Oracle's Elixir

Academy Standouts: 2020 Spring Week 7

Tim Sevenhuysen

Academy Standouts highlights the players who performed best in the most recent week of NA Academy play. I’ll discuss three of the most noteworthy players, either the best performers or new standouts who haven’t shown up on the list before, and then list 7 other strong performers below.

Previous Academy Standouts:

If you want to track your favourite team’s Academy performance throughout each split, you can also check out the Academy stats pages, starting with 2020 Spring regular season player stats and team stats.

Fudge, Top, Cloud9

Fudge had another great week, leading C9 Academy to a 2-0 week against TSM Academy and FLY Academy with a pair of Camille-into-Aatrox picks that produced big-time game influence through side lanes and playmaking.

Fudge Stats, 2020 Spring Week 7
Numbers in parentheses are rank within own position.

  KDA KP GXD10 DPM CS%P15
W7 8.3 47.2% +282 414 22.7%
Total 5.9 57.6% +188 431 23.8%

Against TSM Academy, Fudge played weak side early, but took over the game later by capitalizing on TSM mistakes.

Against FLY Academy, Fudge was more dominant in lane, controlling Revenge from the very start and earning windows to roam into mid lane and build a snowball.

The flexibility of Fudge’s play was on display, and he made a strong argument for himself as possibly the strongest top laner in Academy right now.

Tactical, Bot, Team Liquid

Now that he’s splitting time with Doublelift on the main Team Liquid squad, and apparently won’t be playing Academy in future once Rikara is ready to join the team, Tactical is stepping up with some of his better performances of the split. Maybe he just needed the confidence boost?

Tactical Stats, 2020 Spring Week 7
Numbers in parentheses are rank within own position.

  KDA KP GXD10 DPM CS%P15
W7 5.0 71.4% +1,121 476 30.0%
Total 3.4 70.8% +97 473 33.7%

Tactical’s Kalista game against CLG Academy was the highlight, with strong laning and team fighting to carry TL Academy to a relatively easy victory. His Varus against TSM Academy was good in the first 20 minutes, but TL Academy didn’t play well enough to their win conditions and Yusui had a relatively poor showing with subpar map movement, which limited Tactical’s opportunities to contribute.

Inori, Jungle, Cloud9

Inori picks up his first appearance on Academy Standouts with a pair of proactive Jarvan IV showings that saw him set the table for his carries and put himself in the right place, at the right time, with the right crowd control.

Inori Stats, 2020 Spring Week 7
Numbers in parentheses are rank within own position.

  KDA KP DTH GXD10 DPM
W7 9.8 73.6% 22.2% +851 226
Total 3.8 64.7% 26.7% -50 263

The week wasn’t without rough patches for Inori, with some small micro mistakes, such as not blocking some CC to save lower-health teammates, or getting solo killed by Triple’s Leblanc during a FLY Academy Baron attempt, but the positives far outweighed the negatives.

Additional Standouts

The following players, in alphabetical order, also caught my eye.

Photos courtesy flickr.com/lolesports