A Tentative Analysis of Echo Fox’s Roster

Tentative Analysis of Echo Fox’s Roster

Table of contents:

Introduction
Goals and Analysis Philosophy
Froggen
Keith
Kfo
Hard
Baby
Team as a Unit






Introduction

Retired NBA Superstar Rick Fox’s team, Echo Fox, recently used a picture with players obscured by sunlight to tease its roster.

Credit: Echo Fox’s Twitter https://twitter.com/echofoxgg/

This picture has been handed over to the reddit detectives, and names have come up for every role – general consensus pointed toward 5 players, and once again, the detectives did not disappoint.

Credit: Echo Fox’s Twitter https://twitter.com/echofoxgg/

It is now confirmed that the top laner is a Korean player named KFO, a complete solo queue gamble who is a regular in the top 50 of the KR ladder.
In the jungle, it is the former C9T player “Hard” filling the role.
The midlane is the Anivia god, Froggen, coming in hot from Europe to make a name for himself in the good old US of A!
The ADC is no other than le Toucan himself; the well-known substitute Keithmcbrief seems to have secured himself a starter position this time!
For the role of support, hearsays pointed to either Xpecial, Baby, and people still wonder where Piccaboo is going… But with Xpecial’s v-log and Froggen and KFO taking up both import slots, it has been confirmed that the support is indeed Baby, a challenger regular looking to prove himself in the big leagues.

Goals

1. Presenting the players from the team, one by one, using statistical data when we can.

2. Make an appropriate judgment based on said data, and try to have an enlightened guess for how the lineup will perform!

Moving Away From Feelings

When I do analysis, I try to move away from what I’ve already considered personally, or what the Twitter Analysts tend to say, and away from what the general opinion of the community is for a player. Why do I do this ? To keep an open mind, and also to not be fooled by my own thoughts.

Credit: brainbashers.com

Look at these two lines, and tell me which one is longer.

You will most likely feel like the line on the right is the longer, and this is how Twitter Analysts see things in League of Legends.
A real analyst will take his ruler, or his other means of getting unproven data, and find the truth : these two lines are of the same length. To elucidate, a true analyst knows exactly what to look for and how to measure it to a very specific degree.

Do not be deceived by your own mind! Use the fo- err… the logic of a true analyst.

Now, let’s start with the data analysis for each role and player.

The Midlane, Froggen

Credit: ProLoLStream on Youtube

One of Europe’s superstar midlaners has joined the line-up of Echo Fox: the legendary Froggen!
Froggen is known for his teamfighting proficiency, his “scaling” style, and his Anivia.
I will start by discussing and perhaps dispelling some myths about Froggen by exploring his statistics from the summer split of EU LCS.

Dispelling multiple myths through statistical usage of data.
Froggen washed up?!
Froggen only plays late game scaling champs!
Froggen can only play one style!

To find out, let’s look at the numbers.
Let’s start our promenade through the statistics.

A couple of statistics I like to bring up are :
    1- Kill Participation : it shows if you have strong teammates or if they need you to get kills, it also shows if you have a tendency to split push, or if you are the one stable pillar of your team.
    2- Death Share : showing if you are a safe player, or the carry that goes ham.
    3- Cs Differential at 10 : this statistic shows if you are a strong laner able to dominate your lane on different picks.
    4- Gold Differential at 10 : some laner will prioritize aggression over cs, and this will often lead to them having less CS@10, but a resurgence in the GD@10 stat.
    5- Cs Per Minute : this statistic shows us if the midlaner has a good farming ability, not missing a lot of free cs, and also will show if it can be put in correlation with the Kill Participation because, if you split push, you tend to acquire more cs, but lose in the KP metric.

Froggen is topping the charts in terms of Kill Participation with an impressive 73.6%. This shows that Froggen is a core portion of his team, and that he is also a very important factor in teamfights. Rarely will he be missing from teamfights because he is splitpushing, or because he has been caught out.

In the Death Share metric, Froggen is the 6th midlaner to die the least, while Febiven is the one that represents the most death in his team. What we can understand from such a statistic is that Froggen is a careful player, and that he allows himself not to take risks to deal damage, or to be effective.
We will need to check if his safety impacts his ability to damage enemies or if he does fine in this metric.
From just this DS stat, we can understand that Froggen is not too safe (Pepiinero is at 12.7% DS for example, he takes no risks).

