Analysis and Opinion

Academy Standouts: 2021 Summer, Week 13

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.

Last week brought us the first round of Proving Grounds, with each team playing their first best-of-3 match of the tournament and either advancing to the second round of the upper bracket or dropping to the lower bracket where they will face elimination in their next match.

jojopyun, Mid, Evil Geniuses Academy

The best NA prospect competing in Proving Grounds (Kenvi is off bootcamping with the 100 Thieves main team) was in fine form against Golden Guardians Academy. He posted a 13/1/8 scoreline on Sylas in game 2, to go with 4/2/4 and 4/2/9 games on LeBlanc in games 1 and 3.

jojo’s combination of fearlessness and mechanics were on display, and he did well in creating lane priority and using it to help out Tomio and apply pressure on the map.

jojopyun Stats

  KDA KP GXD10 DPM CSPM
Proving Grounds 8.4 85.7% +63 636 7.8

There was some downside to jojopyun’s performance if you look at his shotcalling and the macro issues EGA had, particularly in game 1 when they misapplied their team composition and got drawn into too much 5v5 play. But I tend to evaluate players more, at this level, on their individual performance and execution rather than their macro calls, because it’s impossible for me know from the outside how those calls actually played out.

Soligo, Mid, Dignitas Academy

Photo of 101383793878119688.pngI wish I knew why Soligo has been playing in Academy for most of the summer.

It’s not because he needed to come down here to learn anything or improve as a player, that’s for sure. He’s too good for Academy. Just head to his profile, load up some VODs, and see for yourself.

I sure hope he’ll be back in LCS next year!

Soligo Stats

  KDA KP GXD10 DPM CSPM
Proving Grounds 7.0 61.8% -70 480 8.5

Triple, Mid, FlyQuest Academy

Photo of 99566406294321364.pngIt’s a mid lane sweep this week, with Triple rounding out the main standouts after carrying FLY Academy past Zoos Gaming with two good games on Ryze and a big-time 11/4/5 game on Azir to end the series.

Zoos put FLYA to the test, but Triple was the main reason his team was able to survive and stay in the upper bracket.

Triple Stats

  KDA KP GXD10 DPM CSPM
Proving Grounds 4.4 72.1% +213 618 10.8

Additional Standouts

The following players also stood out.

Photos courtesy lolesports.com