With round 2 abruptly drawing to a close, we barely had enough time to say goodbye before round 3 began and round 3 of Fantasy Proleague began with it. Now's our chance to sit down and really look back at how round 2 panned out, and what better way to do it than to bring back Fantasy Proleague Awards!

Player/Team Awards

The "Patch-Zerg" Award for Biggest Improvement
goes to both Reality and s2. Both were valued at 3 points at the beginning of this round and both exceeded everyone's expectations

The "Bisu" Award for Biggest Disappointment
goes to Bisu's teammate, Fantasy. Though he performed outstandingly in rounds 1 and 2, Fantasy almost ended round 3 winless until he hit another slumping player, TaeJa.

The "FXO.KR" Award for Biggest Surprise Team
has to go to SK Telecom T1. Even with Fantasy slumping, SKT1 stepped it up with unlikely heroes in the form of the SKT1 Zergs, s2, soO, and Sacsri.

The "Prime" Award for Worst Slumping Team
obviously goes to EG-TL. Their 1-6 match score and 7-26 map score makes their round 3 one of the worst rounds ever in Proleague history.

The "RorO" Award for Worst Anti-Team Pick
goes to Terminator. As the most picked player on the anti-team, Terminator upset many Fantasy League players by being by far the best player on Team 8 this round.

The "Creator" Award for the Optimal Team without Trades

Team Owner Awards

The "MVP" Award for First Place
Congratulations to Thorix77 for a top-placing team without any trades. Six out of his seven main team picks scored above 20, making it ONE of the most well rounded teams yet.

The "MMA" Award for Best Slump Predictor
1sz2sz3sz, Elite__, Himarm, and mizU all found the magical combination of Action, Jaedong, and a 2 pointer on EG-TL or KT Rolster.

The "Wall Street" Award for Best Trader
goes to SoMCrazed with two simple trades. By switching Bisu to Flying and KT Rolster to Woongjin Stars, two of the best trades of the round, SoMCrazed net 42 extra points.

The "EG Curse" Award for Worst Trader
S7Saint earns this award for himself by making three questionable trades. By letting go off Hydra and SKT1 in favor of TaeJa and EG-TL , S7Saint doomed himself this round.

The "MC" Award for Refusing to Change Anything
Our champion this round, Thorix77, earns this award as well with a championship team that refused to make any trades.

The "TheBest" Award for Lowest Scoring Team Attempting to be a Legitimate Team
I'm pretty sure that Hungry Cerberus just wasn't clear about the rules and was actually trying to make a legitimate EG-TL fan team. However, his anti-team cost 18, way over the required cost of 13 and it just happened to be one of the worst anti-teams you could make. Clocking in at -56 points, Hungry Cerberus ends up dead last. There were actually many teams that went all-in on EG-TL and they all ended up around the same place.

The "Apex" Award for Lowest Scoring Team Attempting to be a Low-scoring Team
goes to nepeta with a -35 score.. By picking Stephano(a player who wasn't in the lineup the first few weeks) and a host of foreigners who probably weren't going to play, nepeta ensured himself a low-scoring main team. Funnily enough, he had to quickly trade away Fantasy on his anti-team in favor of hero[join] after Fantasy stopped scoring points.

The "Pick All KT" Award for Best FPL Strategy of the Round
will not be given this round. Even though there were clear strategies for both rounds 1 and 2, round 3 was slightly more predictable and thus noone strategy clearly dominated.

The "Manifesto7" Award for Best Staff Performance
somehow goes to Hot_Bid. He scored 111 points, ending up aT 23rd place. A little known fact is that Hot_Bid has been ONE of the most consistent FPL players in TL HistOry, with two top 10 finishes in BW FPL and also high finishes in almost every round of SC2 FPL.

The "Kennigit" Award for Worst Staff Performance
Anchored by a failing EG-TL, PhiLtheFisH's team was destined to go down with the ship.

The "LaLuSh" Award for Best SC II Player/Personality Performance
ROOTT1 really tried hard this round by making multiple trades each week. For this performance of 94th place with 100 points and for finishing First in the Progamer Bet Group, he earns himself a COol $400.