So one of the myths we are trying to dispel here is that Froggen is washed-up.
When I check the CSD@10, I notice that Froggen tops the chart. He appears to be the most dominant player in terms of CS differential. He is, on average, up 4.4 CS on his lane opponent. Would a washed-up player be able to get this result when competing with people like Nukeduck, Pepii or Febiven ? I don’t think so.
Would someone that only plays late game scaling champs that don’t have strength in the 20 first minutes of the game be able to get these results? I don’t think so.

In the Gold Differential metric, guess who has the biggest gold lead on average? Froggen. You are goddamn right.
Looking at these numbers, I find it really hard to believe that the Anivia king only plays late game champs and isn’t a big bully in the midlane…
I think it will be really interesting to see Froggen facing the likes of Bjergsen, uncontested best player in NA, GBM, or his old enemy, Alex Ich! I actually am getting super hyped to see him in these matchups!

While Froggen is the top farmer in the first 10 minutes, he falls to a comfortable third place when we take into account his CSPM for the whole game, with a good 9 cs per minute average. This makes him be in the top 30% of CSer in EU LCS.

So now we know that Froggen is a good laner, with a dominating performance in the 10 first minutes.
But this isn’t enough to be a good midlaner, and the other statistics I like to explore are :    

1- Damage Per Minute : this will show how good a player is at dealing damage.

    2- Gold Share : this one will be telling us how much a player gets from his team’s gold, it will be interesting to match this statistic with the next.

3- Damage Share : as seen above, this statistic is good to match with the Gold Share, because the more gold you take, the more I expect you to deal damage, right?
   

4- Ward Per Minute : easy to understand : does the player ward more or less than his peers?
    5- Ward Clear Per Minute : self-explanatory.

If we take a look at the DPM, Froggen comes second, right behind PePii.
PePii looks very very impressive but we have to keep in mind at some point in the season, Ap Ez was very impressive and could do too much damage to be healthy for the game, I saw CoCo’s Ezreal do over 1k DPM over 4 games.
Sooooo, being second in term of DPM is pretty good for a “washed up” midlaner.

A couple of things could darken the weather : if Froggen was getting a massive share of his team’s gold to actually not do that much in teams of Damage Share, or if he played only poke champion that have a higher average DPM.
But he actually has a very standard champion pool, with only 2 games on Kog (1267 dpm :O) and 3 on Varus (1114 dpm). Still, this is pretty good with those champions and it seems correct to say that Froggen is good at dealing damage.
In NA, Bjergsen was very far above everyone else in the DPM department, with a nice 756 DPM, but this is why I am super hyped to see Froggen in NA!

Ok, so Froggen is the second most prioritized midlaner in Europe – he is only behind PePii, but we have to see if he gets his gold and wastes it, or is in fact very active with it?

Once again, our little birdy tops the charts – Froggen actually does a lot with the gold. We of course have to keep in mind that 5/18 games were played with a very poke heavy comp, giving him a lot of damage from long range that his team couldn’t participate in…

In warding, Froggen is second behind Soren, and far better at it than his peers. This means that a team with Froggen in it will have a better map vision than without Froggen, meaning you can make better calls and play the map far more easily.

For dewarding, Froggen appears to take a safe route and is in the second half of the rankings for this metric, meaning he is more inclined not to take a risk to expose himself unnecessarily.

To conclude this myth debunking section, I will make a short recap:

    – Froggen usually gets a lot of gold in his teams, but he makes it worth it by being a super reliable damage dealer.

    – Froggen is far from being over-hyped, or washed-up; in fact, he is still a very dominant player that gets leads in lane, comparable to the best.

    – Froggen is one of the better midlaners at warding, meaning he can allow his team to play a safer gameplan, a safer way to play the game by getting small advantages by small advantages.













