Mid Lane: Pick – Shiphtur (Team Dignitas)
Attributes: Strong movement, smart positioning, mixed carry styles

There are a lot of fantastic mid laners in the West. Froggen and Bjergsen are the most notable two now that xPeke has left Fnatic to start up his own Challenger Team ‘Origen’ but their hype and attention is testament to their exceptional skill rather than a lack of talent elsewhere.

One case in particular is Shiphtur. Shiphtur is a fantastic N.A. mid laner with a particular talent for the likes of Ziggs and Ahri. He can farm, he can burst, he has great movement and he roams well, turning the tables on other lanes as well as his own and wrestling control of objectives in the process. Last Split saw Shiphtur’s playstyle clash with that of ZionSpartan’s solo carrying but, with the top lane solo carry now a player for Counter Logic Gaming, Team Dignitas have managed to build a team that’s keen for success around Shiphtur, their star player.

If you don’t get your hands on Shiphtur or one of the other two mid laners then don’t worry. The likes of Jesiz, PowerOfEvil, Keane, and XiaoWeiXiao are also great picks for your roster.

 

AD Carry: Pick – Piglet (Team Liquid)
Attributes: Mechanically gifted, very competitive, former World Champion

Photo courtesy of Azubu

Picking an AD Carry is a tough one when Europe and North America have some excellent choices. Rekkles is the best of EU and is now with Elements/Alliance, the EU Champions. Over the Atlantic and Doublelift is an ever-present star, and there are established names either side of the ocean like Forgiven, WildTurtle, Sneaky, and Cop, who can carry their team hard against the odds. One name stands out despite all of their talent and potential though – Piglet.

Piglet is a World Champion AD Carry and his mechanical expertise (particularly on Vayne) combined with a winning mentality and a professional attitude makes him the must-have pick for the AD Carry slot.

 

Support: Pick – Xpecial (Team Liquid)
Attributes: Strong shot-caller, diverse champion pool, composed under pressure

Photo courtesy of GoldPer10

Readers with an eagle-eye will start to spot a trend with Team Liquid players being standouts for roles but I promise you it’s objective and unintentional! For the past few seasons it has been a close call between Fnatic’s Yellowstar and Xpecial and in all honesty it is again. The difference this time, and the reason I’ve decided against Yellowstar, is the lane partnership. Xpecial is paired with the experienced, confident Piglet; a World Champion keen to impress in the USA. In contrast, Yellowstar is leading a wholly new Fnatic team, with the untested Challenger player ‘Steelback’ in the AD Carry role.

Both supports are strong on shot-calling, they both play a great mix of meta and skill-based support champions, and they both handle pressure well. They are experienced and mechanically sound which is exactly what you want but for this Split at least I feel Xpecial’s bot lane has the most potential to wreak havoc.

Other safe picks include Cloud9’s Lemonation, Kiwikid from Team Dignitas, CLG Aphromoo, and the stoic Russian ‘Edward’ from Gambit.

 

Flex: Pick – XiaoWeiXiao (Team Impulse)
Attributes: Amazing farm levels, strong map awareness, astute sense of when to ‘all in’ opponents

Photo courtesy of LoL eSports

The Flex Pick is your sixth player pick and is basically the ‘Any’ role. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that the mid laners and AD carries are the best choices. Last year I had Cloud9’s ADC ‘Sneaky’ but, after seeing his performances in the LCS, this season I’m going for XiaoWeiXiao. The reasoning is simple: nobody in N.A. farmed minions like Xiao and, with this financial backing, he could build phenomenally. It didn’t matter whether he had the opportunities in the early game or had to wait later; he played smart and bided his time for the right moment to take advantage. This got LMQ to second place in the LCS by the end of Summer Split – phenomenal given they had only qualified that Split. Such was XiaoWeiXiao’s impressive mid laning that he received three MVP awards from Riot; a total unrivalled in the N.A. and EU.

 

Team Pick: Elements (formerly Alliance)
Attributes: Specially created ‘Super Team’, strong synergy, star player carries

Photo courtesy of the Elements Facebook page

Last season the top three teams for the Fantasy LCS were Fnatic, Alliance, and Cloud 9. With Fnatic’s roster almost having completely changed they are now seemingly out of the running for a high finish. This paves the way for the EU Summer Split champions Alliance – newly renamed to Elements – to show the West how it’s done and, with the addition of Martin 'Rekkles' Larsson from Fnatic to the AD Carry position, it’s hard to see the team finishing anything lower than top two in Europe, if not as favourites to retain their Champion status.

Of course, to use a horrible cliché, it’s never over until it’s over and the other top three team from last year - Cloud 9 - has the same roster they started with back in Season 3 in a formula that has proven to be repeatedly successful. Nobody can boast more synergy than the boys in blue and white and with so many roster changes across Europe and North America it would be silly to dismiss their chances.

Alternatively you might consider Team SoloMid - the current N.A Champions, Team Liquid’s fierce lineup, Roccat’s impressive improvements to their team roster’s positional weaknesses, or perhaps pluckier wildcard picks such as Giants! from EU or Team 8 from N.A. Team pick is an area where you can really gamble on a team’s unity or a fluke result rather than an individual stealing the show, so don’t be afraid to be bold with your choice!

 

Alternate/Backup Picks:

There are no actual definite picks here because obviously this depends on who you have picked already. As mentioned, mid lane and AD carry positions do the best but you shouldn’t just stock up on these in your reserves. You will need to have three players who you know can perform but might need favourable match ups or, if you’re really keen to win, check out the match schedules and see who you can bring in ready to swap in advance to save heartache when someone else in your league beats you to the pick.

 

Substitutions:
Any players not picked up will be left in the talent pool and free to swap in each week; either to your primary roster or to your backup picks. As you’d expect, by picking this player you relinquish control of the player you swap out and this returns them to the talent pool. Once there, they’re free to be taken by any players in the league.

That’s it for our guide to the Fantasy LCS. Hopefully we’ve given you an insight into not only the stars of the LCS but also the rising talents and unsung heroes that are just waiting to be picked. Remember, games are for fun but there’s nothing more satisfying than beating your friends!