Welcome. This is Caesar’s AlphaDraft weekly NALCS Line-up Advice for 3/12/2016. In this article I will present you a player that has upside, a player that should not be in your line-up, and a player that is likely to perform the best in their respective position.
The Rankings. As mentioned above, I will give one “upside,” one “trap,” and one “smart play” for top, jungle, mid, adc, support, and team respectively. This should provide you with some information for building your winning line-up on AlphaDraft.
Now on to the rankings!
TOP LANE
The Upside – Seraph. C9 games are bloody. Seraph is a good player. Can it be that simple? Seraph has played well on Renegades in the past and has put up some massive fantasy showings. The danger with Seraph is the 50/50 that Rush camps top lane. Some games Rush is always there making sure Balls is put into a position to carry on the likes of GP, other times its a straight 1v1, a scenario that I firmly believe is in Seraph’s favor. This REN team is new, as they also added Ninja to the mid lane, but against C9, who love to have bloody teamfights, Seraph has a ton of upside as a value top lane pick.
The Trap – Impact. Impact is often referred to as a carry top laner if you watch the NALCS broadcast. He is not. Statistically he almost always, throughout his entire career, favored tanks. Moakai is his spirit champion. That is not to say Impact cannot score in Fantasy, he can and does when he is involved. This week; however, NRG plays IMT, a matchup that a tank player who relies on the his teammates being able to deal damage to score in the assist and kill departments, only imagines in Hell. Top lane is a gamble this week depending on who you think will win each game, but Impact is likely to be an enticing option that you should avoid.
The Smart Play – Hauntzer. I love Hauntzer as a fantasy pick. He split pushes at times, but is always quick with the teleports to score points. I do not think that Hauntzer is even in the top 3 top laners in the NALCS, but if I want someone to score, and not take a risk, this week I would pick Hauntzer. TIP is a weak opponent that should not pressure Svenskeren in the jungle, leading to more visits top. Another thing that playing TIP offers is an incentive to play standard lanes. If this happens, TSM players will skyrocket in value. I do not believe Hauntzer has the most potential to score points this week, but he has no real downsides to starting him. Average salary, decent points per game, and a good matchup.
JUNGLE
The Upside – Rush. Wait, doesn’t Rush have the highest salary this week? He may have the highest salary, but that does not keep him off this week’s Jungle upside. Rush can be a risky play. If the new REN team come together and show up, an upset could occur, leaving the highest salaried player scoring very few points and leading to many upset owners. Rush may have risk, but he is the most likely player at his position to score 30+ points this week. Rush also gets this week’s upside because AlphaDraft did a great job valuing the junglers, meaning they are all fairly equal in terms of salary v. potential. I have a feeling that REN are going to show up this week, and while Crumbz is still the weakest jungler in the league, Rush really only has Jensen that is nearly guaranteed to win his lane. A lot of pressure is on Rush this week, if he performs, you will be glad you started this dynamic jungler.
The Trap – None. I guess my trap would be Moon because I think that IMT will show up this Saturday, but he is valued pretty well. The matchups this week can go either way in many cases and the CLG v. TL should be an interesting match. Dardoch could also be a potential trap, but if TL get rolling, he will be the reason and have the points to show it. This week in the jungle there are a lot of risks, but there is not a single player that I cannot make an argument for. Moon has the weakest argument, but at 7200, even Moon should be a fairly average value pick.
The Smart Play – Reignover. There is considerable upset potential in the IMT v. NRG matchup, but Reignover will not be the reason they lose. Reignover is prone to being overconfident, but NRG being primarily Korean players probably means that Reignover will have something to prove this week. Moon isn’t particularly impressive as a jungle, and Reignover is having the best season of any of the NALCS junglers this split, so I expect Reignover to do well in this matchup. The only scary thing is that this game could provide few kills. GBM and Pobelter tend to not scuffle much and Impact will likely play a tank such as Nautilus. Reignover is a safe pick that has good upside, though not as high as Rush’s. Reignover will score and is a solid bet, plus he is actually 100 cheaper than Rush, making him the smart play.
MID LANE
The Upside – Fenix. Fenix scores well on AlphaDraft. At 22.7 FPPG, he ranks third among mid laners. Fenix also boasts a rather modest salary of 7800 this week, which is upper middle this week. I like the matchup. Fenix has solo kill potential on Huhi and plays champions that have high kill participation. I expect Fenix to have a great showing, win or loss, but the risk is in his team falling behind. Overall, TL is undervalued this week as I see them winning about 35% of the time. They match up well to CLG and should provide a challenge at least in the beginning of the game. CLG does not give up many points to their opponents, but with AlphaDraft giving TL lower than a 20% chance to win, based on their salaries, I think there is definitely room to play some TL players this week, Fenix being chief among them.
