Academy Standouts: 2021 Summer, Week 7

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 standouts, then list some other players whose performances caught my eye below.

Palafox, Mid, FlyQuest Academy

While the former FLY Academy roster has been up in the LCS taking names, Palafox has been back down in Academy showing how he earned his way into the LCS in the first place.

Sylas, Irelia, Yone, and Akali were his tools of choice this week. He was assertive, applying a lot of pressure on his lane opponents, picking up solo kills and threatening a few more. He created leads in lane and carried some big team fights, too.

Palafox Stats

	KDA	KP	GXD10	DPM	CSPM
Week 7	4.2	70.8%	+397	566	7.7
Overall	4.8	65.5%	+461	612	7.8

There were some issues with Palafox’s timing on entering the last couple of team fights in FLYA’s game 2 loss against TSM Academy, but on the balance, Palafox did very well.

Pretty, Mid, Immortals Academy

The Greek/Australian mid laner had three strong performances on Renekton, Irelia, and Leblanc, before capping off the week with a disappointing loss to Team Liquid. For transparency, I haven’t been able to watch that final game due to broadcast issues, but in the games I did see, Pretty was very impressive, enough to earn a shoutout for the week.

Often a player’s stats don’t tell an accurate story of their week, but this time, for Pretty, they do.

Pretty Stats

	KDA	KP	GXD10	DPM	CSPM
Week 7	7.8	70.1%	+533	525	9.7
Overall	3.8	64.5%	+9	527	8.3

Eyla, Support, Team Liquid Academy

Eyla brought out Bard in the final game of the week, against Immortals Academy, and my knowledge of what happened in that game is second-hand, but the one thing I’ve specifically been told is that his Bard was a menace.

In the two wins over C9 Academy, Eyla stood out on Thresh and Leona, so combining those games with a report of a strong Bard showing is more than enough to earn him a top 3 Standouts placement.

Eyla Stats

	KDA	KP	DTH%	WPM	WCPM
Week 7	4.7	73.4%	20.8%	1.59	0.47
Overall	4.2	67.6%	19.0%	1.43	0.43

Additional Standouts

The following players also stood out.

• AnDa, Jungle, Immortals Academy
  • AnDa is often the unremarkable anchor of his teams, but don’t overlook his contributions. He’s a glue guy, similar to Santorin, which is why he works so well with high-skill laners like V1per.
• Contractz, Jungle, Evil Geniuses Academy
  • Contractz started the week with a 0/8/2 Diana game but bounced back with 8/3/8 on Viego, 7/4/11 on Lee Sin, and 3/2/12 on Xin Zhao. His aggressive tendencies are a great fit for EGA, except when they aren’t. ;)
• jojopyun, Mid, Evil Geniuses Academy
  • Contractz’s partner in high-aggression crime, jojopyun had another of his high-ceiling, low-floor weeks. His 10/2/9 pop-off on Sylas against GG Academy was a big highlight, especially in contrast with a rough Sett game earlier where he was victimized a bit by Kenvi and ry0ma. Both EGA and their opponents centre their games around jojopyun’s lane, for better or for worse.
• Tenacity, Top, 100 Thieves Academy
  • This madman picked Mordekaiser on patch 11.14 and went 5/5/16 with it. Fun times. It was another week of solidity, stability, and reliability, outside of a meh Jayce in the third game. Tenacity has moulded himself into the kind of top laner you can seamlessly slot into a lot of different teams.
• V1per, Top, Immortals Academy
  • He played Vayne again but it was his only poor game of the week. The more notable games were a pair of Gwens against CLG Academy and an Irelia carry against TLA.
• Will, Jungle, Dignitas Academy
  • I was relatively impressed with Will’s arrival on the scene a couple of weeks ago, compared to the expectations I had based on his youth and inexperience, but this week I wasn’t relatively impressed: I was just straight up impressed. I know DIG Academy went 1-3, but Will was a standout in their win, and he handled himself admirably in the losses. More and more, Will is proving himself a player to watch not only for the future, but for right now.

Photos courtesy lolesports.com