Academy Standouts highlights the players who performed best in the most recent week of NA Academy play. I’ll discuss a few of the most noteworthy players, then list some other strong performers below.
Kenvi, Jungle, 100 Thieves
Even though I have no photo for Kenvi, I’ve been waiting to talk about this guy for a while.
Just watch this first gank against FLY Academy.
And then keep watching for the next several minutes. You know what? Watch the whole game.
And keep watching in the coming weeks, too. Kenvi is a special player.
For what it’s worth, good macro sense on Trundle rounded out his strong week. (It wasn’t just Lee Sin snowballing that caught my attention.)
Kenvi Stats, 2020 Summer Week 8
| KDA | KP | GXD10 | DPM | WPM | |
| W8 | 6.0 | 64.9% | +1164 | 241 | 0.49 |
| Total | 6.0 | 58.3% | +766 | 332 | 0.39 |
Palafox, Mid, Cloud9
Many weeks, Palafox plays second fiddle to Fudge, and sort of competes against his other teammates to see who can scrape together some of the left over praise.
Not this week. Palafox crushed it. He was the first star of both games, on Zoe against TSM Academy and Twisted Fate against GG Academy. He activated around the map, made outplays, and just straight up carried.
I’ve typically seen Palafox as half a step behind the leading domestic Mids, but this split he has been working very hard to eliminate that gap, with better consistency than Insanity and similar carry potential to Yusui. The quality of help around him continues to add a little uncertainty, but I’m getting more and more comfortable putting those reservations aside.
Palafox Stats, 2020 Summer Week 8
| KDA | KP | GXD10 | DPM | CS%P15 | |
| W8 | 12.0 | 80.0% | +1718 | 547 | 22.2% |
| Total | 5.4 | 71.1% | +230 | 584 | 25.9% |
Rikara, Bot, Team Liquid
Rikara is turning into a sleeper pick for one of the better Bot laners in Academy, turning up strong individual performances despite his team’s overall struggles with draft and coordinated team play. He carried on Kai’sa in a win over DIG Academy, and looked good on Ezreal in a loss to CLG Academy. His pairing with Rhino isn’t working out the best so far, contributing to poor laning metrics, but that doesn’t tell the whole story: Rikara has been doing his job in rotational play and team fights, putting out good damage and maintaining a low death count.
(As a semi-regular reminder, I don’t necessarily pick the three strongest players to highlight with write-ups, and in this case I’d say AnDa and maybe one or two others outperformed Rikara last week, but I wanted to discuss Rikara because of his pattern of improvement.)
Rikara Stats, 2020 Summer Week 8
| KDA | KP | GXD10 | DPM | CS%P15 | |
| W8 | 6.7 | 66.7% | -241 | 582 | 29.2% |
| Total | 3.2 | 63.6% | -251 | 418 | 30.7% |
Additional Standouts
The following players also stood out.
- Akaadian, Jungle, Dignitas
- AnDa, Jungle, Evil Geniuses
- Dhokla, Top, TSM
- Evolved, Mid, TSM
- Fudge, Top, Cloud9
- Potluck, Jungle, Immortals
- Yusui, Mid, Team Liquid
- ZionSpartan, Top, Golden Guardians
Photos courtesy flickr.com/lolesports and watch.lolesports.com