Mar 18
8 min read
2021 Worlds Prep — Unicorns of Love (LCL Seed)
The following is a self-preservation of analysis researched & written by Tom Searfoss for the League of Legends World Championship Broadcast in 2021.
Roster: BOSS, AHaHaCiK, Nomanz, Argonavt, SaNTaS, Frappii (Sub)
Author: Tom Searfoss
Top Takeaways
- 3rd appearance at Worlds, tying them with DFM for most appearances from an emerging region team
- Another roster swap in bot lane, but the team still plays early game focused on solo lanes
- Strong objective control, most effective Baron use in the LCL
- Fastest win time (WT) in the LCL, but games are much longer when they are losing
- Mid laner Nomanz is a statistical stand out with the most SOLO K in LCL
- Support SaNTaS has extremely low DUO PROX, high FWD% and K+A@15
League overview
- The 2021 LCL Summer is an 8 team, double round robin tournament where each match is Bo1
- The Top 5 teams from Summer qualify for the Playoffs
- Each match of playoffs is a Bo5
- 1st seed from the regular season gets a bye into Upper Bracket Round 2
- 2nd seed plays 3rd in the Upper Bracket, while 4th plays 5th in the Lower Bracket
Team overview
- Since 2019, UOL has represented the LCL at 3 international events — this is their 4th
- This is the first time they will be representing LCL at both MSI & Worlds in the same year
- UOL came out of MSI and made a roster swap, keeping Frappii as a sub and dropping Lodik for Argonavt
- Nov. 11th 2019 was the last roster change that did not involve a Bot lane player (EDward out, SaNTaS in)
- This is their 4th bot laner and 3rd this year
- Went 12–2 during the regular season, going 8–0 from match 2 through 9
- UOL went the entire Summer only dropping games to 2 teams
- However, they lost 9 times between those teams, 7 times in playoffs
- Fell into the Lower Bracket after losing 1–3 to CC, needing to reverse-sweep OBG in Round 3 of Playoffs and then play another full 5 game series to be crowned Champions
- Fun fact: UOL are 5–6 against CC in Summer, but won when it counted most
Game Line
- UOL had an 8 game win streak between their first game of Summer and their 2nd game vs OBG
- The LCL was split down the middle, with the Top 4 teams 9 wins or higher while the bottom 4 teams were all under 50.0% WIN%
- UOL dropped games to CC and OBG, but not BSG
- For more info on UOL vs the top teams, check the Breakout section
Players per role
- We include all players who have played 30% or more of the average number of games for a player in the league, for the LCL these are how many players are included in the ranking for each position (rankings are always among position unless otherwise stated):
Analysis
Gold Graphs — regular season + playoffs
Early Game
Early Gold & Objectives
UOL early game gold — regular season + playoffs
- UOL often had large gold leads throughout the game
- They ended 5 games (17.9%) before 25 mins, which accounts for the drop off
UOL early game gold — regular season + playoffs
- UOL did not have the highest early objective control in the LCL
- Their FB% was 2nd to last in the league
- 2nd in FH% with the highest TD@15 go together
- Take Herald, take towers early, get lots of gold for it
- UOL had the 2nd highest T@15 with 0.9, but lowest Opp. T@15 at 0.4
Early Lane Stats
UOL early kill stats — regular season + playoffs
UOL lane phase stats — regular season + playoffs (position rankings)
- UOL have higher KILL stats for the LCL, and are top half in every role
- Ahahacik leads the LCL in K+A@15
- Argonavt being much lower than Santas is because of how much time Santas spends away from lane
- High FWD% across lanes and high CSD numbers show how lane-dominant they are
- Nomanz specifically is a huge part of UOL’s early game leads, topping Mid in most stats
UOL JP numbers — regular season + playoffs (position rankings)
- Ahahacik’s 2nd rank TEAM JP aides his LCL-leading K+A@15
- He also has the highest Opp. JP in the LCL, rating him 5th in JP-D
- Nomanz high JP and JP-D show why he also has high K+A@15
- Meanwhile, Argonaut & Santas are on the low end for LCL
- Argonavt is often left alone by Ahahacik and Santas
Objective control
UOL objective stats — regular season + playoffs
- Kept their Herald control up from early game
- Overall high objective control, which helped them end games quickly
