Analysis and Opinion

TSM at IEM: Looking Back; Looking Forward

One year ago, Team SoloMid lifted the IEM Katowice trophy, conquering Team WE in the Finals to claim their first international crown since 2012, in the days of the limited-field IGN ProLeague. They were on top of the world, if only for a little while. This year they’re pursuing a repeat, but aside from their team name, their Danish Mid laner, and the underdog mentality they’ll be nursing, the circumstances are very different.

Going into the 2015 IEM World Championship, TSM had an 11-3 domestic record, good for 1st place. They had just wrapped up an easy 2-0 week against Winterfox and Team 8, two lower-tier teams who would go on to finish 8th and 7th, respectively, while TSM would take the regular season title. Things were going fairly well for TSM, and they were carrying some momentum as they prepared for the tournament.

This year, TSM is arriving in Katowice with an 8-6 domestic record, three wins shy of their 2015 pace. They’re treading water in the standings, sitting just 4th in North America, and battling with the demons of their own inconsistency: with a 1-3 record in the last four games, and a crushing defeat at the hands of Team Liquid on Sunday lingering in their minds, TSM is certainly not carrying positive momentum into Poland.

This isn’t the stiffest field IEM could have assembled—teams like the ROX Tigers, Immortals, and G2 Esports have been left at home because of IEM’s qualifiers + invites approach—but it isn’t exactly a soft field, either. TSM’s path through Group A features ESC Ever, Royal Never Give Up, and Origen, with SK Telecom T1, CLG, the Qiao Gu Reapers, and Fnatic vying to emerge from Group B. TSM are certainly not among the favorites—Unikrn has given them 15:1 odds, third-worst for the event—but every attending team features its own set of question marks.

Can Team SoloMid repeat their 2015 accomplishment and claim back-to-back IEM World Championship titles? It won’t be easy.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

TSM had an offseason to remember, constructing one of the stronger super teams North America has seen—on paper. The reality has been nowhere close to the hype, with the star-studded roster stumbling and clearly failing to find synergy. They aren’t in danger of falling out of the playoff picture, but TSM has actually looked worse than their 8-6 win/loss record might suggest. According to gold spent percentage difference (GSPD), TSM’s +0.6% has them ranked a spot worse, at 5th. Compare that to the league-leading +12.6% GSPD they were enjoying at this time last year.

There have been some positives, of course…

Read at Unikrn →

Check the Data

STAT CARD: Forg1ven

With the news that Forg1ven has been called away from the LCS to serve with the Greek army, here’s the kind of performer H2K may have to do without.

Forg1ven stat card

All numbers reflect the first six weeks of EU LCS 2016 Spring split regular season.

Forg1ven has been exceptional this year, unrivaled during the laning phase and outputting immense damage while working with a smaller gold share than might be expected.

The Greek AD Carry has played five different champions this split, including five games with Corki and three games each with Lucian and Caitlyn.

If Forg1ven is unable to return this year, it will be a heavy blow for H2K, whose team strategy aligns so well with Forg1ven’s play style.

Legend:
DPM: Average damage to champions per minute.
DMG%: Average share of team’s damage to champions.
EGPM: Average earned gold per minute.
GOLD%: Average share of team’s earned gold.
CSD@10: Average creep score (minion+monster kills) difference at 10 minutes.
CS per Minute: Average creep score (minion+monster kills) per minute.

Image courtesy of lolesports.

Check the Data

LCK 2016 Spring Mid-split GSPD Standings

Gold spent percentage difference (GSPD) is a measurement of the average gap in gold spent between the teams at the end of the game. In other words, GSPD measures whether a game was really close, or a big stomp. This gives us a more nuanced picture of how well teams are performing than simple win rate. To learn more about GSPD, read the theory article.

Here are the GSPD standings for the LCK, following week 7 of the 2016 Spring split.

LCK Mid-split GSPD

More LCK Spring 2016 team stats

Takeaways

Longzhu Gaming stand out for their relatively strong GSPD but just a 5W-4L series record that has them tied for fifth in the overall standings. Longzhu have won just one of the four Game 3s they’ve played in; one or two more Game 3 victories could have put them in second place instead of fifth. Pairing their GSPD with the LCK’s second-best early-game rating (58.4) suggests that Longzhu may be due to climb the standings soon.

GSPD suggests that KT Rolster and the Jin Air Green Wings are overachieving in the standings, and may be due to come back down to earth in the second half of the Spring split. There’s more to the story, though, because these two teams rely heavily on Dragon buffs in their strategies. Dragon buffs aren’t factored into GSPD because they give power that isn’t tied to gold, so while a game may end with very close gold values, it’s possible that one team had a meaningful advantage from four or five stacks of Dragon buffs.

The Green Wings have the LCK’s highest First Dragon rate at 67%, and have secured 59% of the Dragons taken in their games, second only to the ROX Tigers. KT Rolster have the third-best Dragon Control rate at 57%. The Green Wings have secured the fourth Dragon buff nine times and the fifth Dragon buff three times, and KT Rolster has earned the fourth Dragon seven times and fifth Dragon twice. Both teams have some of the longer game lengths in the LCK as well, the Green Wings in particular, because of playing around Dragon stacking.

The sky isn’t falling for the Jin Air Green Wings or for KT Rolster, but it’s interesting to see how they’ve taken different paths to victory than some of the teams that are ahead of them in the GSPD standings. With Dragon buffs being improved in recent changes, we may see the Dragon-stacking strategy become that much more popular and effective.

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