NLTP NewsRoom Hub - LST vs. INC (B)

The LST B-Team played DOW last week and swept with a +31 cap differential, so that was probably really fun. liu kang hasn't shown up yet so I wonder what's happening there though. Even without him, this lineup looks strong.

INC on the other hand got swept by BAP but only ended up with a -8 cap differential, so the games were close. I wasn't really high on the INC offense besides LogisticMap, and last week didn't really assuage those concerns, with an average score rate.

Two teams with opposite trajectories, will INC catch up to them or will LST leave them in the dust?

Winning three halves, tying another half, and still losing two games sucks for INC, but sometimes that's how the cookie crumbles. A very strong first game that they won by seven was followed by two close losses by three caps combined. For LST, a couple of caps in the last couple of minutes in G2H2 and G3H2 got them the wins they needed to take the series and still remain at the top of the standings.

The INC offense seemed to come alive this week, with Logi and PTF combining for 11 caps and 893 hold, with Logi getting an 89.7 ONISH and PTF following that up with a 78.2 ONISH. Meanwhile flaccid trip, Jarek, and Borgus combined for 11 caps and 1081 hold, with the best ONISH out of the LST offenders being the 73.1 ONISH belonging to flaccid trip. BirdReynolds switched to offense this week and got 299 hold and four caps for a 67.9 ONISH, so a nice week for the position-switcher. The INC offense looked to be better than LST this week.

The LST defense really seems to love prevent, with Bert, Prime, and Skitter combining for 1910 prevent, while the INC defenders combined for 1693 prevent. On the flip side, the INC defense combined for 130 returns, while the LST defense combined for 108 returns, which can either be a result of LST having more prevent or maybe that INC was more comfortable returning instead of preventing. im a goat was INC's best defender with the 96.2 DNISH, while Bert got the 89.7 DNISH as LST's best defender. Skitter fell hard, from getting 1065 prevent and 40 returns last week to just 637 prevent and 24 returns. I guess that's what happens when you don't play DOW.

INC had 23 more tags and 33 more returns than LST, while LST had 245 more prevent than the INC squad, which probably came as a result of LST getting 16 more pups than INC. More pups probably leads to flags being kept in base for longer, especially if you have a TP or a juke juice, so those extra pups probably helped pump those prevent numbers up. INC came dead last in pups for this week, while LST led the week. LST having a lower score rate than INC surprises me a little bit, but then I see that LST had 34 more grabs than INC and that makes some sense. LST also had a really high F/G at 0.3347, compared to INC's F/G of 0.2837, which was near the lower end of the spectrum.

When it came to Table B, LST was pretty good with their NDPs, and had 10 more NRTs than INC. INC combatted that with a better KD, 19 more quick returns, and 17 more returns in base. That in turn led to INC having higher RIB% and QR% than LST, with a 2% increase for RIB and 3% increase for QR. LST also had the second-highest P/R, and the second-highest Chain%, but of course INC had the highest Chain% so that pretty much canceled out. If I could really glean some things from this match, it was that LST seems to be more prevent-based, and are really good at getting pups, but at the same time they are susceptible to handoffs and struggle once the flag is out of base. For INC, they really need to get pups, because to me it felt like the pups killed them in G2 and G3. In G2, INC got 14 pups to LST's 22, and as a result got outscored 7-9 on TPs. In G3, INC got outscored 14-22 on pups again, but this time they got lucky as both teams got four TPs. This is an issue that needs to be rectified, which is weird because last week against BAP they won the pup battle.

When I'm trying to pick player of the match winners, I kind of gravitate towards the two-way players, because they dip their toes in both sides of the tiles, which ends up impacting the team more. For this reason, I took Prime, due to his two-way abilities. He had 545 prevent and 41 returns, while also capping three times. When a defender has a 10% score rate, it's pretty impressive. Two of his caps came in G2H2 when LST was trying to win their first game of the series, and LST ended up winning that half 5-4, so I feel like Prime's impact on defense and offense was crucial to LST winning the series.

CONCLUSION

Another series with close matchups, and in the end LST took the series with close wins in G2 and G3. INC shouldn't hang their head though, their offense seems to be working fine, as evidenced by their seven-cap victory in G1. I thought LST was sort of a one-hit wonder due to playing DOW in their first week, kind of like how Gateful Dead's B-Team seemed to be amazing after playing New Pingland's B-Team the first week of S17, but then Gateful turned out to be mediocre and REV's B-Team was just really bad. But LST seems to be a decent team. Perhaps I judged Bert too harshly.