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Lane Swaps Survey

With Riot announcing upcoming game changes aimed at making lane swapping “a strategic choice with actual tradeoffs,” the League of Legends esports community has featured plenty of discussion around how the pro game will be affected, and what place lane swaps hold in both the viewer experience and the competitive balance of League of Legends.

Oracle’s Elixir is asking for your input through a brief survey designed to explore LoL esports viewers’ and participants’ opinions and preferences related to lane swaps.

For this survey, a “lane swap” is defined as a game that begins with both teams sending their players to opposite sides of the map to trade towers, as opposed to “standard lanes” with direct 2v2 match-ups between AD Carry + Support pairings.

Take the Survey

Notes on Methods and Interpretation

The sample for this survey will not be controlled: anyone will be able to complete the survey, or share the link with others. This means that the results may not reflect the overall community. Results will be only informational, and should be used to inform discussion, not drawn upon as factual measurements of the overall LoL esports viewership.

The survey will remain open for approximately one week, or until no more, or few more, responses are being received. Results will be shared on OraclesElixir.com for the interest of the LoL esports community.

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MSI Early-Game Warding

Supports and junglers are the players tasked with contributing most to the vision game. In the first 15 minutes of games, some players at the 2016 Mid-Season Invitational have taken up that role with more gusto than others.

The tables below count the average number of wards placed by the supports and junglers at MSI in the first 15 minutes of group stage games.

MSI Wards Placed by 15 Mins

Royal Never Give Up’s star, Mata, stands head and shoulders above the crowd, placing the most pre-15-minute wards of any player.

Surprisingly, a jungler took second spot: SK Telecom T1’s Blank has earned quick access to his Tracker’s Knife, it seems, lighting up the map with an average of 6.6 green wards in the first 15 minutes and buying plenty of pink wards to go with them.

Counter Logic Gaming’s Aphromoo and the Flash Wolves’ Karsa have both fallen off the pace for their positions. Aphromoo, on average, has placed only 73% as many wards as Mata in the first 15 minutes. Karsa’s early-game ward output has been just 67% of Blank’s.

For more player vision stats, check out the MSI 2016 Player Stats page, where you can see average wards per minute (WPM) and average wards cleared per minute (WCPM) for all players.

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LCK Spring 2016 – Alternative Team Rankings

The LCK Spring split regular season has wrapped up, and the gauntlet-style playoffs will be kicking off soon. Did the “right” five teams qualify? Here are a couple of alternative ways to rank the teams based on their game results.

LCK Ranks

Pure win percentage leaves almost all of the teams in the same order, because it’s used as the first tiebreaker in standings. CJ Entus did benefit one spot in the official standings by winning seven of their ten Game 3s, which made them look slightly better than they may deserve.

By Gold Spent Percentage Difference, the standings are shaken up pretty significantly. Suddenly KT Rolster and the Jin Air Green Wings don’t look so good, while the Afreeca Freecs seem like legitimate contenders and Longzhu Gaming are bumped all the way up into a playoff spot.

GSPD rewards teams who win decisively and lose by narrow margins, and that definitely fits the profile of the Freecs, who are one the LCK’s better early-game teams but sometimes struggle to close things out in the mid/late-game. In Longzhu’s case, their GSPD is higher than their place in the standings in part because of their struggles in Game 3s, where they had just a 2-5 record.

The table below has the actual numbers for each of these metrics.

LCK Results

Based on these numbers, it could be argued that Longzhu deserved a playoff spot over the Jin Air Green Wings, but in the end the wins are what matter.

For complete LCK team statistics from the Spring regular season, hit the Team Stats page.