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League of Legends LCS finals preview: How strong is the Liquid playoff buff?

By Josh Tyler

League of Legends. Photo courtesy of Riot Games.
League of Legends. Photo courtesy of Riot Games. /
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OAKLAND, CA – SEPTEMBER 09: Xmithie celebrates with the winners trophy after defeating Cloud9 3-0 in the 2018 North American League of Legends Championship Series Summer Finals at ORACLE Arena on September 9, 2018 in Oakland, California. (Photo by Robert Reiners/Getty Images)
OAKLAND, CA – SEPTEMBER 09: Xmithie celebrates with the winners trophy after defeating Cloud9 3-0 in the 2018 North American League of Legends Championship Series Summer Finals at ORACLE Arena on September 9, 2018 in Oakland, California. (Photo by Robert Reiners/Getty Images) /

Jungle

Another recipient of the Liquid playoff buff, I’m more confident in buying Xmithie’s improved playoff performance than Impact’s. Yes, he also has the same sample size issue, but he actually faced stiff competition during the playoff series.

FlyQuest’s jungler, Lucas “Santorin” Tao Kilmer Larsen, was one of the three or four best junglers in the LCS last split, but Xmithie dominated in the three games they went head to head. He averaged an over 300 gold lead at the 15-minute mark, only averaged a death per game, and had almost a 2.00 vision score per minute (which is what most low-tier supports have).

Xmithie was the best regular-season jungler in the LCS and then got buffed in his playoff performance. That is absurdly scary for TSM to be facing.

Yes, Akaadian has improved his own stats, including more kills, assists, gold per minute, kill participation, kill share, damage share, damage per minute, vision, and gold at 15. His improved performance matches favorably to most other regular season LCS junglers, but it’s still dwarfed by even Xmithie’s regular season numbers.

Given the inconsistency Akaadian showed during the series vs Cloud9, going from nearly eliminating TSM single-handedly to carrying them to the reverse sweep, I don’t think I can bank on his improved performance as much as Xmithie’s. Even if the playoff buff wears off and Xmithie returns to regular season form, he still has a massive advantage over Akaadian.

Advantage – Liquid

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