DraftKings League of Legends Strategy Guide

Quick LOL Strategy Guide Points

Learn the LOL positions and where the majority of Kills/Assists come from
Research an Esports Team strategy before the game
Consider stacking positions with teams in favorable matchups

Table of Contents

When DraftKings entered into the eSports arena it was a big boost for fantasy esports players because of the potential for larger prize pools and a bigger player database to play. The first game they offered fantasy players was also the most popular, that being League of Legends (LoL). Below we have a breakdown of the League of Legends game for fantasy players and some basic strategies to help you cash in big at Draftkings.com.

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Position Drafting In LOL

These are the positions you must draft for a Draftkings LOL contest:

Top Laner
Middle Laner
ADC
Jungler
Support
2 FLEX’s
Team

Middle Laners (MID) and ADCs are the players that typically score the most kills in a game. Supports (SUP) mainly try to get assists, and Top Laners (TOP) and Junglers (JNG) can play either offensively or defensively depending on which league of legends champion they are playing with and how the champions are paired together to take advantage of their team’s play style or strategy.

MID’s and ADC’s are high priority targets for both teams during all stages of the game so they will die more often because of their value. Top Laners, Junglers and Supports may be also be sacrificed if they play certain champions or if it helps a team’s strategy because they are usually in the middle of all the action, they will also take on the most damage. A Support player may intentionally die to get 2 kills for his teams ADC, or a Tanky Top Laner may go straight into the middle of the enemy to try and get them to waste their damage creating abilities which means they won’t have any left when the ADC comes in to fight. Knowing an esports LOL team strategy beforehand is a great knowledge for when you go to draft your team. Knowing their strategies allows you to avoid TOP’s, SUP’s or JNG’s on teams that often use sacrificing strategies for traditionally strong point getting positions.

DraftKings point system for LoL players is heavily based off kills and assists. When you do your research on teams players for your fantasy eSports lineup, you’ll want to look at an individual player’s average Kills-Deaths-Assists stats (KDA). These stats can be found when clicking on a players name in Draftkings drafting screen. You will also want to look at a player’s average Champion KDA. The higher that KDA is, the better they may be at scoring kills or assists on average before dying. Looking at these stats is a good way to familiarize yourself with which players and teams run more on the offense side or which members on a team will run more support and/or defense.

Using KDA in Cash Games or Tournaments

Most strategists for Fantasy League of Legends will tell you that picking an individual player or team skill is better than picking a team based on their champions. Some teams can be great at team fighting, whereas other teams are better during specific time-frames in the game. Try to learn what the strengths and weaknesses of a particular team are beforehand and try to target the teams with good matchups for that day’s contests.

After you’ve determined that, then use player KDA stats to estimate and predict how much fantasy points you can expect from an individual player by the end of the game. Matchups will trump KDA in every scenario so build a lineup with that strategy in mind first, and then take into account KDA stats in your research. For some fantasy eSports players, it doesn’t matter which champions are picked, it matters more which is the better team in that matchup.

That being said, take an in-depth look at players KDA stats, you will find some guys have a high KDA because they die less frequently. Check out their season stats by champion and find out if they are good at scoring kills or assists and are they really skilled at avoiding being killed. Although those plays do have some value for your lineup, it’ll come at the expense of fantasy point stats for your team. Don’t be scared off of a player that suffers some deaths if they are scoring enough fantasy points by averaging a high KDA to offset those deaths.

Another important LOL strategy is to pay attention to stats and averages for creep kills – The best “lane farmers” in LoL – these are players that rack up a lot of minion kills, are consistently good and most opponents have a hard time trying to stop them. The “average minion kills per game” or “average creep-score per game” are one of the stats that you will want to look at when picking between two similar salary cap priced TOP’s that both have good matchups. The players that are the best at it could score you an extra 3-5 fantasy points.

