League of Legends Flame Friday: TSM needs to look beyond Grig and Akaadian

Grig

Thus far, Grig has been the better-performing jungler in the Summer Split when compared to Akaadian. He is actually posting the best statistical season of his career, with a 3.00 adjusted KDA, which is the best of his career. He’s also posted his second-best adjusted kill participation, damage numbers, and individual play.

However, we need to take these stats with a grain of salt for three big reasons. First, he’s only played in four games in the 2019 Summer Split. Second, his best statistical season has only placed him just barely in the top half of all junglers for this summer. Third, the split where he did post far better stats came in Spring Split 2017 – as a member of the now-defunct Challenger Series team Delta Fox.

In his two previous LCS splits – he played nine games with Echo Fox in the Summer of 2017, along with playing all 20 games with TSM last summer – his numbers have been less than impressive. In neither split did he have a kill participation above 65%, damage per minute above 200, gold per minute above 200, or averaged a positive gold differential at the ten-minute mark.

However, one thing that is promising for Grig is his consistency. Only one split (his abbreviated Summer Split with Echo Fox) did he have a kill efficiency below 2.00. He’s also never had a standardized gold quotient of less than 185 or higher than 205 GPM.

Unfortunately, that consistency is not all positive. In each of Grig’s professional seasons, he’s averaged a gold deficit at 10 minutes, has averaged an XP deficit at that time, and he has never recorded a solo kill.

He is entirely a team-based player, with his underlying statistics swinging largely with the performance of his team. This year, with TSM having won each of the four LCS games he’s played, he’s posting strong numbers. Unfortunately, when he’s on underperforming teams, he’s not able to control or drive play for his team.