Hi! I got into TL because of FPL, partly thanks to The_Templar's recaps in round 1. Those have been a little rarer recently (Templar is a busy man), so I figured that since I was thinking about FPL a lot, I might as well try to write about it. I ripped off the format from Templar, as you can see, with his quasi-permission. This is obviously not official TL material, just a fan's perspective.
I must admit I didn’t see many of the games this week due to an impending move. However, FPL points were still won (and lost) by many and dammit, there’s recapping to be done.
Player of the week: INnoVation
10 points. This keeps happening. Inno hadn’t played since week 2. When he beat Losira, he got his three-game streak; when he beat GuMiho in the ace, he ended the Towel Terran’s streak. A lot of people traded for Inno this week in anticipation of his robotic success and were very, VERY well rewarded. Too bad he's at MSI next week!
Runner-up: soO
Points-wise, Zest should go here. Funny thing, though, when an $8-player doesn’t lose any games, not a lot of people buy him or can trade for him—only 34 people have him on main. So although Zest got 7 points this week, soO’s run-of-the-mill victory over DeParture gave 4 points to over 400 people. And of course, he was also the only other SKT player to take a win over MVP.
Anti-player of the week: Reality
Man, you can’t anti Samsung Terrans this round, can you? Journey, BrAvO, and Reality have all been taking enough games to make them dangerous. This week, you may have breathed a sigh of relief to see Reality missing from the lineup…only to be punished with an uncharacteristic but successful bio play on Iron Fortress vs. Curious in the ace. -5 points for you!
Runner-up: Cure
In a twist of fate, the heavily underperforming Cure was the only Jin Air player to secure a win this week over the even-more-slumping Stats. Over 100 people got -3 points for this one. Not devastating, but not helpful at this late stage in FPL.
Trade bait for week 3: none
Wow, rough lineups this week. Some of the cheaper players—Symbol, Bunny, Impact, Armani and Hurricane—face tough matchups this week. jjakji vs. KeeN is even chances. Leenock is expensive. Maybe pick up Bomber? But if Sbenu does 3-0 Prime then it’s barely worth the trade tax. Probably the best thing to do if you need to make a big play for the last FPL week is pick someone who might make (Blaze, Leenock) or break (Armani, Symbol) a winning streak and hope for the best. Good luck out there!
Team of the week: zombieelephants
With three trades, zombieelphants ensured success this week: he or she bet heavily on Inno beating Losira (trading for Inno, removing Losira) and wisely took Cure off anti. Indeed, wise trades seem to have characterized zombieelephants’ round, with +39 in trades, funded partly by investments in DeParture and Sorry to begin with. This team needs some magic to happen in order to win FPL this round, but #17 is pretty damn respectable.
Worst team of the week: Hadronsbecrazy
This team is like watching a rapid descent into madness. Hadronsbecrazy picked a Jin Air-heavy main team, with Maru at the helm (in the cockpit?) When Jin Air experienced rough turbulence in the first couple weeks, Hadrons stayed calm and shuffled the lineup—in particular, removing the dangerous SKT Sorry from his anti lineup, replacing him with the notoriously flopping Solar. BAM! Solar gets 10 points, and you can almost hear Hadronsbecrazy saying “you know what? Fuck it,” acquiring Zest and herO on anti and the Chinese no-shows MacSed and XY on main. Well, it "worked." Congrats?
Like I said, I was pressed for time this week, so no best possible teams. They’ll be back next week with some bonus end-of-round categories as well.