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.
Recently, I picked the brains of some NA LCS coaches about drafting strategy, the new Rift Herald, and more. Each coach had their own set of insights, and rather than condense them and lose the unique elements, I’ve decided to share the raw audio of all three interviews below in full. Enjoy!
Core Questions
Drafting for comfort vs counterpicks.
The importance of flex picks to the draft.
How has Rift Herald affected the viability of playing around top lane?
What are the best ways to use the Rift Herald buff?
The Flash Wolves were widely expected to be the second-best team at MSI 2017, but barely reached the knockout stage. A predictable play style, built around controlling the bot lane tower, led to their struggles, but smart adaptations helped them find their edge back. Can they adapt fast enough to beat SKT in a best-of-five?
Ever since Riot introduced the concept of randomly-spawning elemental drakes, there has been consistent debate around the relative value of each dragon type. Consensus dictates that infernal and mountain drakes are the most valuable, with cloud and ocean as also-rans.
Currently, the trend of opinion among many experts–somewhat unexpectedly–is that mountain drake is the most useful dragon, above even the ever-popular infernal.
