League of Legends LCS Spring Playoff preview: FlyQuest vs. Golden Guardians

Jungle

From the biggest mismatch to the closest matchup, Lucas “Santorin” Tao Kilmer Larsen vs. Juan “Contractz” Arturo Garcia in the jungle is going to be a treat to watch. Although I did list Santorin as a possible MVP candidate a week ago, Contractz’s play over the last weekend has catapulted him into the top five LCS junglers to end the season.

In particular, Contractz has excelled in providing vision and support to his team this year. His 1.71 vision score per minute is fifth among LCS junglers and enabled him to help propel his team to the third-best gold difference at 15.

However, in my view, Santorin is the favored jungler in this matchup because of how much he brings to the team. Thanks to Santorin, Golden Guardians have the third-best early game rating (per OraclesElixir) behind only Liquid and Cloud9. Santorin himself has also averaged the best individual gold-difference at 15 among junglers and has one of the highest kill participation rates at the position. Santorin has certainly been a driving force behind GGS early gameplay

Both junglers have shown themselves to have deep champion pools. In 18 games played, Santorin has played 11 different champions in the jungle, as has Contractz in 19 games played. Both prioritize Nocturne highly (Santorin’s most played champion at four games, and Contractz’s second most at two) and Lee Sin (two games played by Santorin, five for Contractz as his most played). Expect those two champions to be priority targets for bans in this series.