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.
Golden Guardians Academy and Counter Logic Gaming Academy split their season series 1-1, and GGA only picked up one more win against the rest of the field, finishing 10-8 to CLGA’s 9-9. That paints this as a very close on-paper matchup.
But gold metrics tell a more nuanced story, creating some separation between the teams: GGA actually led all Academy teams in GPR with +0.93, meaning they spent most of their time playing with a gold lead, while CLGA finished 7th in GPR at -0.29. GGA created those leads with the league’s best early game (67.8 EGR); they just failed to close out their leads as much as they should, ending with the 9th-ranked MLR (-12.3), which gives CLGA a window of opportunity, with their 4th-ranked MLR of +6.8.
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 players, then list some other strong performers below.
FakeGod, Top, 100 Thieves
Playing behind Ssumday isn’t easy, especially when we’re only a year removed from Ssumday’s little Academy side quest, where he dominated on a completely different level. But FakeGod has been doing his work in the background, chipping in consistently for 100 Academy, and in week 9 he broke out and showed not only why he has earned LCS reps in the past, but also why he has continued to hold his Academy spot despite having a strong prospect, Tenacity, playing with 100X and nipping at his heels.
There are always players whose value isn’t well recognized by the broader community, whether that’s because their history weighs against them, or their teammates outshine them, or their play style just isn’t as eye-catching. I have always had a soft spot for these players, championing players like Impact and LirA who have held their teams together without receiving nearly enough credit for their contributions.