- Used their Baron advantage to great effectiveness (see below)
UOL baron stats — regular season + playoffs
- UOL were the best at closing games out after securing Baron
- It wasn’t always the fastest, but they did it the most
- They killed more opponents during Baron than any other LCL team
Tempo stats
UOL M-LEAD/DEFICIT stats — regular season + playoffs
- As seen from their gold graphs, UOL games were not close early game
- UOL have the lowest CLOSE when compared to Worlds teams
- Faster game time helped these stats stay high (see below)
UOL game time & tempo stats — regular season + playoffs
- UOL’s CK/M was slightly above average for LCL, and is 3rd compared to Worlds teams
- Had the most ACEs per game in the LCL
- There’s a large difference between WT and LT for UOL — 3:42 minutes
- UOL are 10–1 in games that end before their average WT
- They are 9–8 when games go longer than their average WT
Players to watch
Nomanz
UOL Nomanz stats — regular season + playoffs (position rankings)
- Stellar early game stats transition into powerful late game numbers
- Nomanz leads the LCL in DMG/M and SOLO K
- He is also 2nd in DMG/M-D and 3rd in DMG/GOLD
- He is a kill machine — leading the LCL in Total Kills, KILL/G and KILL%
SaNTaS
UOL SaNTaS stats — regular season + playoffs (position rankings)
- Santas leads his role in KDA and VS/M, but his biggest impact is early game
- His KP is the lowest among LCL Supports, despite his earlier high K+A@15
- Santas has the lowest DUO PROX in the LCL
- This is why his K+A@15 is much higher than Argonavt
- It is also why Argonavt has such lower JP, as Santas is moving instead of Ahahacik going towards bot lane
- But his JP is not very high, and his JP-D is also low
Picks to watch
Bans Against UOL
Target bans against UOL — regular season + playoffs
- UOL’s solo lanes draw a lot of focus in the ban phase
- Although potential flex picks, the solo lanes banned have never been swapped
- Irelia, Ryze, Akali are mid lane picks for UOL
Ahahacik as Trundle
Ahahacik champion stats — regular season + playoffs
- Trundle is Ahahacik’s highest KDA Champion
- It is his 2nd highest VS/M Champion, behind 1 game of Viego
Nomanz as Kassadin
Nomanz champion stats — regular season + playoffs
- Kassadin is Nomanz’s highest KDA & DMG/M Champion
SaNTaS as Rakan/Galio
Santas champion stats — regular season + playoffs
- Rakan is Santas’s highest KDA Champion
- Galio is 3rd, behind 1 game of Braum
- Galio is his 2nd lowest DUO PROX Champion, behind 1 game of Leona
Other UOL picks to watch (high PICK or WIN%)
UOL high WIN% or PICK Champions — regular season + playoffs
Breakout (optional)
UOL vs the top half of LCL
As noted above — the LCL was a top-heavy league this Summer with the bottom 4 teams having a total of 15 wins between them. Taking a look at UOL against the top teams in their league gives us a better idea of how they might perform internationally.
UOL vs the other top 4 teams — Record + early gold — regular season + playoffs
- Their games against CC were the most unlike their games against other teams
- They played more games vs CC than the bottom 4 LCL teams combined
- Against OBG, their gold leads expanded, but at a much slower pace than vs the rest of the LCL
- BSG was much more like facing the rest of the LCL, although slower progression from 15–20
UOL vs the other top 4 teams — Early objective control — regular season + playoffs
- Against CC, UOL had to change how they played early objectives
- They were unable to secure FH as often as they normally would
- This caused their FT% to drop and forced them to play for FD
- Without prioritizing Argonavt’s lane vs other teams, they struggled to get their usual early leads
- Against OBG, they took less FD but had their highest FB%
- The top teams of LCL were much better at denying FT from UOL, but not FH
UOL vs the other top 4 teams — Kill stats — regular season + playoffs
- Against the bottom 4 teams, UOL had bloodbath games
- The top teams kept the kill counts down, or close
- vs OBG/BSG, the games were much slower paced for kills
- CC games were still bloody — but UOL were the ones dying more
- CC is the only opponent UOL had a negative K/D against
- The top teams kept the K/D close to the K/D@15 levels
- The rest of the LCL had an almost double K/D late game
- Top teams did not let UOL snowball any advantages with lots of kills
