DraftKings LoL LCS: Friday Cheat Sheet
IEM Katowice kicks off Friday with Group A which includes the LPL's Royal Never Give Up vs. the EULCS's Origen and the NA LCS's TSM facing the Korean Challenger team Ever. The craziest part about this is that Ever is not even in Korea's top league, the LCK, but after winning the KESPA Cup and IEM Cologne their stock remains pretty high in this group. Since IEM Cologne, Ever has gone through some roster changes with Athena moving to EDG. I strongly recommend staying away from cash games this weekend as with only four teams playing on a given day there isn't much variance. Stacking in tournaments is the way to go and you want to focus in on teams that will be winning games.
I'm predicting that Ever and RNG will make it out of this group so that's where my focus will be when constructing my lineup. RNG are playing well in China at the moment including a recent series victory over the LPL leading Qiao Gu Reapers. They face off against Origen, a team struggling for any type of consistency, in the first round of the tournament. I don't think Origen will be able to compete with RNG.
TSM have the firepower and elite talent that would make you think they should beat a team like Ever who aren't even in the top tier Korean league. But Ever is no regular Challenger team, with a KESPA Cup win and a first place finish at IEM Cologne still fresh on people's minds. I think Ever will beat TSM, as they've showed a penchant for team play, whereas TSM is still looking to find their identity. TSM have a better chance in Round One than Origen, but I still think they'll lose.
From there, I believe RNG will beat Ever in the winner's bracket while TSM will take out Origen in the first loser's bracket game. That leads us to an Ever/TSM rematch with Ever once again coming out on top. In the final game of the group, look for RNG to beat Ever again as the group will finish with RNG in first and Ever in second. With only four players per role I will be ranking them in the order in which I'd use them.
Daily Player Recommendations:
Top Lane:
Looper (RNG, $7,100), Crazy (EVR, $6,000), Hauntzer (TSM, $6,600), sOAZ (OG, $5,500)
Jungle:
mlxg (RNG, $6,800), Ares (EVR, $5,600), Svenskeren (TSM, $6,300), Amazing (OG, $5,100)
Middle Lane:
xiaohu (RNG, $7,900), Tempt (EVR, $6,600), Bjergsen (TSM, $7,400), PowerOfEvil (OG, $6,100)
ADC:
wuxx (RNG, $8,000), Loken (EVR, $6,800), Doublelift (TSM, $7,500), Zven (OG, $6,300)
Support:
KeY (EVR, $4,800), Mata (RNG, $6,000), Yellowstar (TSM, $5,500), Mithy (OG $4,300)
Team:
Ever ($4,200), RNG ($5,600), TSM ($5,100), OG ($3,600)
