You don’t have to be a hard core gamer to get nostalgic about video game competition. eSports may seem to be the newest hobby sweeping the world, but there was a time when video game manufacturers sponsored tournaments to crown the best player. In 1990 the Nintendo World Championships were touring the United States, holding the finals at Universal Studios Hollywood. Look back even further to 1980 when Atari was holding The Space Invaders Championship, attracting 10,000 competitors.
Nowadays the medium has changed but the spirit of competition is much the same. Exploding with the rise of broadband internet, eSports competitions are primarily broadcast on Twitch.tv where they draw viewership in the millions. With marque players and teams competing, adding daily fantasy to the mix was a perfect pairing.
We’ve modeled our daily fantasy eSports projections in the same manner with which we simulate more conventional sports. While making sure to keep track of the popular players like Faker and MaRin, we look for the value spots by scouring the numbers in our database to identify lesser know players from lesser known regions in order to build the most +EV entries for both cash and tournament play.
eSports Fantasy Lineups
eSports tournaments pit two teams against each other which generally consist of five players who will then each select a character to compete as in the tournament. A snake draft is most often used to accomplish this.
Points are then awarded during game play with different scoring metrics employed depending on the game being played. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each team and player as well as the strategy they are most likely to adopt during game play are key to finding success when setting your fantasy lineups.
Luckily for the DFS Doctors, we’ve found that the eSports community keeps accurate statistics for all previous competitions and have constructed a model to predict output in terms of fantasy points.
League of Legends DFS
The most popular eSport today is known by it’s acronym LoL. Let us assure you, it’s no laughing matter competing in this multiplayer online battle arena. This Riot Games production holds the title of most played PC game since 2012.
The goal of LoL is to destroy the opposing teams “nexus”, in what amounts to a digital age capture the flag. Tournament matches are played on one of four main maps or “Fields of Justice” with the most popular being “Summoner’s Rift”.
The majority of League of Legends DFS contests will focus on games played within Summoner’s Rift as it contains many secondary objectives which are used for scoring.
Dota 2 Fantasy League
The sequel to Defense of the Ancients, this free-to-play title was released for PC gamers in 2013. Matches involve two teams of five players which each player controlling a character known as a “Hero”.
It is the goal of each team of Heroes to destroy the other teams “Ancient” which is the headquarters of the opposition, again not unlike an electronic version of capture the flag. As competitors are given 110 potential Heroes to chose from, setting your Dota 2 fantasy league can make your head spin.
Our projections are the remedy to this ailment, as we’ve broken down the statistics into an easy to understand format.