The AD carry position : Keithmcbrief

Credit: http://www.animalfactguide.com

For the very first time in his career, Keith appears to have secured…. A starting position in an LCS roster!
LE TOUCAN HAS ARRIVED.
Keith’s career has been the one of a substitute, he used to be called “the motivator” because teams used him as a way to make their starter play better thanks to pressure, Team Liquid did it for Piglet when he was being a diva, and TSM did it for Turtle. In these somewhat rare occasions, it was my opinion that Keith was a very good player and I have high hopes for him.
We should get on and jump on the few statistics I have on him.


Will Le Toucan be worthy of the starting position?
How will Keith matchup versus NA LCS ad carries?
What are Keith’s strengths?
How will they fit in Echo Fox?

Keith played 6 games during the NA LCS 2015 spring split with Team Liquid, resulting in a 5 wins 1 loss win ratio, and these matches will be my main source of data!

So, what do we know about Keith, apart from the fact that he is a memer?
We know a couple of things, such as his average Kill Participation, his GD@10, his WPM and WCPM and a little more but let’s start with those.

In terms of Kill Participation, Keith is pretty middle of the pack – he doesn’t seem to be a catalyst for his team’s victory, and his presence isn’t required to repair difficult situations.
This is understandable if you take into account the fact that he was sitting on the bench for most of the training sessions, and didn’t mesh with the team like a real starter would.

For the GD@10, Keith is pretty disappointing; he sits in the 10th place, but someone like Altec that proved to be one of NA’s best ADCs in the summer split is actually behind him… I think Keith will have to get jungle support to not fall behind in Echo Fox, but maybe by being more at ease with his support he can not dig a hole for himself every game?
Time will tell!

Something Keith appears to be good at is getting a good gold flow, he is the third best in his position at getting gold in North America on average, but something I am more concerned about is how good he is at dealing damage, since returning the investment he demands through damage is a big thing for carry positions!

Keith is 13th at warding, and 7th at dewarding – we shouldn’t expect a lot of vision control from the botlane if Keith isn’t paired with a wardbot support it seems!

Now we need to see how Keith does in the damage department – we will explore a couple of statistics for it: Damage Per Minute, Damage Share and also the Gold Share to see if it is efficient to invest in Mr Yuri Jew!

I am pretty proud and happy to say that Keith shines in the DPM – in fact, he tops the charts in that metric, and actually has quite a lead on Turtle, who is dead second.

When considering his Gold Share, Keith does not seem to be as greedy as others: he stands at the 10th place, while being second at having the biggest share of damage , right behind Sneaky.

From these metrics, Keith appears to be a good damage dealer overall, and he seems to be able to do more than others while having less gold.

To conclude, Le Toucan seems to arrive only after laning phase, and he seems to be prone to being bullied during the first parts of the game. Good teams will be looking to take advantage of a weak laning phase, be careful.

Overall, I think Keith can become one of the top NA ADCs if he solves that lack of synergy with supports and gets a stronger laning phase, because it appears to be his only weakness… Wait and see!

The Toplane position : Kfo

Credit: http://op.gg

Who is this guy?

I could not find pro match results to get to know this fine gentleman named Kfo that is confirmed to be Echo Fox’s toplaner, but I did get some information through his OP.GG page.

He plays at around 3700 mmr and frequently holds an impressive 40th rank in the Korean soloq.

He appears to be very proficient on Vladimir, who can always be used as a relentless split pusher that, once he gets a lead, is super oppressive to his lane opponent.
He plays a large amount, and a lot of different champions, and most importantly all the meta champions. I think a player like this one can evolve into a top tier NA toplaner, and will be able to push his leads, if only because of what we can assume is a very dedicated work ethic and the fact that he can adapt to many different metas.

The Jungler : Hard

Credit: http://lol.esportspedia.com

Hard is the jungler of Echo Fox, and I had no established opinions on him, having not watched a lot of his games.
I methodically dissected his statistics and we will be going through them together in order to form an opinion!

Will Hard be able to match up to NA LCS junglers?
What type of player is Hard?
What would be the best type of champions for Hard to shine with?


I managed to get statistics from Hard’s summer NA CS games, he has played 10 games and hasn’t shone very brightly.

The first statistics we will be looking at will be his KP, Death Share and his early game presence through CSD@10 and GD@10.

