The best draft picks for TSM vs. EG in the Mid-Season Showdown

William Davis Published 26/03/2021

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It’s do or die for TSM and Evil Geniuses in the Mid-Season Showdown, and for one of the teams, it will be the last time they appear this split.

After TSM lost to Team Liquid last week and was knocked down into the lower bracket, its match against Evil Geniuses suddenly seems close. Despite TSM qualifying for the playoffs as the second seed, they look shaky and exploitable. This will likely make up for an exciting draft, where picks from both teams can end up having big value. As always, it’s important to compare the cost of the players to their performance to make most of a $50,000 budget.

In a draft with only two teams involved, it’s a very limited field to choose from. This makes the picks that much more important. Here are some of the most valuable draft picks for the match.

TSM Lost is the best option for the bot lane

The highest-scoring position is usually the bot lane and with only two players to choose from, there is no doubt that TSM’s bot laner Lawrence “Lost” Hui is the better option. Lost is the most expensive player of them all for this matchup, with a salary of $16,200. But all this doesn’t matter much when Evil Geniuses Matthew “Deftly” Chen is only $300 cheaper at $15,900.

During the split, Lost has been the better bot laner of the two with a total of 83 kills throughout the regular split. Deftly, on the other hand, only acquired 75. Lost also had a solid showing against Team Liquid despite losing 3-1, where he got a total of 19 kills over four games. Deftly is yet to play a game in the Mid-Season Showdown, so he might have a slower start to adjust to the best-of-five setting.

Deftly

Impact can score many points for Evil Geniuses

Looking at potential Evil Geniuses players to draft, the most logical choice would be to look at the top lane. Evil Geniuses Jeong “Impact” Eon-young has been a monster this split and is exceeding everyone’s expectations despite Evil Geniuses’ shaky results.

The South Korean top laner scored the second-highest number of kills in the regular split with 60, only beaten by Team Liquid’s Barney “Alphari” Morris. Impact has played a lot of Gnar and Renekton this split, which have proven to be the perfect picks for Impact to take in carrying games. Points in the draft usually don’t come from the top lane, but Impact might be an exception to that rule.

Compared to TSM’s Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon, Impact only costs $300 more with a salary of $12,300. Huni is also known as a top laner that can carry, but going up against Impact there’s a higher chance that Huni will give away some free kills. It will be risky to pick Huni in this case, as Impact has been more consistent and reliable throughout the whole split.

For the rest of the draft picks, it’s a close call between the two teams. Evil Geniuses players will generally be a bit cheaper than those of TSM, but will also come with a higher risk as TSM is the favorite.

You can build your own draft for this week’s games on DraftKings.

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I am a promoter at DraftKings and am also an avid fan and user (my username is Vejvad) and may sometimes play on my personal account in the games that I offer advice on. Although I have expressed my personal view on the games and strategies above, they do not necessarily reflect the view(s) of DraftKings and I may also deploy different players and strategies than what I recommend above. I am not an employee of DraftKings and do not have access to any non-public information.

William Davis

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