Last slate before the break! This slate has some amazing matches and exciting players to pick up! There are opportunities for some upsets across the board and areas where you can take safer lineups into cash lobbies or more aggressive lineups into your GPP lobbies! Where are your possible upsets here? Look at Rare Atom and Invictus Gaming for some spicy picks that could pay off big time. But for a full list of picks, keep reading!

Game #1: LNG v Rare Atom

Cann’s Pick: LNG

Game #2: Victory 5 v eStar Gaming

Cann’s Pick: eStar Gaming

Game #3: Invictus Gaming v RNG

Cann’s Pick: RNG

Game #4: Hanwha Life Esports v Liiv SANDBOX

Cann’s Pick: Hanwha Life Esports

Game #5: DWG KIA v DRX

Cann’s Pick: DWG KIA

Captain

Favorite: Chovy (HLE: $12,000) Even with HLE not sitting in the first place spot in the LCK, you cannot talk about possible MVPs for the first half of Spring Split without talking about Chovy. Chovy has the second highest KDA among the LCK player on the slate (7.0) and second most kills (78). He is an absolute monster in lane averaging the highest gold difference (+417) which is almost 300 gold more than second place. The LSB mid lane (FATE) is decent but the difference in roster in almost every role is too wide and I think Chovy runs away with this match. 

Value Pick: BAO (DRX: $9,300) I suspect that this match will be a lot closer than initially expected. DRX is sitting in second place and has beaten the likes of Gen.G. This is a value pick because even in their losses to HLE and KT Rolster, BAO held his own while the other lanes had really fallen behind. I think a reasonable goal is for this series is to go the full three and BAO picks up some serious kill numbers. 

Top Lane

Favorite: Xiaohu (RNG: $6,000) Picking into TheShy is feast or famine. He will either go nuts and carry the game or be a complete liability. What makes me like Xiaohu in this matchup is the presence of the RNG jungler (Wei) to the top lane. TheShy has a tendency to overextend and get caught (seen through his 46 deaths through 15 games). Xiaohu will pick up his kills and also be a great source of engage in the late game teamfights for RNG. 

Value Pick: zs (ES: $5,400) This is a quietly safe pick. While Rare Atom is exceptional at being a hard out for teams, eStar showed a lot of promise in their last match against TT. While they lost that match, their players picked up huge points and really it was a series that they could have won. The ES record in the last few series can be misleading since they have been playing all of the top tier teams like FPX, LNG, and IG. I expect a bounceback series here after the disappointing end in the TT series. He has 32 kills and 90+ assists while cube (RA top laner) has 24 kills and 43 assists. Big numbers out of ES and zs today. 

Jungle

Favorite: Arthur (HLE: $7,000) This may be the best jungler on the slate. Arthur has 70 kills and is into the Liiv SANDBOX jungler who has been plummeting in power rankings now sitting with a 2.9 KDA and has a little under 30 kills less than Arthur. Croco does focus more on farming the jungle and trying to make an impact but Arthur will put his lanes so far behind he will be insignificant. Add on top of the fact that Arthur will be ganking for Chovy and Deft… good night sweet prince. 

Value Pick: Tarzan (LNG: $6,000) A lot of people, myself included, have slept on Tarzan and LNG. They have only lost to the top of the table and takes care of the lower level teams. He is part of almost 70% of his team’s kills and has a 4.8 KDA. He keeps his deaths low (25) and has buckets of assists (83). Rare Atom’s strength is their jungle play, but the lanes for LNG react well to Tarzan’s movements across the map and LNG 2-0’s RA. (Insert kiss of death here)

Mid Lane

Favorite: ShowMaker (DWG: $7,600) Of all the players on DRX, SOLKA is the absolute least likely to be a kill threat. In 20 games he only has 31 kills and 39 deaths. In 16 games ShowMaker has 58 kills and 20 deaths. SOLKA has only participated in 15% of all of DRX’s first blood kills and only participates in 66.2% of all of their kills. On the other hand ShowMaker is part of 25% of all first blood kills for DWG and has a kill participation of 71.7%. ShowMaker makes plays, and SOLKA allows the game to go on around him. Easy pick up here. 