When watching the KP metric, we see that Hard is at the fourth place, which is not terrible, he doesn’t seem to be missing during teamfights, doesn’t seem to be caught before those, and doesn’t seem to be a strong split pushing force.

Another metric I want to talk about is the Death Share, this shows us if the player is a safe one or if he is one to jump into the fray of the battle ! Hard is at the 6th position, so he is pretty average and does not make big wave here.

Something I am concerned with is the fact that Hard appears to fall behind in CS on average, he is once again at the 6th position and is 3.1 cs behind at 10 usually…
Some junglers sacrifice farm for ganks, and while it can be a good trade-off, this isn’t what is happening here since Hard happens to be 22.8 gold behind on average on his opposing jungler. This isn’t too much, fortunately, and it is true that there were strong junglers with Crumbz, Shrimp and others, but this is still a “worrying trend” of sorts…

Concerning the damage dealing and gold efficiency statistics, we will need another table.

So what can we infer from the fact that Hard is at the seventh place in terms of raw damage, and also in term of Damage Share too?
We can understand that while Hard plays carry damage oriented junglers in solo queue, he seems to stick to Gragas type of junglers in competitive play.

A redeeming fact about Hard is that he is a very low economy jungler that doesn’t take much ressource from his carries, while he is the second best ward bot with 0.90 WPM, right behind Crumbz 1.03 WPM. His WCPM is also second after Crumbz.

Hard appears to be a vision controlling type of jungler that rolls with tanky style junglers.

I am pretty hyped to see how this fits in the Echo Fox roster, because more wards means a slower pace of game, which fits Froggen’s style of play and playing tank junglers might also enable the presence of carry top laners that KFO could start showing up on…

The Support : Baby

Credit: http://lol.esportspedia.com

Echo Fox’s support is Baby, TDK’s former substitute and Team Imagine’s former support. They failed to qualify versus Team 8, who later rebranded and became Immortals while Imagine have all but seemingly disbanded.

What will Baby bring to the team?
What type of player is Baby?
What would be the best type of champions for Baby to shine with?
What team dynamic fits Baby, and does it work for the rest of the team?


The first things we have to think about when looking at support is what statistics are actually good to check out?
The ones I like to check out are the Kill Participation, the Death Share, the GD@10, the Effective Gold Per Minute and the WPM and WCPM.

According to the KP, Baby is the third best NA CS support at making plays with his team; he isn’t missing or dead before fights. There isn’t much to make out of this yet however.

For the Death Share statistic, Baby is once again pretty average, he doesn’t feed too hard but isn’t Remilia levels of safe.

According to the GD@10, Baby happens to be a strong laner, the third best in NA CS.
What I hope this will do is allow the Toucan to not fall too far behind during laning phase so that he can safely deliver the metric ****ton of damage we know he can.

His EGPM appears to be above average, but still not close to the best. I will want to see if this translate well in wards, and ward clearing because this is, as always, the top priority of the support role.

So, while he earns a lot less gold, Baby finds a way to put apparently enough wards down and scores a number 2 spot in WPM and a number 3 spot in WCPM.

The Team Unit As a Whole

How will the team function?
Who will be the early game carry?
Will it be a slow but steady team?

From the data I have gathered, this team will have different carries throughout the different phases of the game.
For the early game I believe the carry role will belong to the top laner, KFO, who will need the wards and presence from Hard in order to not be bullied by the opposing team’s jungler and/or roaming support/mid/adc.
The weakness of the team during the early game could be the botlane, since Le Toucan appears to be good at falling behind early.
For the midlane, with proper wards, Froggen will be able to be the high-pressure dedicated farmer he is and be enabled for the midgame.

During the midgame, all 3 laners have carry potential – I am sure if this team gets through the early game, the team can do work.

The warding from Hard will allow the team to make good engages and smart plays during the later parts of the game, and allow the team to reach said later parts of the game.

With Hard playing tank champions, the top laner will be able to assume a stronger “carry” identity.

I am super hyped to see these players, and a lot of the midlane matchups will be super interesting to watch.

Thank you for reading, please contact me if you have any questions or suggestions! Also of note is that I am looking for an analyst position within a team. 🙂
Regards,
 /u/dead_humanist on reddit / @Mephisto_V on Twitter