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.
I had very high hopes for Evil Geniuses coming into the summer split, after they outperformed most analysts’ expectations in Spring. I even power-ranked them second, because I believed they could hold onto their form and improve enough to survive the pushes I expected from TSM and Team Liquid. Meanwhile, I thought FlyQuest had overachieved in the Spring playoffs by reaching the Finals, and that their true form was closer to the middle of the pack.
I was wrong about EG, and while I’m not convinced I’m wrong about FlyQuest yet, I think this series is going to make FlyQuest look like a Finals contender again.
On paper, 100 Academy are the higher-seeded team for this match, finishing with an 11-7 record compared to EG Academy’s 9-9. Advanced gold metrics actually rate EGA higher, though, with +0.46 GPR and +2.8% GSPD to 100A’s +0.17 GPR and +1.3% GSPD.
But 100A’s addition of Kenvi for the final three weeks makes things a bit more complicated. In those six games, 100A put up +0.38 GPR and +6.8% GSPD, a very small improvement despite the team putting together a 5-1 record to close the season.
There is no clear favourite for this series; it’s going to come down to preparation and mental strength.
With TSM’s 2-0 advantage in the season series and plenty of recent momentum, including a win over Cloud9 in week 8, Bjergsen et al. should be confident coming into this Quarterfinal. But the Golden Guardians have been consistently slept on all year and have routinely performed above expectations, earning their own win over Cloud9 earlier in the same week and ending the season with the second-best EGR and GPR in the LCS.
If the Golden Guardians can make the series all about the early game, they have a great shot to advance. But if TSM can weather the storm and find ways to scale, their superior mid/late play should see them move on.
