Proleague
Round 3

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By: lichter

Proleague Round 3 has ended and the fourth and final round is set to begin. Of course, that can only mean one thing: It's time for Fantasy Proleague awards.

Round 4 FPL Sign-Ups

As our readers should know by now, the FPL Awards by lichter™ are not your typical awards. Instead of honoring the best armchair managers, we seek to celebrate the the failures of the worst. Without further ado, here are the Round 3 Fantasy Proleague Awards!

User Awards

The Manchester United Award For The Worst Teams Trying To Be Good

#1 - MrVideo: -13 pts
#2 - LastLemming: -10 pts
#3 - SKaysc: -9 pts

I'm sorry guys, but I'm going to have to lump you all together here, so that hopefully you will learn your lesson if you ever hope to escape the bottom of FPL: STOP PUTTING DONGRAEGU IN YOUR FPL. He has become the new RorO, the man that just ruins your FPL no matter where you put him. Out of the 9 teams picked so far for Worst Teams of the Round, DRG has appeared in seven of them, five times as captain and twice on antis.

After a disappointing Round 1 where many hoped the GSTL hero of old would reemerge, hordes of fantasy managers put DRG on their anti teams hoping he would continue to suck. Instead, he racked up an obscene 22 points in Round 2, leading many a fantasy team to ruin. Having seemingly regained his mojo, DRG was getting picked left and right for main teams in Round 3, only to end up with a dismal seven points.

As a player who is both popular and inconsistent, DongRaeGu seems destined to be this season's #1 FPL ruiner. Of course, for those obsessed with patterns, he might be a good pick for Round 4 since it's an even numbered round. But if you'd rather not receive an FPL award, maybe it would be a good idea to just stay away from DRG.



The Air Force Ace Award For The Worst One-Team FPL

Neomatrix (MVP): 1 pt

Oh MVP, this was a disaster. Not only did you end up in last place behind Prime, you earned a miserable -2 for FPL as a team. Seriously, they were worth negative points. I didn't even know that was possible.

Fortunately for Neomatrix, he cheated by picking IM as his team, but his all MVP roster earned a miserable 20 pts in total. With PartinG on his anti netting 20 points on his own, it's no wonder this guy was left with a solitary point at the end of the round. As the only MVP fan I could find on the last page of the rankings, you get an applause for being so loyal, alongside some heckling for being loyal to a lousy team.


The LOL What A Successful Tryhard Award For Most Trades

Mensol: 11 trades, +37 pts

Okay Mensol, you did pretty good, but despite your +37 in trades, you only finished 297th with 88 points. Whether it was your underwhelming initial team that included aLive, Life, and Billowy, or an anti that included Maru, I'm not sure, but if it hadn't been for trades your team would have finished with 62 points. It was decent patch up job after a bad start so I guess we should commend you on that one. But maybe next time, you should focus on getting things right the first time instead of spending the whole round fixing your mistakes.


The LOL What a Lousy Tryhard Award For Most Trades

dipwood: 12 trades, -2 pts

As the only user to max out on the possible number of trades, dipwood actually did enough to almost break even, so he hasn't done as bad as some managers in previous rounds. But with the amount of time he probably spent thinking about these, was it worth it? I mean, come on. Salvation for eins? DeParture for Choya? Were those reaaaally the most important trades you could think of? Swapping Reality for Leenock was the biggest blunder, but at least you figured out Shine sucks in SPL now and shipped him off for Dark. But really, trading 1 pointers?


Do You Even Know What You're Doing? Award for Worst Trader

AxCranK: 4 trades, -27 pts

Is this the real CranK? Seriously, I want to know [Editor's note: it is]. Crank may have captained Axiom-Acer to a GSTL title, but that hardly matters when he's so lousy at what's really important: Fantasy Proleague. Despite only making 4 trades, CranK tallied the worst trade loss of Round 3, and one of those trades was even successful (Rogue for Classic on anti). What really ruined him was trading Classic for HerO (-9 pts), soO for MKP (-9 pts), and Maru for Rain on his anti (-13 pts). Ouch. Another interesting discovery is that there's an FPL group called "Axiom" that includes people such as AxCranK, AcerMMA, TotalBiscuit, AxRyung, AxHeart, and AxImpact. Impact did the best out of the team with 51 pts, while Heart was rock bottom with 15. Don't quit your day jobs, guys.


