626.

That’s the average damage per minute (DPM) for FlyQuest’s mid laner Loïc "toucouille" Dubois through three weeks of LCS play. Once one of the more-maligned offseason acquisitions, it was assumed that toucouille would languish at the bottom of the pack for LCS mid laners. With juggernauts like Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg, Tristan "PowerOfEvil" Schrage, and Felix "Abbedagge" Braun all in the league, toucouille was expected to struggle. Yet here he is, leading the pack in terms of production for his role.

Currently, toucouille has the second-highest KDA of all players in the LCS (9.6, behind only Bjergsen) and the second most kills (29, behind teammate Johnson "Johnsun" Nguyen). A big part of the reason for that is his massive 626 DPM. 

For context, that 629 DPM is third in the LCS, behind two AD Carries: TSM’s Edward "Tactical" Ra and Evil Geniuses’ Kyle "Danny" Sakamaki. The gap between toucouille and league-leader Tactical (16 DPM difference) is twice the gap between toucouille and fourth-place Abbedagge (35 DPM difference). Toucouille is outpacing just about everyone else in his position by a large margin. But what is most impressive is how he has managed to do it.

Where is toucouille's DPM coming from?

Looking at these numbers, you might expect that toucouille is spamming a lot of games on high-damage mid lane champions like Corki or Viktor. Along with Leblanc, Zoe, and Syndra, those are the top five mids in terms of DPM. And, no surprise, toucouille does have one game on Corki and two on Zoe in his first three weeks of the season. So, there’s an explanation, right? He’s playing high damage champions, “artificially” pumping up his own DPM.

Well, not exactly.

See, Corki is the highest-damage mid laner in the world right now. In the four major regions (LCS, LEC, LCK, and LPL), he has an average 694 DPM over 138 games total. Given that this is a fairly large sample size, it’s reasonable to assume that this is the damage per minute that one would expect from an average Corki player in one of those major regions. In toucouille’s one Corki game, a 38-minute victory over Dignitas in week 3, toucouille posted a 708 DPM, well outperforming the average DPM of the champion.

Toucouille's first six games in 2022 LCS Spring

That one underperformance, of course, came against Team Liquid in their only loss of the year. So it may be reasonable to assume that perhaps toucouille is getting the opportunities to output more damage by virtue of the fact that his team is playing well. After all, if FLY are getting ahead and toucouille is getting gold and item leads early, he’ll be in a position to output more DPM either through better offensive items or with more survivability via defensive items.

There are two problems with that.

First, neither FLY as a team, nor toucouille as an individual, are getting ahead early. At the 15-minute mark, FLY have an average +167 GD@15. Toucouille himself only has a -8 GD@15. So it’s not as though FLY are entering mid game fights with massive advantages. Instead, they’re winning those fights — often from a trailing position in terms of gold — through smart positioning, toucouille included.

Second, even if FLY were in such a winning position, that does not necessarily translate to more damage from their mid laner relative to expectations. For instance, the other 5-1 team’s mid laner, TL Bjergsen, often enters those mid game fights with that advantage. Team Liquid has the second-biggest gold advantage at 15 minutes with a +1286 GD@15. Despite the fact that TL are better positioned early and they’ve won just as much as FLY, Bjergsen’s damage charts don’t line up the way toucouille’s do.

Toucouille's first six games in 2022 LCS Spring

As you can see, in two games Bjergsen actually underperformed relative to expectations (including one game that was actually a win against CLG). In two others, his DPM was negligably higher than expected. In the last two, he did outperform his expected damage, but not to the same lengths as toucouille has (and on one of the same champions no less).

In fact, looking at the Veigar games of Bjergsen and toucouille is quite fascinating, given that they each played the same matchup (Veigar vs. Corki), but entirely differently. For instance, Bjergsen opted into the Corrupting Potion start, which enabled him to get a Lost Chapter at 5 minutes, and then an Everfrost at 12 minutes. On the other hand, toucouille went with a Doran’s Ring start into Tear plus Boots on his first back at four minutes, but was still able to pick up the completed Everfrost at 11 minutes. 

Toucouille also opted to go for Sorcerers Shoes in the game instead of Mercury’s Treads, which Bjergsen opted into. Both faced similar threats in terms of crowd control (facing a support Leona and top Gnar), so this choice certainly contributed to toucouille’s increased DPM. But this is part of a trend that has helped toucouille become one of the highest-damage players in the LCS.

Now all of this isn’t to say that toucouille has been an elite mid laner across the board. His laning has been fairly rough (as evidenced by his negative GD@15). He isn’t doing a stellar job at maximizing his gold income (his 418 GPM is #4 in the league). However, these are areas that can be improved on with better laning, changes to his team’s focus in resource allocation, and improved macro to help capture gold from objectives.

In addition, toucouille’s strong DPM numbers and second-best KDA in the LCS behind only Bjergsen indicate that toucouille is clearly more skilled than most observers gave him credit for entering the season. The sample size may be small, sure, but toucouille is already making a strong case for Rookie of the Split. If he keeps this up, perhaps FLY will convince more fans that they are contenders, not pretenders.