Disclaimer: This is purely for fun and nobody's feelings should be hurt from Fugly's opinion - Fugly is just a common troll on the internet. FuglyAccountant is not responsible for any players that get kicked from their team as a result of these rankings. These are how strong I think the teams ARE CURRENTLY. Not where they will end up when the split is over. I also used Northwolf’s stats for certain things so he gets some credit (Linked here : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V49Xbgo-jMWq3cxsMmYqMoAm3get_E1TbwtV71YxEyo/edit#gid=0 )
Week 2 Recap: Week 2 had many surprising things happen including fan-favorite veterans of the Gold Major League, Zupho and VFluids both leaving their respective teams. Week 2 also saw preseason favorites Imperial Esports dropping games to middle of the pack teams Friendzone and Wulfpack Esports. NSG Gold bounced back from an 0-2 week 1 to a 2-0 week 2 defeating bottom tier teams. Literal Monkies going back to their old ways of making roster changes that don’t make any sense. Going into week 3, Crosspoint Pegasus and Chubby Babies remain undefeated, coming out of week 3 and only 1 will remain.
1) Crosspoint Pegasus (4-0) - So in my preseason power rankings I said Crosspoint would be a good team but would not win the split - I’ve taken a complete 180 on that now and think they are the frontrunners and favorites to win the split. Two weeks of stats have shown me that this is one of the strongest teams currently in gold majors. Crosspoint is one of two undefeated teams with the other being their opponents in week 3 the Chubby Babies. The match between the two teams should be close, however I am betting on a Crosspoint win. Setts Bathwater and Gnario are the strongest botlane in the league currently, with BuriedDonut being the strongest jungler currently in the league. Crosspoint plays very well as a team and most of their leads come from team fighting. Setts Bathwater is killing it in many stats, including leading the league in total assists having 103 (2nd place is fellow Crosspoint Member BuriedDonut at 69), having 2nd fewest deaths out of all players who have played in 4 games (at 8), and leading the league in KDA at 13.88. Gnario and Zind (Midlaner of Crosspoint) lead the league in kills, having 37 a piece. Crosspoint is extremely well rounded and does not seem to have any weak links, yes there bot lane and jungle is good but their solo laners are also top of their role. They are also the team of my good pal Aero who is a CL legend so had to give them extra brownie points for that one.
How you beat them: One of two teams to not be streamed yet so I will be using Stats and post game screenshots for this. In order to beat them you need to ban out the Nami and Jarvan - put the strong players out of their comfort zone. You also need to build a strong 5v5 teamfighting composition to out teamfight them. Draft strong mid-late game team fighting comps (Tank top, Tank Jungle, Control Mage Mid, ADC, Support) as despite Crosspoint being 4-0, they have a pretty slow average game time (close to 36 minutes). Also don’t pick many champs with good ults because this team favors Sylas a lot.
2) Chubby Babies (4-0) - Instead of a typical slow start for the Chubby Babies, they came out of the gate hot boasting a 4-0 record. The babies replaced longtime member VFluids for Sharkberry - I don’t think this roster change does anything for the Babies in terms of playstyle (You substitute one support/role player for another). The babies’ strengths lie in the exact opposite of Crosspoint Pegasus, which are the sololaners of Buhrockobama and Shadowballs. BuhrockObama has the 2nd highest kills in the league at 36, the 2nd highest KDA, and the least amount of deaths for all players that have played in 4 games. Shadowballs has the largest gold lead / difference of any player in all positions at 10, 15, and at 20 minutes and has the 2nd highest Damage share % and Damage per Minute which is unheard of to do as a toplaner. CanMaple is also having his best split to date in BOL averaging 8.5 Kills per Game. I have faith in the original Babies Members (Buhrockobama and Shadowballs) - however there are still question marks on everyone else on the team. If this team starts dropping games then all eyes will be on the new members.
How you beat them: The only two players on this team you can target ban is jungle and top. Babies jungler are known to only know how to play JarvanIV and Sejuani. For top I would ban Mordekaiser and Sett, it’s the only two champs Shadowballs has played in both BOL Gold and BOL Plat (across 6 games). He’s constantly getting leads by playing the same two champs, force him on something else. Need to attack botlane in game as of the three lanes this lane is the most vulnerable - we saw what Friendzone’s bot lane did with the Swain/Ashe, you can replicate this to get early leads. Need to draft strong early game compositions that can contest objectives or snowball as most of the Chubby Babies leads come from their laning/strong early games. You need hard engage for team fights or you need to pick champions that can match the sololaners in the sidelanes once the laning phase is over.