Value Pick: Mole (V5: $7,400) Mole is the kill leader among LPL mid laners on this slate with 60 total kills.FoFo (the RA mid laner) on the other had has 29 less kills and is constantly down in gold (-156 versus Mole’s +155) at 10 minutes. Mole will outplay FoFo in lane and keep RA from gaining any traction moving into late game teamfights. If you pick up Mole, pray for the Zoe pick up here!! This is Mole’s strongest pick up as far as champions go and will rack you up HUGE points!

ADC

Favorite: Deft (HLE: $8,000) I feel like you all are going to start picking up on who I think is my favorite team in the LCK is… seriously if HLE figured out their top laner situation they would be terrifying. In 19 games Deft has 87 kills and there is a real possibility that he will break 100 in this series. The next closes ADC from the LCK on this slate is BAO who is good, but will most likely lose to DWG in either 2 or 3 games. Deft is playing against either Leo or Route who collectively have 51 kills, 42 deaths, and 58 assists… Deft is 87-37-92. This matchup could get ugly quickly. 

Value Pick: Wink (IG: $7,000) You may be enticed to pick up GALA in this match up, but I am going to tell you why not to. GALA is good in larger team macro play, but his weakness is a lot of times he struggles in the early game and laning phase. You know which team is nuts in the early game? Invictus Gaming. Wink is averaging at 10 minutes +93 gold, -18 XP, and has a KDA of 6.6. GALA is averaging +45 gold, -100 xp, and has a 6.7 KDA. While Wink has less kills than GALA, he also has less deaths and requires his team to funnel less gold into him to carry. This is a value pick here and should pay dividends as you can spend money elsewhere 

Support

Favorite: Ming (RNG: $5,400) This is your assist leader for the LPL on this slate at 160. Supporting GALA will give that to you and if RNG can take IG to the late game, Ming will be able to rack up serious assist numbers. He very well could be sniffing at 200 by the end of this series if RNG can not get out drafted (like they did against FPX) and should move to 6-1 going into the holiday break.

Value Pick: Iwandy (LNG: $5,000) Iwandy has the best KDA in the LPL for supports on this slate with a 4.6 and has only died 27 times in 14 games. I love how he really facilitates early leads but will also transition really well into teamfights. A lot of supports will look to engage and throw their life away to win fights but Iwandy plays more like a CoreJJ who will make intelligent engages that won’t necessarily cost him his life. Solid pick up into a very favorable matchup. 

Team

Favorite: Hanwha Life Esports ($5,400) This is the safest mismatch for the slate. HLE Has a KD ratio of 1.39 (1st) while LSB has a .85 (8th). LSB has the worst late game teamfighting (10th: -22.2 MLR) and by 15 minutes averages a gold deficit where HLE at 15 minutes sits at an average +702 gold advantage. Safe pickup and a very probable 2-0 here. 

Value Pick: LNG ($4,800) Much like HLE, the LNG pickup here is just safe. The team KD difference is 1.22 for LNG to 0.80 for RA. Rare Atom does has a small edge in the early game but all of that goes out the window as they transition into the late game. LNG likes to progress slowly through the early game and collect tower plates and objectives and if they don’t let RA to get early advantages, big points here. 

Cann’s Example Lineup

Captain (x1.5): Tarzan ($9,900)

     Alternate: Chovy ($12,000)

Top: TheShy ($5,200)

Jungle: Arthur ($7,000)

     Alternate: Wei ($6,800)

Mid: Rookie ($6,800)

ADC: Wink ($7,000)

     Alternate: Deft ($8,000)

Support: Vsta ($5,800)

Team: DWG KIA ($5,600)