All posts by Tim Sevenhuysen

Tim Sevenhuysen is the founder and sole developer of Oracle's Elixir and provides a variety of consulting and contracting services throughout the esports industry. He is the former Director of Esports Analytics for 100 Thieves, served as Head of Data Science for Esports One, led Shadow.gg from 2017 to 2019, and was Statistical Consultant for Fnatic in 2015. Follow Tim on Twitter at @TimSevenhuysen.
Analysis and Opinion

TSM vs. Golden Guardians (rematch), LCS Summer Lower Bracket Preview

Patreon subscribers had access to this post early.

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
– Ecclesiastes 1:9

If TSM want to produce a different result in their second best-of-five against the Golden Guardians, they are going to need to find something new under the sun. Could that be a substitution at Support? A change of draft priorities and in-game strategy? A mental reset?

For this preview, I’m not going to outline win conditions and key players for each team; I’m going to focus strictly on TSM’s opportunity to alter the outcome. Continue reading TSM vs. Golden Guardians (rematch), LCS Summer Lower Bracket Preview →

Analysis and Opinion

Cloud9 vs. Evil Geniuses, LCS Summer Lower Bracket Preview

Patreon subscribers had access to this post early.

I definitely didn’t expect to be writing a Cloud9 vs. Evil Geniuses preview today. I’m still a little in shock at not only the fact that Cloud9 lost to FlyQuest, but the way the lost.

Hopefully C9 recover from that shock more quickly than I do, because they have a series to prep for, and they’d better not take it lightly if they want to maintain a shot at reaching Worlds.

Win Conditions

Cloud9

  • Take some deep breaths
  • Play the early game

I can’t imagine how tilted the entire Cloud9 roster and staff are feeling after yesterday. They need to breathe some fresh air and pull out the early game-oriented strategies that they’ve hopefully put at least some practice into during the past couple of weeks, because that’s where they’ve found their success all year.

Evil Geniuses

  • Attack Blaber
  • Draft reactive scaling picks (e.g. Shen and Gangplank)

FlyQuest just lobbed an alley-oop pass to Evil Geniuses, so EG need to jump up and slam it home with momentum.

Prediction

Continue reading Cloud9 vs. Evil Geniuses, LCS Summer Lower Bracket Preview →

Analysis and Opinion

Team Liquid vs. Golden Guardians, LCS Summer Semifinals Preview

Patreon subscribers had access to this post early.

The Golden Guardians pulled off the only upset of the first week of LCS Summer Playoffs, dismantling TSM 3-0 on the back of star performances by FBI and huhi. It was a coming-of-age of sorts for that bot lane, who spent the entire season playing the same way and delivering similar results but not really getting credit for it until they did it to Doublelift three games in a row.

The bad news for GG is that they’re coming up against Team Liquid in the next round, a team that not only finished the regular season with the LCS’s best record, but also employs a play style and skill profile that almost perfectly counters the way GG won in the first round.

Win Conditions

Team Liquid

  • Control early dragons
  • Be patient and play reactively

Golden Guardians

  • Get Damonte out of his lane
  • Surprise TL with something they haven’t seen before

Prediction

TL 3-1 Continue reading Team Liquid vs. Golden Guardians, LCS Summer Semifinals Preview →