Tag Archives: Blank

Check the Data

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.

Analysis and Opinion

Blank Check: SKT, IEM, and the Jungler Question

When the reigning World Champions are sitting in the bottom half of their league’s standings halfway through the Spring split, it’s bound to stir up a little conversation. When that team goes out and wins an international tournament using their backup Jungler… Well, that’s bound to really fuel some discussion.

SK Telecom T1 were thoroughly convincing at the IEM Katowice tournament, winning all seven games they played and forcing Fnatic to surrender in the deciding Game 3 of the Finals. The natural response is to wonder if they’ll be ready to translate that success into their domestic play. And in SKT’s unique circumstances, we have to wonder whether Blank showed at IEM that he can be a better solution for his team than the veteran Bengi as they play out the rest of this split.

Before we can draw any inferences about SKT’s level of play with Blank, and whether they should use him moving forward, we have to look at the context of the IEM tournament, the play of SKT’s opponents, and—of course—the stats.

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