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Nathan's expert picks for the LCS slate on 6/19/21. He breaks down the slate with his favorite cash and GPP options for your lineups.
Hey everyone, good morning/afternoon, and welcome to RotoBaller's coverage of League of Legends DFS for both FanDuel and DraftKings. Be on the lookout for coverage of the LPL, LCK, and LEC as well as we have some great analysts covering all LoL leagues for the Summer Split. Today, I'll be focusing on the 5-game LCS slate starting at 5 P.M. EST.
My name is Nathan Van Hare and I'll be covering LCS content for the summer split here on RotoBaller! I'm new to RotoBaller but I'm not new to the esports DFS area. I've been playing all the esports DFS I can get my hands ever since April of 2020 and hardly missed a day. As someone who didn't know much about esports 2 years ago, It has really surprised me to see how passionate and dedicated I've become about something I knew next to nothing about just two years ago.
Today I'll be bringing you my League of Legends advice and analysis for the five-game LCS slate that locks on Saturday, June 19th, at 5:00 PM. Thanks for reading, you can find me on Twitter @nvanhareDFS for more DFS related content!
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LCS Matchups
- Liquid (-500) vs. Golden Guardians (+372)
- 100 Thieves (-349) vs. FlyQuest (+271)
- TSM (-248) vs. Dignitas (+198)
- CounterLogic Gaming (+122) vs. Evil Geniuses (-149)
- Cloud9 (-304) vs. Immortals (+239)
Liquid vs Golden Guardians
Liquid is never going to be a team I'm going to look to 4-stack in my builds. They have a really slow pace of play and project pretty poorly in wins compared to the other teams/games on today's slate. That being said, they are clearly the superior team in this matchup. I had some doubts with Liquid to start off this split but they showed their prowess yesterday when they controlled the match with FlyQuest. The game total here is tied for the lowest on the slate and in a Liquid win, I don't see it being likely they put up GPP-winning numbers. In GPPs, I don't hate the idea of using Golden Guardians. As a team, when this team wins they do it through a really scrappy, team fighting method and therefore we see high kills and high assists for all players. They're around 20% to win but will likely be owned all sub 8-10%, providing an excellent path to the top of the leaderboard when they do win.
Top Liquid Plays: Team Liquid
Top GG Plays: Iconic, Stixxay, Chime
100 Thieves vs FlyQuest
I'm going to go ahead and write off 100 Thieves' performance yesterday as a fluke. Losing in that fashion to CLG is not something anyone expected but alas, e-sports, especially bo1 North American LOL, is high variance and anyone can win on any given day. FlyQuest is a bit different than CLG though from an analyst standpoint. CLG has put up competitive performances in tough games recently while FlyQuest hasn't shown much against good teams. I really like 100T stacks in both cash and GPPs here with an emphasis on Closer and Abbeddage. Closer is averaging 3.7 Kills, 7.3 assists, and 1.4 deaths in wins over the last 2 splits and Abbe is putting up really impressive numbers at 5.5 kills, 6.9 assists, 1.1 deaths per win. In general, we should definitely see some increased ownership on the 100T stack but it's not a major deterrent for me in this matchup.
Top 100T Plays: Closer, Abbeddage
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TSM vs Dignitas
This is likely my least favorite game on the slate to be looking at for fantasy purposes. It'll be interesting to see how the playstyles work out, but it's tough to see this game going high kill in either direction. TSM plays in such a manner as to deny Dignitas the option of playing with a ton of skirmishes and hindering their scoring. In doing this, they not only limit Dignitas' ceiling but they also cap theirs pretty hard. Consider using the team slot from either side or a 2 stack in a 4-2 construction. Neo and aphromoo are my favorite duo in this matchup from the Dignitas side and PowerOfEvil and Spica are my favorite duo from the TSM side. You never know with Bo1 LOL games, so taking some large Dignitas 4 stacks doesn't seem like such a bad idea given the general consensus that this game is lower kill, ownership should be mildly suppressed.
Top TSM Plays: TSM, PowerOfEvil, Spica
Top Dignitas Plays: Dignitas, Neo, Aphromoo
CounterLogic Gaming vs. Evil Geniuses
CLG heard that I was discounting them yesterday and decided to show up to their match just to spite me. It was a huge game from them in a 21-0 win vs 100T, with insane kill participation all around. CLG likely comes out today as an extremely popular underdog and in general avoiding these situations proves to be a good strategy. However, there are not many other spots to love on this slate, so using CLG might end up being necessary. Finn and Pobelter are the priorities from the CLG side as I see them as CLG's win condition. If Finn+POB can get on a good champion, and get a kill early we likely see some CLG dominance here. Evil Geniuses also had a big win yesterday at the demise of C9. This might be a reason that CLG's ownership stays controlled because people are going to want to play EG as well. I still don't trust anything about them especially with Jiizuke still playing on the team. If playing EG look to use Danny+IgNar as your main focus.
Top CLG Plays: Finn, Pobelter
Top EG Plays: Danny, IgNar
Cloud9 vs. Immortals
Another day another no-brainer. When C9 is on the slate, you play C9. They're a leg up on every team in the LCS in terms of skill and talent and are going to dominate their games so often. Not only do they win so often, but they love to take team fights and boost their stats up. Blaber had been the main carry for the team back in spring but with the addition of K1ng, the focus has shifted towards Perkz with K1ng and Blaber being option #2. K1ng has averaged an insane 6.4 kills per win and perkz is right behind with 5.5 Kills per win. Blaber has shifted to a more supporting type player but still has 3.8 kills per win and 9.6 assists per win over my sample. These 3 are never to be discounted and have major fantasy production capabilities.
Top C9 plays: K1ng, Perkz, Blaber
Summary
- C9 should be a priority in most formats, they have insane per-win numbers and generally have very good DFS scores.
- CLG is likely the most popular dog, but still, the one that I'm likely to focus most on.
- Liquid and TSM are too low pace in wins lately for me to like, but their opponents like to go crazy in wins so I'm looking at both of their opponents for GPPs.
- I'm not one to make predictions but I'm going to have a fun 5 game parlay each week where I post my picks here in the summary. This week I'm going with C9, CLG, TSM, Liquid, 100T. Good luck to all that are playing this weekend!
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