The Trap – Huhi. If you couldn’t tell from the above comments, I do not think that Huhi is a solid mid laner. His team enables him, but he still doesn’t score well week after week. I would guess he puts up an average performance in a win, 20 or so points, but in a loss, he will do significantly worse. Huhi just is not worth starting with his salary. There are safer options at or below his salary, as well as options with higher potential at or below his 8100 price-tag.
The Smart Play – Jensen. Jensen is a monster, or has been recently. He scores on all manner of champions. Jensen also has a huge gold share for C9. Combine all this with his jungler being Rush and the Ninja/Crumbz synergy being new, I expect Jensen to easily go 30+ this week. His salary is high, but he will earn every penny as one of the key components in beating the revamped REN. Is there a way C9 loses? Possibly, but only after a game that is more bloody than the C9 v. TSM game that lead to massive scores on both sides. (Insert overdone “Body these fools” pun here).
ATTACK DAMAGE CARRY (ADC)
The Upside – Doublelift. After a pretty solid performance at IEM, Doublelift returns as the primary carry of TSM. Bjergsen is still TSM’s best player, but Doublelift decides who wins the game. Though the laning phase of the DoubleStar lane is fairly weak, TIP doesn’t have players to exploit that flaw in TSM. Doublelift should score well this week and has the potential to be one of the better performing ADC’s. With a mid-tier salary and solid FPPG, the upside is definitely there for one of the top ADC’s in the LCS this season.
The Trap – LOD. I am just unclear as to why AlphaDraft has the NRG players with such high salaries. They do not have the FPPG to earn the salaries I am seeing and IMT has only lost once, to a team that has the best macro play in the league. LOD is not as good as Altec, yet he has the salary that Altec would have if he was playing. I suggest avoiding LOD. Even if you want a cheap ADC, there are better options that are even cheaper than the 7700 LOD boasts.
The Smart Play – WildTurtle. Wildturtle always shows up. He has Adrian as his support playing things like Janna and Soraka to enhance Turtle’s ability to run into the enemy team, do a ton of damage, almost die, and end up with several kills. His kill participation is great and the gold that he receives enables Turtle to be the primary carry of his team. He may actually be the third best player on his own team, but when IMT plays a composition that relies on Wildturtle being the capstone, he shows up in a big way. The matchup into LOD is also quite good for IMT’s bot lane. The upside is there, the risk is slim to none, so Turtle is clearly a smart play this week, if you can stomach his salary.
SUPPORT
The Upside – Kiwikid. A staple of the support upsides is Kiwi. He is the initiation for his team. If he gets Alistar, he scores well. If he does not, he is fairly average. Kiwi is prone to dying trying to get wards by himself, but seeing as he usually is the reason his team takes wins, Kiwi is a solid upside. In losses he does decent and in wins he has fairly high scores. Kiwi has a low salary at 6900, meaning that putting in this cut-rate support to be able to afford some of the previous Smart Plays doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.
The Trap – None. You would be hard pressed to make a mistake in this category. Hai and Adrian are usually go-tos, but often owners save money in the support area. All of the players are likely to about what their salary shows. Gate is probably the weakest pick, unless you found a way that TIP beats TSM, in which case Gate becomes a great pick up that could catapult you to winning a contest. In all seriousness, support should be one of the last areas you draft, as, like jungle, they are well balanced by AlphaDraft.
The Smart Play – Adrian. The God of DFS supports is Adrian. He puts up massive assist numbers and does not die. He is the best pick this week. Adrian does have less potential than Hai, but he more than makes up for this is solid performance after solid performance. Adrian averages almost double most supports, so spending a bigger penny in the support category could pay off. The only question is, where do you cut if not the support position?
TEAM
The Upside – CLG. The salary is modest and they are expected to win against TL. The match could end quickly, but even if CLG falls behind, I expect them to draw out the game and pick up some points. The upside is in the salary, the downside is that they do not match up that well to TL. CLG learned a lot from IEM, if that knowledge is put to use in this matchup, CLG is one of the better options this weak for teams.
The Trap – C9. The salary is too high. The opportunity cost is why C9 is the trap. They could score the most points, but they also could randomly lose. Is that possibility worth paying 100 more than what IMT costs? Not in my opinion.
The Smart Play – IMT. They have the best odds to win their game. The game could be elongated due to the skill that NRG has on their roster, but IMT should still pull off a win. IMT are safe, not the most expensive, and have potential to actually score the most points this week. The smart play is generally the team with the best chance to win, as they are the least likely to get burned. In the NALCS anything can happen, it just usually doesn’t happen to IMT.
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