Today in LCS Academy Summer All-Stars, let’s look at the Bot lane.
Criteria
A reminder of my criteria for being an All Star in the Academy league:
- Peak Performance
- Versatility
- Consistency
- Growth
Get a bit more detail on those criteria in the first post of the series.
Lost
7 Academy Standouts appearances in 9 weeks
No surprise here; after spending the Spring split in the shadow of fellow Oceanic import K1ng, Lost led the Bot lane conversation from start to finish. He had to work with two different Supports in Treatz and Biofrost, and played with a rookie Jungler in Winston after Spica was promoted to the LCS squad, but he was a rock for his team nonetheless.
Lost and Treatz were the strongest duo lane in the league, able to play 2v2 kill lanes or downplay Lost’s lane pressure to allow Treatz to roam. And when the mid game came around, Lost’s best quality came out: he positions excellently in team fights, never exposing himself for unnecessary deaths but somehow always being ready to either step up actively or clean up on teammate engages. He had the lowest death share among Bot laners in the regular season (12.7%, tied with Rikara) and in the playoffs (7.3%), but still finished 4th in Bot laner DPM in the regular season. His DPM dropped in playoffs, partly because of a couple of Senna games but also because more than half of his games came in the Finals loss to the league’s best team, C9 Academy.
There’s only one reason Lost might not get an LCS spot for 2021, and that’s his import status. If he was a domestic player, he would have been (back) in the LCS already. Even as an import, Lost has a reasonable chance of breaking through next year.
Asta
1 Academy Standouts appearance in 9 weeks
Asta managed to look pretty good on a somewhat dysfunctional team. That’s tough to do, especially from the Bot lane. He finished the regular season 3rd in KP among Bot laners, 3rd in GXD10, and 4th in CSPM, and matched Froggen’s damage output (459 DPM to Froggen’s 461). Those were decent numbers, but I picked Asta here more for the eye test than for his numbers. (Spoiler: I draw most of my player assessment from the eye test and use stats as a sanity check and context. Surprised?)
I’m still not sure how Dignitas Academy struggled so badly, with a pretty high level of skill across their roster. Akaadian, Froggen, and either V1per or Lourlo in the Top lane… That’s a pretty strong veteran foundation. But somehow it never really worked—the Top laners in particular struggled to hold up their side of the map—and Asta wound up playing pretty well in a lot of losing causes.
Other Bot Laners of Note
Deftly actually had a better overall performance than Asta across the Summer split, but I picked Asta over him because a) Deftly didn’t show the peaks or growth curve that I’m valuing in these selections, and b) Deftly had a stronger team around him.
Rikara was a lot like Asta, putting together some good showings despite being part of an ineffective team. Rikara had less quality from his Support (JayJ played much better alongside Asta than Rhino and Yama played alongside Rikara), and he was less consistent than Asta. I’d very much like to see what Rikara could do next year with an upgraded Support and Jungler.
Tomo had the misfortune of replacing K1ng and working with some of the best players in Academy in every other role. He played fine, and might be a lot better than I’m giving him credit for, but it was always going to be difficult for him to stand out this split.