League of Legends Daily Fantasy Helper: LEC, 7/18/20

FanDuel is offering League of Legends daily fantasy, and look, if you don't know what that is, it's okay.

I have you covered with a detailed but straightforward primer to get you all set up whether you're a DFS player looking to dig into the new sport or a League of Legends fan ready to take your action over to FanDuel.

Let's break down the LEC slate for Saturday, July 18th, which locks at 11:00 Eastern, and see who stands out.

The Slate

The LEC format features a single game played in each matchup, so there are no win bonuses for ending a series early.

The table below shows a team's adjusted net tower differential and their projected win odds, based on simulations I run. The raw data comes from Oracle's Elixir and references the summer split, which is a small sample of five games. I also account for spring performance in the simulations.

Entering the weekend, 7 of the 10 teams in the LEC were between 4-5 and 5-4. The exceptions were MAD Lions and Rogue (7-2) and FC Schalke (1-8). It's not a surprise, then, that two of the three bigger favorites are either those good teams (Rogue) or facing FC Schalke (SK Gaming, who handled Team Vitality easily on Friday).

Fnatic were 4-5 and a bad team by adjusted tower differential. That's an issue. However, they play a non-elite Team Vitality squad, which -- again -- lost 9-4 in terms of towers to SK Gaming on Friday.

ADC

Crownshot (SK Gaming; $8,800) - Crownshot ranks first in the split among AD Carries in creep score differential at 10 minutes, via Oracle's Elixir. FC Schalke have been a pushover matchup for opposing AD Carries, who have a kill/death/assist average of 4.0/0.3/5.7 against Schalke. Sure, they beat Fnatic last week, but everything else has pointed to FC Schalke being a dream matchup. Crownshot went 9/1/4 (kills/deaths/assists) against Team Vitality on Friday.

Others to Consider: Rekkles (Fnatic; $10,300), Hans sama (Rogue; $9,700), Kobbe (Misfits Gaming; $9,100)

Mid

Larssen (Rogue; $8,700) - The most productive fantasy midlaner of the split, Larssen faces Excel Esports as a big favorite. Larssen has a gold, experience, and creep score differential advantage at 10 minutes on average. Special, his in-lane opponent, ranks last in damage per minute dealt to champions. Larssen, meanwhile, is second.

Others to Consider: Nemesis (Fnatic; $9,200), Caps (G2 Esports; $8,900), ZaZee (SK Gaming; $7,900)

Top

Alphari (Origen; $7,300) - Alphari's average gold differential at 10 minutes is 414. Next up is 94. Dan Dan, his in-lane matchup, ranks eighth at -159. Alphari's experience differential is 408 (a split-best number), and Dan Dan's is -288 (a split-worst number). Despite a modest number of kills (19, tied for fifth), Alphari ranks second in KDA (4.5) among top-laners.

Others to Consider: Wunder (G2 Esports; $8,100), Finn (Rogue; $8,000), Jenax (SK Gaming; $7,500)

Jungle

Selfmade (Fnatic; $8,900) - Selfmade sits at the top of the salary board for the slate, but the matchup with Team Vitality is a good one. They're eighth in jungle control rate and seventh in fantasy points allowed to opposing junglers. Selfmade has been middling in FanDuel production this split on a per-game basis, but he did go 3/0/9 against Vitality on June 13th for 31.32 FanDuel points, and he just had 31.94 against SK Gaming before the drubbing against FC Schalke.

Others to Consider: Jankos (G2 Esports; $8,500), Inspired (Rogue; $8,300), Shad0w (MAD Lions; $8,000)

Support

LIMIT (SK Gaming; $7,200) - LIMIT is a cheap, favored support, so that's a bit part of the checklist. Supports just don't often score a lot, so we only need to spend up when everything clicks. Here, we can spend down and then focus on the more productive positions. The more efficient supports aren't in elite matchups, so we can feel okay spending down for LIMIT against FC Schalke. LIMIT is below average in KDA, but only two teams have allowed more than 14.5 FanDuel points per game to supports this split. Schalke has given up 20.0 on average.

Others to Consider: Vander (Rogue; $7,600), Mikyx (G2 Esports; $7,800), Kaiser (MAD Lions, $7,500)

Teams

With teams, it's best to treat them as a position you don't build around or punt with. Put another way: don't force it, but don't ignore it. Kind of like defense in NFL DFS. You should target the biggest favorites you can within your salary cap.

Teams to Consider: Rogue ($7,700), SK Gaming ($7,400), Misfits Gaming ($7,500), Fnatic ($7,900)