Analysis and Opinion

Academy Standouts: 2021 Summer, Week 8

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.

Isles, Support, Cloud9 Academy

Photo of 103103578076943629.pngC9 Academy put together a much stronger set of games in week 8 than they had been recently, going 3-1 and benefiting greatly from Isles delivering on a diverse range of picks. He played Rell, Nautilus, Taric, and Karma, and performed equally well on all four.

Isles Stats

  KDA KP DTH% WPM WCPM
Week 8 6.9 67.1% 19.0% 1.61 0.38
Overall 5.3 66.0% 16.2% 1.44 0.33

Maybe C9A will be in good shape for playoffs and Proving Grounds after all. If Isles keeps playing like this, that will solve a huge portion of the problems they’ve been dealing with.

Yursan, Support, TSM Academy

He may not have pulled off a highlight play like the Nautilus hook from the week before, but Yursan was much more reliable and consistent in week 8, thanks in part to the chance had to play his signature Alistar in three of the four games.

Yursan will always pull the trigger when he sees an opening, so as long as his teammates are prepared for it, he can do big things and win his team a lot of games. He flipped a lot of a heads this time around!

Yursan Stats

  KDA KP DTH% WPM WCPM
Week 8 5.6 67.2% 15.9% 1.58 0.23
Overall 3.8 68.1% 18.7% 1.89 0.23

k1ng, Bot, Cloud9 Academy

Photo of 98767975937423972.pngTwo games of Ziggs and one game of Senna threw k1ng’s laning stats out of whack, so ignore those. Focus instead on his KDA and the low death count that produced it, along with his damage output. He played really well, actually having his weakest performance (relatively speaking) on a more standard Tristana pick.

k1ng and Isles were a fearsome duo this week. I especially liked how k1ng would roam out of the lane on Senna, acting like a true “support”, backing up Shernfire’s jungle pressure and providing map pressure.

k1ng Stats

  KDA KP GXD10 DPM CSPM
Week 8 12.8 62.2% -436 619 8.8
Overall  4.6 64.8% -394 559 8.9

Additional Standouts

The following players also stood out.

  • Hauntzer, Top, TSM Academy
    • We got two Renektons, a Gnar, and a Camille from Hauntzer this week. His best games came against TL Academy, with multiple solo kills and a lot of action in his lane.
  • jojopyun, Mid, Evil Geniuses Academy
    • jojopyun’s LeBlanc and Irelia were menacing against DIG Academy. He solo killed Soligo’s Galio and was mobile on the map. A quiet Lulu game in EGA’s only loss of the weekend was followed by another high-pressure game, this time on Lee Sin.
  • Kenvi, Jungle, 100 Thieves Academy
    • 100A split both series 1-1 and Kenvi was similarly inconsistent but he had a big 5/0/5 game on Olaf, led the charge on Xin Zhao against GG Academy, and had a good effort on Lee Sin in a loss, as well.
  • Mystiques, Support, Evil Geniuses Academy
    • Mystiques took over on Alistar, directly carrying the first game against DIG Academy in particular, picking up a bunch kills and really taking over. His Nautilus was good, too.
  • Palafox, Mid, FlyQuest Academy
    • FLY Academy went 4-0 and Palafox was the most consistent performer on a cross-section of champions: Ryze, Sylas, Lucian, Sett. He had only 7 deaths in 4 games, for a very strong 5.7 KDA. Josedeodo and Johnsun also did well, but Palafox gets the nod from me.
  • RoseThorn, Jungle, Golden Guardians Academy
    • RoseThorn had a strong Viego performance take a game off 100A and was also solid in games of Trundle and Gwen. It’s especially encouraging to see him carrying more, since his best play tends to come on ganking champions rather than the more selfish, damage-oriented picks.

Photos courtesy lolesports.com