How to Draft Your League of Legends Team

When you are drafting the “TEAM” position in DraftKings, here are 4 crucial team strategies to keep in mind:

Teams That are Strong Early and use Objective Based Strategies – When a team wins, it is often because early on in the game they got a lot of dragons and towers. Teams that play strong early will focus on a strategy of securing dragons and towers and also get one or two barons. A team that focusses on gaining early points usually fills up the fantasy points stat sheet by the end of the game but also hopes to end the game early in and around the 30-minute mark. These teams will get some extra fantasy points for the early win bonus and could be a great low-cost value pick in your DraftKings LOL lineup.
Teams with Strong Late Game Strategies – Teams that play with a strategy of finishing strong later in a LOL contest will try to get the towers and fight for the dragons near the middle part of a game but will focus strongly on trying to get a baron. When you pick teams with a matchup edge that utilize a late-game strategy against other teams that play a similar style, it can also be a benefit to you. The Barons will be fought over often in these matchups and there will always be dragons to fight throughout the entire game. Look for late-game oriented teams in favorable match-ups like this which can be great low-cost value picks because they generally will outscore the early-game oriented teams or softer match-ups.
Matchups That Favor the ADC/Support Pairing – LoL Teams that have favorable matchups for their ADC and Supports will be able to control the dragon for most of the game. It’s no secret in the League of Legends world that the reason the Support and ADC are in the bot lane is because the dragon resides at the bottom part of the river near the bot lane. Players know that the team that gains control of the dragon early is almost always the team that gets all the rest of the dragons, baron, and then all the towers. With that come the Nexus and then the win. The strategy is if a team puts 2 people in the bot lane and one of them creates a ton of damage, the support is there to get better control of the dragon to take a lead in bot or against the enemy Jungler. Therefore, this strategy will inevitably increase the teams lead and put the other team at a major disadvantage. This strategy has been around since season 2 of League of Legends and every team builds objective based strategies with their Support and ADC because of it.
Favorable Matchups – Teams will not be a major source of your fantasy points so your research should focus more on which is the better team overall. Pick the team that is favored to win the game with an eye on some of the points made above.

*One other note about drafting your Draftkings LOL “team” position

Do not spend too much of your DraftKings salary cap dollars on the Team position. A heavily favored Team will have a high floor for fantasy points, but it will come at the expense of paying up for a better ADC or MID position.

Stacking & Handcuffing Strategies

Just like playing fantasy football where you pair a QB and WR you can also use stacking in fantasy League of Legends. Since LoL is a team based game, look for players that have favorable matchups and pair them (handcuff them) to the positions that help each other out in the game. We mentioned earlier about picking teams with favorable ADC/Support pairing, well it’s also a great position to stack. If you think an ADC will have 8+ Kills in a game then you may also get 8+ assists from the Support position as well. Handcuffing a top ADC with a SUP from the same team is like picking a Top QB and his number 1 Wide Receiver against a weak secondary defense in fantasy football. It’s an underutilized strategy for fantasy league of legends but one that you should definitely take advantage of.

Other LoL Fantasy Stacks/Handcuffs To Look For

Middle Laner (MID): Consider pairing the MID with either a Top Laner (TOP) or with a Jungler (JNG). The MID is a similar position as the TOP, so MID’s will often go out with the JNG to pick up some kills. MIDS will roam for kills to gain an advantage over the opposing Middle Laner, or the Jungler will come in to earn a kill in their lane. You can find some sweet fantasy value picks with this handcuffing strategy.
Top Laner: Similar strategy as the above pairing, if the TOP shuts down the other opponent early, he will start looking to make points in the mid-lane first or the enemy jungle. The top League of Legends players try to make their kills early, so look for TOP’s that play a strong early game strategy and pair them with their MIDS and/or JNG’s.
Jungler: When you look at all the positions the Jungler seems to fit into the strategies used by their team the most. The Jungler will be used as help to another player on his team in almost every game. You will need to know the style that teams play to know who to pair the JNG with. If the team has a strong bot lane, they may not need much help from the Jungler. If they play a safe and slow style in the bot lane, look for the Top Laner or the MID for added kill/assist fantasy points from them. If your Jungler position goes off, having the Mid Laner or the Top Laner he followed all game will score you some extra kills and assist points. You can also look at doing a 3 man stack with SUP-JNG-ADC on a team that has strong bot and has a good Jungler matchup against a team that likes to go early for dragon control or into team fights. The 3 man stack can be a great value play in your FLEX position when drafting your LOL DraftKings team.

Draftkings League of Legends Scoring Guide

Here is the full point system for Draftkings LOL contests