3) Imperial Esports (2-2) - Despite having an 0-2 week, you can chalk up one loss to being against the Ashe Swain botlane cheese and the 2nd loss due to using a sub vs Wulfpack which resulted in many roleswaps (Azure went Mid to ADC and ObeytheAwoo went from ADC to JG) and neither looked particularly good on their offrole. Despite Imperial having a terrible week 2, Obeytheawoo still leads the league in CSPM and AzurexFire is still a top 3 midlaner in the league. They are surrounded by solid role players (Role players don’t carry but help support the team) in NorthWolf (my man with the stats!), MadParadox, and Rin. If they are able to keep the starting 5 intact and show up to each game then I expect this team to remain top 3 - if they continue to do random role swaps and use subs then expect this team to fall down in the ranking
How you beat them: Imperial is pretty similar to Crosspoint in that most of their wins look like they come from drafting strong teamfighting compositions. AzurexFire has only played Galio and Neeko mid this split - both champs are extremely strong in teamfighting. They both offer decent wave clear, AOE, Crowd Control that can lock down multiple enemies, both have an okay escape (Galio E and Neeko W) making them somewhat hard to gank, both have ways to get into team fights (Galio Ult) and Neeko passive, and both have a strong ultimate that can turn teamfights around. They often pair these champions with a tank top and a Sejuani jungle which help them teamfight. They are the only team out of 20 games so far to run the potent Xayah/Rakan botlane which further helps out their teamfighting. You either need to draft a stronger teamfighting composition or a 1/3/1 split pushing composition to split the team up with strong disengage to protect the 3 players staying mid.
4) Scarlet Foxes (1-3) - Foxes remain 4th in my power rankings even though they are tied 2nd to last with a 1-3 record. Week 2 had them debut their midlaner Healthy Ego and their jungler TPG RzStrike as well as move Yooka from jungle back to starting support. All these changes are ones that I approve of, Yooka wasn’t a terrible jungler, however Joshkiddy is a strong ADC and pairing him with a strong support in Yooka should yield the team with better results. In week 1, with millerlite as support the team didn’t have any strong lanes that could carry. Week 2 fixed these issues by having a strong midlaner who put up a 1v9 performance on stream vs Epidemic as well as having a stronger botlane - this means that you now have 2 lanes you could play through as opposed to the 0 you had in week 1. Week 2 also showed that this team can play different styles, EvilGambit has traditionally been a tank player but played Sett and did well and they also played Yasuo ADC which is a pick teams need to now consider when banning. Scarlet Foxes one loss in week 2 was from #1 team Crosspoint and the 2 losses in week 1 were from the Chubby Babies and Imperial Esports - this means that the next 5 games they play are against bottom tier teams (who have a combined record of 7 wins and 13 losses right now). Expect this team to pick up many wins in the next three weeks.
How you beat them: Spend all bans mid, after watching the streamed games the midlaner is just too good to not ban out. If that Cassiopeia doesn’t hard carry, then SF would not have won vs Epidemic. The only downside to banning mid is we really don’t know what he plays and to what level - his OP.GG shows his level to be low Gold but he has banned accounts that don’t show what champions he played or KDA’s or peak rank or anything. I would forego the Sett/Yasuo/Nautilus ban and instead just ban Viktor, Cassiopeia, Diana. Put mid on something that can’t 1v9. In the streamed game, Cassiopea got 19 kills which is the most kills in a single game so far in BOL (next highest is 15). Oh and you might as well camp mid too in game.
5) Friend Zone (2-2) - Friendzone to many look like a weak team, however both their losses come from undefeated teams and their wins are against Imperial (Top 3 team) and Wulfpack (middle of the pack team). Friend Zone does not look like they have many big name / talented players on the team but whoever is drafting / coaching this team needs to get a ton of credit. Every single one of their composition has looked like drafting a weak top side (Typically a tank) and an overwhelming bot side of the map. The weak top side works because the majority of top laners in Gold Majors tend to play tanks so you nullify drafting a weak top through this (Tank vs Tank, neither will snowball and both are useful for teamfights) - they then draft extremely strong and oppressive bot lanes most commonly Ashe/Swain (3 games) and Caitlyn/Morgana (1 game) - this now allows them to control bot lane, which controls dragons. This strategy works because you sack toplane by not sending resources there and your top will still be useful - in their wins, Feathers and Fur has played Malphite who just needs to press R to be useful. This strategy works against teams with weak top laners (which most teams have) because it nullifies the top side and focuses only on bot lane by having two carries there. They have an easy next 3 weeks with the only real challenge being vs Scarlet Foxes. I expect this team to win 4 of their next 5 games.