The "CatZ" Award for Worst SC II Player/Personality Performance
Sorry, Axslav, your analysis skills did you no good this round.

At the beginning of the round, we put together four sample teams, each following a particular strategy commonly used in fantasy proleague. These strategies include:

• Picking based on Round one results
  
• Picking based on Lineups
  
• Picking a full SKT team
  
• Picking based on Brood War skill

With the round coming to a close, we take a look at how our teams did.

Round One's Bests

The second round was a king of the hill format, very different in terms of dynamics from a traditional Proleague round. As player costs are mostly assigned by round 2 results, we decided to build a token team based on the first round results to see if there would be a significant difference in terms of outcome. This team will be subject to trades both on the main and anti teams with the same limitations as a normal fantasy team.

The glaring difference between the first and the third round, is KT Rolster's results. They went 6-1 at the beginning but struggled to win this round to finish Wings of Liberty on a rather disheartening 1-6. The consequence for this team is evident as we picked the team (-1p) as well as their second best player Stats (10p). For the same price, Woongjin Stars would have been a much more wiser choice as they fared fairly well through Round 2 as well. Despite their abysmal results, they still bested EG-TL granting 2 traded players, Flash (7p) and Crazy (2p), some occasional points.

The captain Rain (21p) had some troubles winning at the beginning but managed to hold his rank with a top 10 point scorer. Taking him and Soulkey (19p) were good choices because proven Code S players are clearly superior to the rank-and-file troopers of KeSPA teams. In the future Heart of the Swarm rounds, these kind of players should still prove just as valuable. The trick here is to pick one or two that are cheap enough to warrant the high investment and we believe 5p players to be in the right ideal risk vs. cost area.

Other Main Team Players : TY (11p), BrAvO (10p) & JYP (8p). The main team scored 87 points in total.

The anti-team was a catastrophic failure. Still, there are almost no regrets to have. Stork, our most expensive player, with an original 7p cost, only brought 6p home before being traded for hyvaa (4p). Stork was the most obvious choice for the anti-team anchor as his Round 2 results were neither impressive nor significant, with the rise of now Code S champion teammate RorO. Reality though is where the improbable happened. He finished the first round with a 2-5 record but he managed to secure a 6-1 record this round, becoming by far the second best player on Samsung Khan. Granted his wins weren't against tremendous players nor where they particularly impressive, but they are there and he should be valued over Stork and JangBi in the next round.

Other Anti-Team Players : Shine (11p). The anti-team scored 45 points in total.

Betting on Lineups

Each week, there are some match-ups that we believe are hugely in favor of one of either team or players. This « per week » team will be drafted on week one and we will try to find the best trades each week with no consideration as to how the players can do in the future.

When I wrote the preview of the Round 3 teams, I said that picking a CJ player was pretty much mandatory. I believed that they would have the highest scoring top 6. Sadly they don't, being third behind Stars and T1 and this can be attributed to EffOrt's average showing (15p) and Bong (11p) not exactly riding his momentum as strongly as he could have. As we said before, having one or two strong "ace" seems like a good thing since they bring points in the long run and one can cover the other should issues arise. Here, Innovation (24p) perfectly justified his cost and made up for EffOrt's mistakes.

Betting on line-ups is a challenge since it requires knowledge of maps, match-ups, team synergy and players. We fared fairly OK here with 91 points for the main team but such a tactic requires heavy trading and we didn't include the trade fees. I believe betting on line-ups to be a bad idea because it is short-sighted. No one expects a good 3p player to win every week especially if he faces Code S talent, but he might still have a reasonable 60+% win percentage at the end of the round. You always have to keep in mind that the earlier you trade a player, the bigger the risk, the reward, and the consequences. Thus if one happens to trade away that 3p player, it could prove to be a huge mistake.

