As Hot_Bid mentioned in his latest update in the daily rankings thread, the top 10 for Fantasy Proleague is as close as it has ever been. It seems like everyone is within striking distance, and yet every team only has one match left to play. There is a lot of potential for the matches in the forthcoming week to just demolish the current order of the rankings. What will come out when the dust settles, I have no idea. But it's worth looking at!
Relevant threads:
[Fantasy] PL Daily Rankings R3
[WL]Week 7 Lineups
My thoughts:
Let me start this out with some of my thoughts on the biggest matches / players of the week. You'll see me mention "unqiue" member/players a couple times. This is in reference to the unique players list in Hot_Bid's latest Fantasy proleague update, and is only relevant to the top 10/11. In fact, most of my speculation is fairly limited to the top 10/11 as their teams are more readily accessible to view and compare on the daily rankings.
My picks for top two matches of the week:
#2) Woongjin Stars vs. STX Soul (starting GGPlay<Destination>Kal)
First off, I have to mention that Kal has some huge potential to shake things up. He's starting this week against Woongjin's GGPlay, and is a unique member in the #1 and #5 teams. Pair this with the prevalence of free in the top 10 teams, and meiser's 3 Woongjin team, and Woongjin v STX is going to one of the two most important matches to watch for this week. It could give the current #1 Carefree a huge lead from his most unique and only 5-point cost player, or it could shut his team down if he falls and free scores some massive points.
#1)CJ Entus vs. KTF MagicNs (starting Nbs<Medusa>Luxury)
Now, I said two most important matches because one other stands out like a sore thumb. CJ vs. KTF is almost undoubtedly the highlight this week. It can showcase up to 4 of the top 7 most popular picks of the winning teams (Flash, Savior, Iris, Luxury). 8 of the top 11 teams will have one of the starters for the match (luxury), and 10 of the top 11 teams will have the likely closer (Flash - of course, anything can happen). Don't forget the surprise point leaders from CJ, Iris and sAviOr who can both easily shake this result any which way. And to top it all off, its the last match of the week (ignoring the simultaneous but significantly less exciting OGN v ACE).
While most teams have at least one potential point earner outside of these two matches, its truly amazing how large a stake most people have in them. Here's a quick rundown of how many players the current top 11 teams have that might play in these two matches (essentially, how much of the top teams are composed of Stars, STX, CJ, and KTF players): 5, 4, 5, 4, 5, 5, 4, 5, 2 (!), 4, 3.
The only real anomalies are Bumatlarge with 2 (his results this week will probably be interesting) who traded away 3 players that would have been in the two matches, and recca with 3 who is genuinely unique in the top 10 (although barely and tied for 10th). Everyone else has at least 4 of their 6 players at stake. To which players the points from those two matches go could change a lot of scores in the top 11, pushing some out and undoubtedly pulling some in.
Some interesting contenders:
As an aside I have to talk about some of the more interesting teams in the top 11. First off is the current #4, Nikk. He was a huge point leader for a lot of this season but dropped way out of sight the last couple weeks. Then, miraculously aligned with Hiya's performance, he managed to claw his way back up to within 3 points of the lead. His team is particularly unique because it is the only one in the top 10/11 without Flash. This also makes him the only person in the top 10/11 to not have two of the following three players: Flash, Jaedong, Bisu. He's the highest scoring team with Bisu in it, and has 3 players starting this week, all arguably the favorites in their respective match (Bisu v Nada, HiyA v Jaehoon, Luxury v Nbs). These are all good things for his team, but like many others, a lot of his points ride on one match, CJ vs KTF.
Funny enough even with two CJ members, he is probably best off rooting for a Lux all-kill in that match. It will mean Flash gets only 1 point when he's many top team's top ticket player (Lux3K to Iris or Savior 4K would probably be better, but I'd be scared to even give Flash the opportunity to pull out a win). As the only person without Flash on his team in the top10/11, he is extremely reliant on Flash not doing well. It puts a huge handicap on much of his competition, even if many have Lux, Iris, or Savior.
Two other teams in the top 10/11 stand out to me as well. At #3 miseiler is certainly one of them. While having a team composed heavily of CJ&KTF members seems quite common at this point, having one with 3 Woongjin members was undoubtedly a pretty hilarious gamble. But man, it has worked out very well for miseiler so far. Obviously a great deal of his score is riding on the outcome of the Stars vs STX match. Its quite unfortunate that even with three players of his team making their home at the Woongjin house, he didn't have the luck to get one of them as the starter for the match. Of course it could be a blessing in disguise and his most unique player Guemchi will pull out a miraculous reverse all kill that will net him such a huge advantage halfway through the week. His team makes the match a lot more interesting than it otherwise would have been. Now there is even some incentive for most free holders to hope Woongjin LOSES the match, because otherwise miseiler will just pull too far ahead of them, particularly because he also managed to squeeze in two of the other most popular picks, Flash & Jaedong, which means the other teams with free will mostly be reliant on their low point players (short of the lucky ones with the Bisu / free combo).
And then there is #9 bumatlarge, who has maybe the most interesting team to watch, if only because its quite different from a lot of the top 10/11. He's managed to achieve this by participating in THREE trades, including trading away two very profitable early players (free and luxury) for the much more unique hyvaa and yarnc. This makes his team so unlike his direct competition in the top 10. Because of this, if his players do well, its not unlikely that he would be the clear point leader if the CJ vs KTF match suddenly was canceled. Of course it won't be, but because he still has two players competing in that match, its quite possible he can become unreachable if savior and Flash play along.
With that said, its not all good for bumatlarge because even though the scores are relatively close overall, a 10 point deficit on first place isn't something that just disappears when the matches start. Like many others his comeback will verge on the final day, but unlike others, in the unlikely match that is Ace vs OGN. With Yarnc a very likely contender for OGN and Reach starting for Ace, its possible even if unlikely for him to get a tremendous amount of points out of these two very unique players which may more than make up those 10 points he needs.
The other matches of the week
But enough speculation as to specific top player's scores. Some of the teams are definitely interesting contenders, but there are no guarantees in Starcraft and anything can happen. The overall match importance is maybe even more interesting anyways. As I said earlier, I'm especially looking forward to Woongjin vs STX and CJ vs KTF, but those aren't the only interesting matches.
After those two matches, I'd have to go with SKT v Fox and Oz v Hero for #3 and #4. Both Bisu and Jaedong are big ticket players and can change up the top 10 in an instant. If one does poorly (or in the case of Jaedong, doesn't get a chance to play), then a lot of teams are going to have to look to their low point players to earn them the points to catch up, particularly if the other does well (since most seem to have either Bisu or Jaedong, and not both).
The last two matches are not exactly unimportant either. Khan vs eSTRO will decide the fates of Jangbi and hyvaa, who will in turn will probably decide the fates of dangotSoul and bumatlarge respectively. OGN vs Ace may not be a critical game for most people's teams, but it will be for bumatlarge.
This post is probably getting way too long, so I'll stop here. Anyone else excited about the final week of fantasy proleague? I probably shouldn't be with my team 100+ spots behind first, but my brother is in the top 10 so I like to think I am by proxy, lol. This week needs some more hype than the standard week!