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I had very high hopes for Evil Geniuses coming into the summer split, after they outperformed most analysts’ expectations in Spring. I even power-ranked them second, because I believed they could hold onto their form and improve enough to survive the pushes I expected from TSM and Team Liquid. Meanwhile, I thought FlyQuest had overachieved in the Spring playoffs by reaching the Finals, and that their true form was closer to the middle of the pack.
I was wrong about EG, and while I’m not convinced I’m wrong about FlyQuest yet, I think this series is going to make FlyQuest look like a Finals contender again.
Evil Geniuses Key Player and Path to Victory
Bang will be key to the Evil Geniuses’ chances because of the importance of team fighting in this series, and his potential to carry those fights if EG can put all their pieces together in the right way. Bang has led EG in damage share with over 30%, despite receiving less of his team’s farm than many other Bot laners.
A problem for EG is that Bang’s kill participation is the lowest of any starting LCS Bot laner, at 60.8%. In fact, Bang’s KP is the lowest on his entire team! Bang is a big resource and EG haven’t been using him as much as they should, instead playing much more around their solo laners.
Over the first 5 weeks of the season, Bang’s KP was even lower than his end-of-season number, at 58.3%. Jiizuke led the team with 67.6%, and Kumo had the best laning stats on the team, partly because of Svenskeren’s relentless investment into top (and mid) ganks. But Bang was still by far the biggest damage source, often laying the table for Jiizuke and Kumo to pick up kills.
That iteration of the EG roster went 5-5, performing below expectations, and EG were concerned enough that they changed their lineup for the last 4 weeks, putting in Huni and Goldenglue instead of Kumo and Jiizuke. A win over Cloud9 in the new roster’s first game suggested that they had made the right choice, but the Huni/Goldenglue iteration ended 3-5 by the time the regular season had closed, failing to inspire confidence that the team had improved itself.
Looking at advanced metrics, things look even worse for EG since the roster change. With Kumo and Jiizuke, EG posted a +0.18 GPR and +4.5% GSPD. In other words, they had small gold leads, on average, and ended their games with a moderate gold spent advantage. But with Huni and Goldenglue, EG have posted -0.69 EGR and -3.7% GSPD. They played from a modest gold deficit, on average, and their end-of-game gold spent numbers flipped from a small positive to a similarly sized negative.
With Huni and Goldenglue playing, EG weighted themselves even more towards the top side of the map. Huni put up 70.5% KP over the last four weeks, second to Zeyzal’s 73.1%, with Bang’s number trending up to 64.1% but still sitting last on the team. For what it’s worth, Bang’s laning numbers improved over that period, to +41 GXD10, and he still put out the most damage on the team.
With all of the focus on playing through Huni, it might seem that Huni will be EG’s key player, but I’m looking to Bang because I expect FlyQuest to focus on shutting down EG’s solo lanes, which might create some opportunity for Bang to express himself more. EG aren’t going to beat FlyQuest by winning lanes and snowballing; I think they need to handshake the early game and beat FLY 5v5. That will work best if EG find a way to play through the bottom half of the map, scaling up their ADC and winning dragon fights.
For Bang’s part, he needs to lean into that role and find a bit more aggression, being ready to move forward into a play when Huni, Zeyzal, and Svenskeren pull the trigger for him. If he can do that, it will be EG’s best chance of taking this series and beginning to redeem their underwhelming Summer.
FlyQuest Key Player and Path to Victory  
FlyQuest have multiple points of superiority over Evil Geniuses right now, and it starts in the jungle.
When FlyQuest beat Evil Geniuses in week 4, Santorin thoroughly outjungled Svenskeren, playing Volibear into Svenskeren’s Olaf. In week 8, Svenskeren was on Volibear while Santorin took Trundle, and despite an early kill and assist for Svenskeren from a skirmish near mid lane, Santorin still went on to farm better and contribute more in the mid game, especially with his contribution of a Baron steal in the moment that EG seemed to be turning things around.
Jungling advantages like these have been a big contributor to FlyQuest’s strong 63.4 EGR in their last 8 games, which has led to a 7-1 record over the final 4 weeks of the regular season. With EG struggling in the first 15 minutes, at just 44.7 EGR in their last 8 games, FlyQuest look to have clear early-game superiority.
The early game doesn’t tell the entire story of a game—just look at the Golden Guardians for evidence of that—but FlyQuest have also been better at team fighting, with PowerOfEvil and IgNar especially showing up big in that domain. Champions like Orianna and Corki give PowerOfEvil easy tools to farm out the mid game and carry 5v5s, and IgNar is one of the best playmakers in the league. With Solo also playing very well, and WildTurtle contributing from the back line, FLY have led the LCS over the last four weeks with a 1.96 K:D ratio, while EG sit 8th at 0.67.
With the second-best Baron control and Elder control across the full regular season, driving a +15.1 MLR, FlyQuest can be very confident in not only their early-game, but also their late-game play. That makes the path to victory look pretty straightforward, as long as FlyQuest don’t come in overconfident or put themselves in any bad positions with overly cute drafts or attempts at scoring style points.
Win Conditions
Evil Geniuses
- Win dragon fights
- Draft scaling
FlyQuest
- Attack the jungle head-to-head
- Don’t be cute
Prediction
FLY 3-0