Maybe You Should Play Stocks In Your Free Time Instead, You Bum Award

BucKy900: 5 trades, +44 pts

With a 100% success rate and an average of of 8.8 pts per trade, BucKy earns the distinction of being the best trader of the round. The most important move he made all round was moving Stork from his anti to his main, gaining Dream and losing Life, that granted him a +28 trade gain. Now that I think about it, most of teams that end up having great trade gains tend to be bad teams that realize early on how bad they were at choosing their teams. When you've already picked a bad team, it's hard not to get better.


The Literally 10x Worse than DarkLordOlli Award for Worst Staff FPL

Waxangel

Although it would seem this should go to stuchiu and his Team of Evil (27 pts), that would only further their cause (of evil). Upon further inspection, it looks like Olli (29 pts) should once again earn the distinction for being the suckiest and least knowledgeable staff when it comes to FPL. But, surprise surprise, Waxy nabs the award for Round 3 as he was disqualified for changing his team after the deadline. When reached for comment, Waxangel had this to say: "I feel like a great manager for deflecting the attention of the media from one of my players and putting myself in the spotlight." Sources say this is complete BS.



It Pays To Be Lazy Award For Best Team Without Trading

Tehhaxorz: 113 pts, 27th place

The resurgence of Stork and a good round from Reality and Rogue were the big boosts for Tehhaxorz, as they earned 21, 18, and 14 pts apiece. With Bbyong and PartinG leading the pack, that makes for a strong team out of the box. His only disappointment was Life, who earned a pitiful 9 pts, but that was to be expected considering he has failed to light up Proleague like his blind fans (mostly Zealously) anticipated. Putting Creator on his anti also turned out to be a masterstroke as the Prime as floundered with 9 pts.


The moskonia Award for Dude I Should Have Given An Award to But Sorta Forgot, Oops

moskonia

Last round, I mistakenly passed over moskonia for the previous award because, I dunno maybe I had a few drinks before I wrote the awards. Either way, I promised I'd give him an award, and with few ideas for what award I could give I decided to make up an award for him. Now, this award will be given to posters who post in the thread claiming some sort of achievement that I totally forgot to highlight. Yes, I am pandering to the audience. It's all about the views.

Player Awards

Most Valuable Player

Rain 26 pts, 1-1 in Ace matches

Rain earns the Round 3 MVP for being the best player on the best team. His 26 points feel like a miracle considering how deep SKT T1's roster is and how they've been resting key players once in a while. As the team's de facto ace, Rain also went 1-1 in Game 7s -- his loss coming from a revitalized Stork. His wins didn't come easy either, as he beat Hydra, Zest, Shine, sOs, Rogue, and Leenock. It wasn't the strongest round we've ever seen, but it was impressive to see Rain achieve this score without playing a gazillion ace matches.



The King of the Bargain Bin Award for Best Value

Stork: 21 pts for 4 cost

Only 2 rounds ago, we proclaimed Stork dead in the water. His historic losing streak in Proleague was still hanging over his head, and his seemingly lazy and passionless play had everyone believe that he was an inch away from calling it quits. However his resilience has paid off as he just had his best round of Proleague in a long time. Despite his paltry 4-4 record, Stork went 2-0 in ace matches, earning Samsung half of their wins. It was no small feat either as he beat Rain and herO to the surprise of many. It may not just be a lucky round for Stork, as he's played well enough to reach the Code S Round of 16. Did he hit a turning point?


The Dead Weight Award for Least Valuable Player

KeeN: -0-5 record, 1 pt for 5 cost

After earning the Holy Shit Seriously? Award for Player that Wasn't Supposed to Earn Me Points But Did in Round 2, KeeN fell flat on his face in Round 3 with no wins in four appearances. That has to be one of the worst rounds we've ever seen, second only to Solar's Round 2. To be fair he did have to face 4 strong players in Creator, Classic, ByuL, and Hydra, but you'd expect him to win at least one of those games, right? KeeN's place on MVP's line ups is now at risk as Dream finally gets his bearings, but MVP will likely continue to struggle until players like KeeN start performing again.


RorO Award for Worst Anti-Pick that Shouldn't Be RorO If You Guys Only Listened:

Stork: -21 pts on 221 anti-teams

You know, I'm not sure how this makes sense. Sure, Stork hadn't been very good, with a combined score of 4-5 in 2 rounds of play, but as he was only worth 4 pts, did he really look overrated? He murdered a ton of people after a successful Round 3, and his spot in Code S Ro16 doesn't look like a fluke. It finally looks like Stork has turned things around, but since I'm giving him two positive Awards today, he'll probably start sucking again this weekend.