How you beat them: Don’t think you can ban out the strategy itself - if you ban Malphite or any other tank top, Ashe, Swain then Feathers gets Illaoi which he’s been most famously known for. If you ban Ashe/Swain you have to deal with Caitlyn/Morgana or some other oppressive lane Miss Fortune/Zyra. Both of their losses using this strategy was from top teams that had strong solo laners as well as a bot lane that can hold up - if you are able to draft counter matchups for top / mid and snowball through those lanes then you may be able to speed up the game to where laning phase ends sooner - Swain, Zyra, any oppressive support needs kills/gold to be effective - if you end laning phase 5 minutes sooner then that will delay their item power spikes. Drafting strong split push also works because champions like Malphite and Swain excel in team fights but due poorly in a sidelane due to lack of wave clear and having abilities / ults that they want to use on multiple people and not just one.
6) The Epidemic (2-2) - Another team that upgraded their roster from week 1. HotIMetYourTable is a close friend from my days of coaching Chubby Babies last split and a huge upgrade over the revolving ADCs they had week 1 (forgot the names of the ADC’s who played in week 1 cause they are irrelevant). The biggest problem I see with this team is that they have a bunch of role players but no star players - you look at the roster and you wonder who is going to be hard carrying them in their wins. Sure you have players like HowIMetYourTable and I Have No Equal and Jayyster who can pop off, but can they do it consistently? You tend to build teams around 1-2 star players and fill the remaining spots with role players who help support the star players. This team looks like they have 5 decent role players who can support each other but not a single one is going to hard carry or 1v9. You got a bunch of Kobbe’s on this team but not a single Bjergsen. Epidemic have faced Literal Monkies, Shadowz, and NSG Gold who I rank all 3 as bottom tier teams - this means with a 2-2 record they still have to face Imperial, Chubby Babies, and Crosspoint as well as middle of the pack teams Friendzone and Wulfpack - this team will be lucky to end the first round robin with anything better than 4-5.
How you beat them: Ban Diana and Senna, both champions are overtuned at the moment for how easy they are to play (Senna is harder to play however fasting Senna doesn’t need to worry about the aspects of last hitting which inherently makes her easier to play than Senna ADC). The streamed game showed that this team lacks basic vision fundamentals (or maybe Scarlet Foxes just had really good vision setup). Players were constantly getting picked off left and right in their own jungle due to lack of vision - this very well could be due to fasting Senna because the ADC player (Senna in this case) is responsible for warding since they have the support warding item and this could just be as simple as an ADC player not knowing how to properly ward compared to a support player.
7) Wulfpack Esports (2-2) - Wulfpack being the only other team besides Crosspoint to not have been on streamed yet so still fairly hard to judge how good or bad they are as a team. Their losses come from Chubby Babies and Friendzone and wins over Shadowz and Imperial Esports. Think the team has enough talent to pick up wins against top tier teams and bottom tier teams - biggest issue with them right now is consistency. We see games where Ballz goes 2/9/5 followed by a game where he goes 14/1/8. The team plays a ton of different champs - think they have the most different champions played by role having 18 different champions played out of 20 picked. It’ll be a lot more clear to see the strengths and weaknesses of this team once we see a streamed game. I think this roster is still fairly new and with more time to synergize they are bound to improve and move up in the standings.
How you beat them: Judging from stats it looks like Ballz controls a lot of the early game and he is what dictates Wulfpacks early leads - keep vision on Ballz at all time and match him with an early game jungler that can countergank or invade to steal camps / drop vision. You have to match the early pressure this team puts out. The only other consistency with both their wins is that Alucard played Wukong and did really well in both games. Wukong is borderline broken right now and avoiding nerfs so this is a champion you may need to ban or pick away or have a counter pick ready.
8) Natural Selection Gaming Gold (2-2) - NSG is a team I am very conflicted about - on one hand the majority of the players topped my weekly power rankings. Duke11 was ranked #1 Jungler of the week, TheRunicBlade was ranked #1 ADC, and Tai Arnold was ranked #2 Support - but NSG also played the two worst teams currently in the league which is naturally going to inflate their stats. Game 1 they had an opponent disconnect and Game 2 was played against a team of a bunch of randoms put together for the lulz. It’s hard to justify moving them up with such an easy week. The team did show life and some excellence in week 2 but hard to say if they show these same things vs middle and top tier teams. TheRunicBlade did score the first OFFICIAL Penta Kill on stream so props to him for that. In week 2 Duke11 managed to have the 2nd highest CS per Minute of junglers, the highest KDA for junglers, and the 2nd highest Kill Participation of junglers - this tells us that he is likely pathing well, by farming when necessary to maintain a high CS while constantly ganking and contributing to team fights - most junglers either fall into farming a lot and having low KP or ganking a lot (having high KP) but not farming so kudos to him.
