I was fortunate enough to win the $5.55 for the 2nd time on Thursday. I won’t do a full lineup review here, but I won with an NRG stack. I was surprised just how low owned NRG was, as Andriod (my captain) was <5% total ownership and eeiu was 1%. With these small contests and only 6 lineups as the max, people really stuck to the favorites. Pricing didn’t help people move off the favorites either, as both TSM and 100T were way too cheap given the odds. With only a 2 game slate Friday I don’t expect anyone to be quite as sneaky as NRG was on Thursday, but the “underdogs” will likely come in underowned. Anyways, let’s take a look at the slate. Lock is again at 3:00 pm EST, and the games are:
TSM (53% implied win probability) vs Luminosity
NRG (52%) vs Faze
The Teams
I’m going to list each player, their KDA, and then today I’m adding fantasy points in the form of [Kills per round, Deaths per round, Assists per round, Fantasy points per round]. Fantasy points per round will include bomb plants/defuses as well as kill bonuses. This should give a much clearer picture of who the best plays are than just KDA. Bomb planting in particular has a significant impact on FP/r for a lot of these players.
I’ll also list the agent(s) each member plays most often. Generally speaking, if you see someone plays Jett that usually means they are the OPer (sniper), although because the OP is $5.0k to buy while the rifles are only $2.9k, a lot of the time even the OPers end up playing quite a few rounds on rifles every game, many more than in CS:GO. Typically speaking, players who play duelists (Jett, Reyna, Phoenix, Raze, Yoru) are the players expected to be the top fraggers by their team. I have switched how I’m getting my stats, so they’ll now only be for the past 60 days. A lot of these players have changed teams and roles fairly frequently, so showing only fairly recent stats makes more sense than showing long term stats in my opinion.
TSM
Subroza – $11.7k – [.81, .70, .27, 1.56] – Omen
drone – $9.8k – [.84, .63, .22, 1.73] – Phoenix, Raze
Wardell – $11.2k – [.95, .60, .19, 1.86] – Jett
hazed – $9.5k – [.75, .58, .21, 1.50] – Killjoy
reltuC – $9.0k – [.67, .53, .34, 1.60] – Sova, Skye
After some pretty egregious pricing on Thursday, TSM’s pricing looks a bit better for Friday. Wardell is at least up to where he belongs. Drone however, is very cheap. He had an off day on Thursday, so I don’t expect his ownership to be anything crazy, but he’s an excellent value play. Cutler (reltuC) is also a very strong value play and makes for a great 3rd in a stack since he gets a ton of his points from bomb planting, meaning he’s not eating in to the kills his teammates are getting all that much when he has a good game.
Luminosity Gaming
aproto – $8.9k – [.78, .71, .21, 1.33] – Cypher, Raze
stellar – $12.3k – [.68, .64, .30, 1.57] – Sage, Omen, Killjoy
thief – $10.4k – [.81, .76, .22, 1.41] – Reyna, Raze, Jett
moose – $9.7k – [.67, .63, .31, 1.33] – Sova
YaBoiDre – $10.9k – [.79, .73, .22, 1.30] – Omen, Raze
Luminosity pricing is probably the best on the slate as a whole. aproto and thief are on the cheap side, but I don’t think either are slam dunk must plays. I do think Luminosity as a team make for a great GPP stack, as TSM will likely have higher ownership despite just barely being favorites.
NRG
Daps – $9.9k – [.65, .60, .32, 1.27] – Killjoy, Cypher, Omen, Brimstone
s0m – $12.0k – [.83, .69, .23, 1.71] – Omen, Phoenix, Raze
eeiu – $8.3k – [.83, .62, .37, 1.75] – Sova, Breach, Skye
Shanks – $8.6k – [.80, .70, .21, 1.54] – Jett, Reyna, Yoru, Raze
ANDRIOD – $10.1k – [.91, .69, .22, 1.75] – Raze, Phoenix, Reyna
This is where the pricing goes off the rails. A day after both putting up big games, Android and eeiu have seen their prices fall off a cliff. Fanduel’s pricing algorithm must heavily weight ownership because that’s the only explanation. I expect both of those guys to have high ownership on Friday. Eeiu is an absolute free square, the only way I won’t have him in all my lineups is in a gamestack from the TSM/LG game. Android is also close to a free square given how low his price is. S0m could end up going slight overlooked with how cheap the other two are. I like all 3 for stacks.
FaZe Clan
babybay – $10.6k – [.86, .70, .25, 1.44] – Jett, Reyna
Corey – $9.6k – [.87, .67, .27, 1.58] – Reyna, Raze, Cypher
Marved – $9.2k – [.74, .72, .24, 1.33] Omen, Brimstone
Rawkus – $11.6k – [.62, .61, .36, 1.36] Sova, Skye
ZachaREEE – $8.4k – [.63, .62, .25, 1.25] Cypher, Killjoy
Not to be outdone, the pricing for Faze is also baffling. For some reason Rawkus saw a massive jump up to $11.6k, while babybay and Corey saw pretty big decreases. Babybay and Corey make for an interesting pivot off Android (I’m still playing Eeiu no matter what) if you think Faze win this game. Again, even though they are only the slightest of favorites, I expect NRG to have significantly more ownership here.
Strategy/Top Plays
I’m probably going to devote 1 lineup to each game for a gamestack. I’ve said I think in every 2 game slate article, if one game goes 3 maps and the other only 2, there’s a good chance a game stack will be optimal. So even though I only have 6 lineups this slate, I’m going to use 2 for those gamestacks.
In my remaining 4 lineups, I’m going to again try to build basically optimally. I’ll make sure I get at least one lineup each with Faze and Luminosity stacks (not necessarily both in the same, 1 lineup with a Faze stack and 1 with Luminosity), as I do think they are going to go overlooked. My favorite plays, roughly in order of how much I like them, are:
eeiu
Android
drone
corey
wardell
babybay
stellar
thief
s0m
Cutler
Those players will make up my core for the day.
Good luck!