Other Main Team Players : Zest (12p), JYP (8p), soO (4p), Revival (3p), Jaedong (1p) & Light (0p)

Despite what I've said just above, betting on line-ups can be effective for an anti-team. The same conditions apply, but the pool of bad / not performing players in inherently smaller than the pool of good players. By limiting the choice overall, it allows for a safer decision. However, in the ideal scenario, an anti-team shouldn't even have to go through a trade to be good. Still you can salvage a desperate situation by getting rid of a low point player before he gets too fat or when you know he is going to lose or win ... Our team earned 24 points in total which is a reasonable score.

Anti-Team Players : Classic (7p), hyvaa & Stork (6p), Savage (4p) & Last, Light & BrAvO (1p).

All-in on SKT T1

We all saw that an all KT Rolster team could win a round during round 1. This round, it was impossible to take all of KT's best with 30 points but it's possible to do so with their arch-rivals SKT T1. With only 28 points in total and no anti-team, let's see what they can do. Trading will be employed if needed.

When the round started, SKT was in an dark place - much like the EG-TL now - but they bounced back and such a trajectory is always excellent for Fantasy players. The initial points are attributed on different factors (fame, personal and team results among others) weighted in a attempt to prevent an obvious best team that everyone would pick. This means some deals are better than others and SKT was a particularly fruitful one this round. Their best six players have the highest point average with 18 points per player and their best four is even better with a 21.5 average. But that's not even the most incredible part: the top four scorers for SKT this round were Rain (21p) and the SKT zergs : soO (22p), s2 (24p) & sacsri (19p).

There are two main points to learn from SKT T1's success this round. First, any team can bounce back from a bad round. The more important lesson, however, is that the supporting cast is where the tender meat lies. No matter how good they are, a team full of ace players and one-pointers will only net you about 50 points. To put that into perspective, you need more than 110 to be among top players. Thus, you require a good supporting cast. Most of these hidden gems lie in the three to five points bracket. In fact, all the players in this bracket are all starters, but some of them are better than others and it is usually hard to predict how a team will fare. In our case, both s2 and sacsri, who had terrible results in the previous rounds, managed to have a 80+% winrate. We were not able to find any indication of this during the draft but if you have the confidence or the knowledge to trust such players, you are bound for victories.

Other Main Team Players : Fantasy (6p), BeSt (10p), ParalyzE (11p)

Betting on BW Skill

Proleague was, for more than a decade, the main event in Korean Brood War. Salaries were negotiated based on Proleague results and many known players made themselves a name before moving on to win StarLeagues. The paradigm of this team is simple: we pick the big BW names and reminisce.

When we settled on writing about this team, our goal was to prove that BW skill didn't transfer literally to SC2. The results are there with only Soulkey (19p) barely being a top scorer. The rest of the team is average, and though average is not bad, it may have left a bitter taste in the mouths of these players who are used to championships. However this is not as simple as it seems. Fantasy, Flash, EffOrt (15p), JangBi (0p), the last four winners of BW OSLs, are still playing in their respective main teams, and they have more than respectable records in round 2 so is it a good idea to pick these players? To answer this question, you have to separate those who are still key players in their teams and those who aren't. JangBi might have won the last 2 BW OSLs, but nowadays he is at best playing second fiddle behind GSL winner RorO. As such, he doesn't have the same adjusted value as someone like Flash who still has to carry his team. The difference in the overall impact on the results is totally incomparable.


Other Main Team Players : BeSt (12p), Light (12p), Stats (10p) & Jaedong (5p). The main team scored 93 points in total.

The anti-team based on BW skill is pretty silly. Some players like RorO turned their careers around, but the sheer amount of bad or average BW players is far too large to draw any restrictive conclusion. Hyuk (5p) is buried deep in SKT's roster while Terminator (19p) is now a consistent player. For some of the lesser known BW players, SC2 was an opportunity to rise to the top. Perhaps a new wave will come after HotS, but I wouldn't count on it. That being said, everyone should make sure to pay attention to the newcomers like Bear or Bong who pierced through the ranks from their respective B-teams. These players are more likely to be the future of KeSPA than the former BW A-teamers.

Other Anti Team Player : Argo (9p). The anti-team scored 33 points in total.