How you beat them: Well let's start off with not giving the person named Karma Divine the champion Karma. It’s one of his most played champion in soloque and his name is based off the champion. Just get people off comfort. Draft strong laners against this team with an early game jungler like Jarvan, Olaf, Elise that can match ganks early. Seems like a lot of their lead from their games come from jungle impacting the map - if you draft strong laners and a strong early game jungler you basically win 2v2 and 3v3 on the map - NSG has lost every game where they are down in gold coming out of laning phase and have won every game where they are ahead in gold coming out of laning phase. If you win the early game and win laning phase then you likely win the game. Use your strong early game champions to secure objectives to snowball lead. You can throw bans at top/mid - top has only played Aatrox and Ornn and mid has only played Syndra and Karma. No point in banning jungle or ADC - they’ve both played 4 different champions in all 4 games.
9) Shadowz (1-3) - I said in my preseason power rankings that I am expecting this team to mental boom by week 3 and we saw a glimpse of that in week 2 when they surrendered a game on stream. Don’t get me wrong, the game was pretty unwinnable however the game was not 100% over and when you surrender the game it speaks volumes on the team’s mental (Clearly players didn’t want to play out a game that was likely a loss so they just FFed). Here’s a free coaching tip, never surrender a game because a team could easily lose internet access and you could win a game due to 5v4. This is also considered low elo and throws could happen. Not sure about the roster changes - MewLife went from Jungle week 1 to Support week 2 and they got a new guy in Jungle Gay In Robe. Week 2 they had an ADC that disconnected and fell behind in game 1 and in game 2 they faced a team tied for first so still pretty early to tell if the roster changes mean anything. NABanteran is likely the only shining light on this team at the moment - only dying 5 times in week 2 on a team that had a total of almost 50 deaths. Not Inting is the first step to improvement
How you beat them: Draft strong early game team compositions - Shadowz suffers from not correctly reading the Meta. In week 2 game 1 they played Ezreal/Braum bot lane, Ezreal is supposed to be a “Safe ADC” who wants to farm and scale till he gets his items/power spikes. Braum is someone who wants to be aggressive and look for picks with his passive stun. In game 2 they played Jinx and Janna - Jinx needs items to do well, Janna is strong later on when she has an ADC to shield. Pretty sure Shadowz has given up every Rift Herald, Dragon, and Baron in all games they have lost. The two team compositions from last week were Maokai, Sejuani, Ekko, Ezreal, Braum and Ornn, Trundle, Orianna, Jinx, Janna - tell me what champion on this team is going to help you get through the early game and secure dragons and rift heralds? Maokai, Ornn, Ezreal, and Jinx are all mid game - late game spike champions, who is going to help Sejuani/Trundle get anything? Ekko is the only champion who has some sort of early game agency and even then it’s only if he gets ahead. The bot lane meta as in the most played ADC’s right now in the league are Ashe, Varus, Caitlyn, Miss Fortune, Aphelios - the reason these are played are because they have strong laning phase, Ashe and Varus have pick potential to help engage fights in 2v2, Caitlyn and MF are strong laners who don’t need as many items to spike, and Aphelios does everything (wave clear, life steal, CC) - and then you pair these champs with strong tanky engage (Leona, Nautilus, Braum, Sett) - you then use your strong 2v2 hard engage to get priority bottom and rotate to dragon to control objectives. When you play Jinx/Janna you are telling the enemy team to take every dragon for free until 20 minutes in.
10) Literal Monkies (0-4) - Monkies up to their old tricks of making roster changes that make 0 sense from the outside. Not sure whose idea it was to replace Zupho who has always been known as a shotcaller / leader on the teams he's been on. Monkies looked meh week 1 and week 2 they look even worse. Monkies lacks talent, they lack in-game shotcalling/leadership, and they lack direction. They don’t have a single player that even shows potential - all their players are hard stuck and washed up. You really need to just blow the entire thing and build from scratch at this point. I doubt they do that though because although it's only been two weeks, I’m convinced that Monkies have already given up and at this point are just trying to get players experience in playing in leagues. I recommend moving them to Minor League and moving a team that is hungry and competitive from Minor to Majors. At this point you really have to question the coaching staff and Pacapaul for making these roster changes. This may be the first time we see a team go 0-18 in the regular season.
How you beat them: Just show up
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