Oracle's Elixir

Academy Standouts: 2021 Spring Week 2

Tim Sevenhuysen

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.

Copy, Mid, Cloud9

Copy is a 100 Thieves Next graduate, like Kenvi, though he wasn’t retained by 100 Thieves the way Kenvi and Tenacity were, and instead found himself signing with Cloud9 as the core North American prospect of their rebuilt Academy team. He’s a team-oriented Mid laner with good map awareness and game sense.

Copy Stats, 2021 Spring Week 2

  KDA KP GXD10 DPM CSPM
W2 23.0 85.2% +860 542 8.3
Total 9.0 75.0% +128 503 8.0

In week 2, he played Yone against 100 Thieves Academy and Syndra against Dignitas Academy. His Yone was the driving force of the game, leading the game with clutch engages and assassinations. Against DIGA, he was handed a lead to work with by poor laning from Yusui and a good gank from Shernfire to capitalize, but he ran with that lead very effectively.

Kenvi, Jungle, 100 Thieves

Kenvi’s numbers weren’t the most impressive this week, coming from a loss to Cloud9 Academy where he played Udyr and a win over TSM Academy where he played Graves. He led a lot of early pressure on his Udyr, but ultimately his team couldn’t handle Copy’s Yone. On Graves, he carried well with a lot of big aoe damage unloads.

Kenvi Stats, 2021 Spring Week 2

  KDA KP GXD10 DPM CSPM
W2 4.2 91.3% -555 296 7.3
Total 5.7 85.1% -682 363 7.1

Eyla, Support, Team Liquid

Eyla earns a second shout-out in two weeks after performances on Alistar and Galio that saw him and Yeon playing their 2v2s aggressively, particularly in their game against Evil Geniuses Academy. TLA are running hot to start the split, very much hotter than I expected, and Eyla’s play has been a big reason why (along with better-than-expected play from Haeri in the Mid lane).

Eyla Stats, 2021 Spring Week 2

  KDA KP DTH% WPM WCPM
W2 21.0 75.0% 9.1% 1.11 0.27
Total 8.2 65.1% 13.9% 1.10 0.33

Eyla’s warding numbers are surprisingly low, and his kill participation hasn’t been too high on the season overall, which speaks to the way his team is playing. It’s worth keeping an eye on his map play and vision game going forward to see whether there are opportunities for him to lead the team into a cleaner, more controlled approach.

Additional Standouts

The following players also stood out.

Photos courtesy flickr.com/lolesports and watch.lolesports.com