Shouldn't Have Drank the Koolaid Award for Player We Mistakenly Hyped

Maru: 13 pts for 10 cost

After being among the top 3 players for Rounds 1 and 2, Maru finally had an off round. Though 13 pts is still decent, dedicating a third of one's resources on purchasing a single player proved to be a costly move for many fantasy managers. Maru has proven to be one of the best players in Proleague so don't expect his value to drop dramatically. Still, expect Fantasy managers to be more wary about picking up Maru next round.


You're Literally Worse than Stork FanTaSy a Foreigner Sora Award for Player We Hoped Wouldn't Suck but Did

Leenock: 0-1 record, 1 pt for 3 cost

Well, that didn't work out as expected. When Prime announced a partnership with Yoe Flash Wolves, it seemed like a brilliant move as the team would finally have a decent Zerg player in Leenock. But, just like some of the other partnerships we've seen so far, it just hasn't been very meaningful. Leenock played a single game all round, losing to Rain more than a month ago, and we haven't heard from him since. Why even team up if you're just going to play DeParture, Kassia or terror instead? Sorry Gerrard, but this award is likely to be named after you or Prime next round.


The Europeans Win A Premier Tournament Award For Things That Didn't Happen

Life, Solar, or Sora not sucking: At one point or another, these players were hyped to become Proleague stars (mostly by Zealously). And yet, in Round 3, none of these players really earned their keep. Life went 2-2, Solar 1-1, and Sora 1-1. They each had a claim to become one of their teams' key players at the end of Round 1, but it looks like their coaches have been slowly losing faith in them. Luckily, we here at TeamLiquid are much more fickle, and it will just take one good run for us to be praising them all over again.


Holy Shit Seriously? Award for Player that Wasn't Supposed to Earn Me Points but Did

Dark: 12 pts for 1 cost

I'm surprised I actually predicted this to happen. As the cheapest SKT T1 player after the team cut several players prior to Round 3, Dark finally got to prove himself in Proleague after his continued ascent up the Code S rankings. His 2-1 record might not seem like much, but to get 12 pts for someone who cost 1 point is spectacular. That's almost as good as Maru! A lot of Fantasy managers have shied away from picking SKT players because of the way they rotate their players, but those who took a gamble on Dark were rewarded. Dark should continue to get some time in the booth as part of SKT T1's Code S Ro16 dominance, which will only makes it harder to pick the correct SKT players in Round 4.


Let's All Get On the Hype Train Award For Players Most Traded Player

Maru: Traded onto 261 main teams

Ouch. While the player that usually wins this award is generally an underrated player that suddenly starts performing well, the award this round goes to someone that people expected to rebound after a disappointing start. Unfortunately for the 261 people who bought him, Maru never really got things going. He was bought 98 times more than any other player, but his measly 13 pt performance was pitiful for the highest value player in FPL. Maru still did win 3 games to make him the 17th best player of the round, but he'll have to do better than that if he wants to challenge for season MVP.


Let's Get The Hell Off This Burning Bandwagon Award for Most Traded Players

TAiLS: Traded off 157 main teams

How so many people picked TAiLS in the first place, I will never know. Yeah, he only cost a single point to get, but why waste that 1 point on someone from MVP when you could use it on someone like Dark on SKT T1? Yes, TAiLS is known as a build order specialist, someone who can beat anyone with a specialized build. He seems like just the type of guy that would do well in Proleague, but people had somehow forgotten that TAiLS has yet to play a single game all season. Yes, a player with 0 games on a bad team, was picked more than 1 pointers on successful teams.


The ByuN Award For Most Conspicuously Absent Player

FanTaSy: 0-1 record

Whatever happened to FanTa? After seemingly turning things around in Round 2, FanTaSy suddenly just... disappeared. He played a single game all round -- a loss to Life in his only good matchup -- after playing 5 times in Round 2, so something must have happened. Maybe he slid down the team house rankings? Maybe he hasn't been feeling well? More than likely, iloveoov just realized that he needs to stop playing Terrans if he wants to win Not-Fantasy Proleague.

The Best FPL Team Of Round 3

FuRong: 131 points, first place

[Editor's Note: lichter tried to end this column with some kind weird award that didn't make any sense. So we're punishing him by actually congratulating the best FPL manager of the round. Congrats to FuRong, who is truly the iloveoov of Fantasy Proleague managers.]

Writers: lichter.
Images: SpoTV.
Editors: Waxangel.