The first week of GNL Season 14 is underway and so is fantasy. Here’s a list of all 38 entries we have this season:
Below I’ll list the most common picks and share some thoughts. I also made a silly prediction model based on the past performance of every player in GNL. I use this to try to predict the value for each player when it comes to fantasy league. My model made good picks two seasons ago, but failed really hard last season, so basically it’s meaningless, but fun. Based on all of GNL history It predicts that the following 20 players are the most valuable fantasy picks this season.
Adept
- Penguin 26.3%
- NorthDrakkar 15.8%
- Totoro 13.2%
Penguin being a popular pick isn’t surprising at all: They have the highest MMR in the whole league, and had a strong performance in FOML a few months ago. Penguin is one of the most popular picks this season in fantasy. NorthDrakkar is another expectedly popular pick, with very high MMR and a fun play style. Totoro stands out as a surprisingly popular pick here. They’re a GNL rookie, and the lowest MMR of all adept players. Rookies can be unpredictable though so Totoro is someone to keep an eye on.
Interestingly none of those players are top picks according to my model, which likes Pischner best, out of all the players in the adept group. But honestly I think the model might need tweaking and Madoka is the best pick here due to his consistency of playing almost every week in every season of GNL. Also shoutout Oldgreg who has an insane 12-5 match record in his GNL career. If he plays every week he’ll be one of the best picks in this whole league. Also if he plays undead instead of random.
Diamond
- StrsNStripes 21.1%
- BurrowRush 15.8%
- veS/Longjacket 13.2%
No surprises in the top two spots here. BurrowRush has played the most seasons of GNL, with this being his 10th, and has proven to be a very solid player. SnS is just a monster in GNL, with a total record of 17-7 in GNL matches. He somehow keeps convincing captains his MMR is real. Will that change this season? I don’t see why it would, so he is the highest value pick in all of fantasy.
Longjacket is a surprisingly popular pick for the same reason as Totoro: They’re new to GNL. But at the same time Longjacket has been training hard and made the finals of FOML last season, so the popularity makes sense there. veS seems like a safe pick, this being their third season of GNL.
Shoutout to Barlenn and Tarmok who are vastly underappreciated in this tier. Tarmok was only picked twice, and Barlenn wasn’t picked at all, which is just insane for someone with a 68% winrate over 7 seasons. My model thinks Barlenn is the third most valuable player in the entire league, so it’s insane that they weren’t picked to any fantasy team. Maybe SnS just gobbled up all the Barlenn picks… he did mine.
Platinum
- ThaGrinchyUNO 31.6%
- Kage 15.8%
- Dorfta/Floss2xdaily/TLebbet/SeanMcnabb 7.9%
Again no huge surprises here. Grinchy is one of the most popular people in GNL, and everyone loves to cheer him on. Only one player got picked more than Grinchy (see Bronze tier). He’s also one of the most consistent performers in terms of fantasy league players, ranking 13th. Kage is also a well known GNL veteran with a reputation for preparing for opponents. He’s always a reliable fantasy pick, and ranks 16th in my model.
I think there are some potentially very high value picks in this group. ROBOTNINJA has been wrecking people in practice games but was only picked twice for fantasy. Similarly Manadog has some serious mechanical skill and is poised to make huge leaps this season, but was only picked by one player (Wizzer).
Gold
- Kennyg6050 18.4%
- A bunch of other people
This is a really interesting group because it’s so evenly spread. Kenny does stand out a bit at the top, but even he got picked less than 20% of the time, which is the lowest of any top pick. This tier being so evenly spread could make for some swingy results.
My model really likes SoftIceCream (2nd overall) and it’s easy to see why: He’s played in 8 seasons of GNL, plays a match almost every week, and wins nearly 60% of the time.
Silver
- Slayday 31.6%
- Superrman/lanaishot/paintherisen 10.5%
I’m just repeating myself at this point and there are more groups here than I thought so I’m kinda running out of gas. Slayday popular guy! High winrate! Pick Slayday!
It’s interesting superman and lanaishot got picked this much, since they’re both rookies. Maybe word is getting around that the broodwar players are smurfing and will be money in fantasy. I wouldn’t be surprised.
Paintherisen also seems like a really safe pick, even if my model doesn’t appreciate him yet because this is only his second season. In his first season he played 4 of 5 playweeks, and playing a lot is the most valuable stat for fantasy.
Also shoutout to Dekker who only got picked by one person, and that person must be very intelligent because Dekker almost always wins at least one map, which makes him a machine at generating consistent fantasy points.
Bronze
- KurtRussell 34.2%
- EAShibby 13.2%
- Nili 10.5%
And the most popular pick this season of fantasy is KurtRussell! Friendly guy, second highest MMR of all bronze players (EWAR is highest), and star of many good movies. It all makes sense. Has tax season robbed him of his sanity though? We’ll soon find out.
EAShibby seems like a good pick here. He’s only in his second season of GNL but performed very well last time and seems active in the gym voice chats. And everyone knows that voice chat activity in the gym server is highly correlated with MMR increases.
Nili is another new player with crazy strong mechanics from playing other RTS games. There are a few of them in this tier. Players like this are going to make for a really exciting season, and all seem like great fantasy picks too because of their potential to increase in skill level quickly throughout the season.
Grass
- C0llosi 26.3%
- Doodledoodle 21.1%
- Ice 15.8%
This one is a little skewed because the fantasy sign-up form had some bugs. C0llosi somehow ended up in the grass tier even though he has 1600 MMR… so everyone picked him. Makes sense. Too bad player tiers are meaningless in terms of matchmaking so he’s not going to be playing other grass players. Still seems like a very solid fantasy pick though, even if he’s playing against other players at his MMR. Guy is good!
Ice is back for his sophomore GNL season after taking a short break. He went 5-0 in matches last time and was the solo reason I won fantasy that season. It’s not rigged.
Team
Not much to see here. Pretty even split between the four teams.
Race
This one is a little more interesting. We all know human is imba this patch, but presumably all the humans have collected their free MMR by now and will have stabilized back to a 50% win rate at their new ranks.
My model predicts the following stats by race:
So basically UD>Orc>Human>Elf>Random. My model has been hilariously wrong at these race predictions before though, so who knows. Many of the highest win rate players in the league are Undead (SnS, Barlenn, OldGreg), so it’s usually a safe bet.
Random is always a fun YOLO pick because hardly anyone plays it so every map matters a ton. Every week Random usually finishes first or last in race win rate…. And it’s usually last unfortunately. It’s a fun gamble though.