Welcome to this week’s edition of fantasy winners and losers for the 2016 Summer Split.
Winners – Cloud9
Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen: Mid Laner for Cloud9 – 119.47 Points
Jensen is the first of four Cloud9 players to make it into the top ten of point scorers in week eight, and with a week like they had, playing Team EnVyUs and Phoenix1, you would expect nothing less. Jensen’s outstanding point this week was his two triple kills, as well as one quadra kill, which added seven points to his weekend score. Finishing 16-1-15 in the P1 series while averaging over 34 points per game is quite the accomplishment. A score of 119.47 is the second highest single player total this season, behind only the 129 point performance by Fnatic mid laner Fabian “Febiven” Diepstraten.
Zachary ‘Sneaky” Scuderi: AD Carry for Cloud9 – 105.90 Points
The second highest scoring player this week is the second Cloud9 player to make this list. While 105 is overshadowed by the 119 from Jensen, it is still quite the accomplishment as this 105 is one of only two totals to surpass 100 points this week. While he had no triple or quadra kills, a pentakill in the match against Phoenix1 threw on another ten points to his total this week, a boost that any Sneaky owner was happy too see. Only three deaths meant very little point loss, and 21 kills and 28 assists was the cherry on top of a 2-0 weekend that Cloud9 dominated.
Choi “Huhi” Jae-hyun: Mid Laner for Counter Logic Gaming – 94.63 Points
As a Huhi owner who has stuck through a summer split that has seen a more than ideal amount of below average showings from Huhi, these 94 points are a bitter sweet. 1,442 CS kills was the highest total among players in the top ten, and two triple kills meant Huhi was scoring quite a lot of points away from the traditional kills and assists, of which there was still plenty of. A 28-9-28 KDA with one game in the EchoFox match of over 10 combined kills and assists was a great way to finish a very nice week from the mid laner who finally performed at the level he was expected to for his owners.
Luka ‘Perkz” Perkovic: Mid Laner for G2 Esports – 94.64 Points 
Coming into this week. you sort of got the feeling at least one G2 player would go off, thanks to their two favorable matchups against Unicorns of Love and FC Schalke 04. There really was no stat line for Perkz that jumped out at you as his main point source, but rather just very consistent and high quality through the two matchups, averaging between 20 and 26 points per game throughout the two series that G2 swept. No multi kills or games with over ten combined kills and assists but rather a simple 23-4-25 KDA, and just over 1,100 CS kills that made this week a winners list worthy one for the Croatian mid laner.
Andy “Smoothie” Ta: Support for Cloud9 – 86.57 Points
Smoothie was just recently given the support role full time after sharing it with Michael “Bunny FuFuu” Kurylo, and he assured the Cloud9 staff and team that promoting him was the right choice with this fantastic showing, which he needed after a rough showing in week seven, a week that saw Cloud9 go 1-1 and saw Smoothie score just 35 points. Fifty-two assists was good enough for second overall in the league behind Team Liquid support Matthew “Matt” Elento. One kill and five deaths does not sound too good, but taking into account he is the support, I think the 52 assists more than made up for it. He was also tied for the most games with over ten combined kills and assists, once again sharing the award with Matt. All that meant a nice weekend for those who started the new full-time support.
Losers – Splyce’s opponents
Nickolas “Hakuho” Surgent: Support for Team EnVyUs – 12.20 Points
Team EnVyUs has been in a bit of a slump recently and need to figure things out going into the final week of play as they sit on the bubble line with Apex. They had a very tough week this week, once again playing Team SoloMid and Cloud9 in the same week for the second time this split. The team failed to win a map, or get really anything going in these matches, so you can imagine the support who really relies on the rest of the team in matches like this brought up the rear of the team. A 0-11-11 KDA added insult to injury and anchored down a week that was destined to be nowhere near glorious.
Lee “GBM” Chang-seok: Mid Laner for NRG Esports – 25.68
I have been holding on to GBM since the beginning of this split. I felt very confident about him, but his showings have been nothing but average, and most have been barely good enough to avoid this list. This week, however, was a different story, and really my final straw with GBM. A 2-0 loss to Immortals, and another 2-0 loss to Team Liquid, who granted have been playing pretty well, but it is still not what you hoped for. You would expect maybe at least one map win in that series but they could not get it. A 3-16-12 KDA is nothing short of a disastrous nightmare, and under 1,000 CS for a mid laner was like pouring salt into the open and still bleeding wound that was caused by his 16 deaths. This was not a good week at all, and not a week that any of his owners want him to repeat going into the final week of play.
Mateusz “Kikis” Szkudlarek: Top Laner for Fnatic – 32.03 Points
I really thought that this Fnatic team had found what they were looking for when making the move to put Kikis in the top lane, and after a decent first week with the team, I thought things would just go up from there. However, as this week proved, I had taken the bait laid by the fantasy gods who were not on my side. It hurts even more knowing I had Kikis on the start ‘em list in my week eight Start ‘em Sit ‘em. A 2-0 loss to Splyce came in a match that we knew was going to be interesting, Splyce has been playing very well and have been dominating the second half of the summer split in Europe, but I do no’t think anyone saw them as a team that could take down Fnatic, and they did, and they did it swimmingly in a 2-0. A 1-1 tie against a bottom of the order Origen team just capped off a week that made no sense for this Fnatic team.
Aleš “Freeze” Kněžínek: AD Carry for H2k-Gaming – 40.94 Points
This is the second straight week Freeze has made the losers list, and while this 40 point performance is much better than the 27 points in week seven, it was not quite what he needed. If you exclude the teams that had predictably difficult matches this week and looked at people that should have had a better week than they did, Freeze is at the top of that list. H2k has been that mid-field team that has had their moments of glory where they showed some strong potential. 31 points in a 2-0 sweep from Vitality is good, and after that, you probably just needed at least around 20 points in the series against Splyce, but like I mentioned earlier, Splyce is hot, and Freeze is far from that. Scoring just nine points through a 0-5-5 KDA was not what Freeze owners needed to make him worth starting this past week.
TeamSoloMid’s Record – 15-1
Team SoloMid had taken down every team in the league and were looking at a perfect season, especially considering they had one tough matchup in the final week against Immortals. However, the quest for 18-0 failed to even make it to the final week after being upset by none other than Phoenix1, probably the last team you would expect them to lose to. TSM needed just seven kills in game one to win, but things rapidly and surprisingly shifted into the favor of Phoenix1 in the next two games, and before people knew it, TSM had lost their first match of the season.
All images gracousily provided by Riot Games via their official Flickr Page.
You can follow and get in contact with the author Ryan Kish on his Twitter account.
