Giants -119 @ Splyce -111
ROCCAT -294 @ H2k +204
Team Vitality -137 @ G2 eSports +103
Misfits -333 @ Unicorns of Love +235
Fnatic -152 @ FC Schalke 04 +113
I'm going to admit that I'm using more intuition than usual on this specific slate with a couple of close games between good squads. I haven't been doing that with EU as I have been, albeit sparingly, with other regions. I think a mixture of metrics, logic, and intuition are what makes for the strongest collection of calls but I'm throwing a little more of the special sauce in for this Friday. I'd advise that If you don't feel strongly either way on the FNC/S04, VIT/G2, or GIA/SPY matchups then feel free to abstain. Maybe I'm just bored because there was no LCK or LPL this week so don't say I didn't warn you.
Moneyline: G2 eSports +103 (6 units PICK OF THE WEEK!)
(UPDATE: Added 2 units 20 minutes into the game. G2 avoided the early game cheese, got Tristana through lane against Kalista, and collected both first blood and first brick. They're in control of this game. 2 units G2 -175)
I have a number of reasons why this is my pick of the week but perhaps the most important one is that I feel G2 are the better team and Vitality are due for a hard crash in the second half and I believe it starts here.
- G2 get side selection for this series which will allow them to punish the shove / safe outer lane draft with either hyper scaling (like Misfits did with Kogmaw) or lane bullies.
- Vitality have been good but they aren't going to end the season with 2.3 losses like they're on pace for. This team is significantly better than I anticipated going into the season but they're still not a dominant team and should not be favored by this much against the second best team in Europe.
- G2 has looked excellent going LWWWW in their last five with the loss to Fnatic, the top team in Europe.
- Vitality's only loss was to Misfits who showed an effective strategy to beat Vitality. Misfits are a good team. Fnatic were not good team when they played against Vitality and in their games around their matches against Vitality. They were struggling with figuring out themselves more than Vitality was necessarily beating them.
- We've only see Vitality stand up to two hard tests in Schalke and Misfits.
- Perkz is better than Jiizuke, the main focus of Vitality, in every way besides inflated statistics.
- G2 have the advantage at ADC, Support, combined bot lane synergy, mid lane, and jungle. Thop is roughly a push with both top laners struggling at times this season but capable of much better performances.
- G2 know how to play uptempo which is going to make the draft challenging for Vitality especially because G2 has side selection.
- As mentioned above, Team Vitality are, in fact, as good as their record but we're now heading into the second half. Teams have film on them and all the good squads have figured out their glitches and worked out their identities and most are hitting their stride which includes G2.
I think the combination of all of these points would normally make this my Pick of the Month but my dumb ass already labeled one. This is going to be the same wager. Make yourselves some money people!
Result: WIN (+12.18 units)
G2 eSports just about perfect-gamed Vitality. It also confirmed pretty much every major point I made to justify this wager. Sometimes you get wins and it doesn't happen the way you think but this happened exactly as I thought it would. Vitality tried to cheese and G2 didn't fall for it. This game was a perfect example of the risky, all-in style that Vitality play being punishable by great teams. Vitality were powerless to make anything happen against Galio + Gangplank, two bans they'll need to spend every game if they aren't going to pick them because G2 just showed the EU LCS another way to beat Vitality. Two different tools for other teams use. Globals to punish aggressive dives and hyper scaling bot lane to get free farm as a way to punish the disturbingly passive Vitality bot lane. They're getting figured out folks!
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Moneyline: Splyce -111 (3 units)
I'm a little reliant on regression both ways here which is a fancy way of saying I just have a "gut" feeling about this game. The numbers paint a different picture. Giants have been a fairly strong early game team with an EGR (Early Game Rating) of 55.3 while Splyce have been far below average at 34.6 which is more than 5 points behind the next worst and only 4 points ahead of the absymal H2K. That being said a lot of these numbers have been skewed by a couple of extremely cheesy jungle starts including one last week by Vitality jungler Gilius who did (from red side) red buff->raptors-> walk bottom for gank at level 2 which is extremely inefficient and unlikely. From that advantage Vitality were able to snowball the game. On the other hand Splyce have been the best late game team besides Vitality in the EU LCS and by a fair margain (15+ MLR vs 7 for 3rd place and 33.1 for Vitality in 1st). Splyce have the tools to handle a Giants team that establishes most of it's early game rating from CS differentials not from "big plays" or risks. In other words, Giants get their leads from individuals, particularly the solo lanes, while Splyce have lost their early games to big, risky plays. These ratings are useful but require some context. I think Splyce can stall this game out and do their thing late. I'm a tad heavier than I should be based on that alone as a reason but this is like a 1 unit (logic) + 1 unit (regression both ways) + 1 unit (gut feeling).
Result: NOTHING! Comically my ticket didn't process for this wager and I had already moved on to my next one so it never happened. Would have been a 5.7 unit win.
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Moneyline: Misfits -333 (4 units)
Moneyline: UNDER 37:00 @ -133 (1 unit)
(UPDATE: I've added a live hedge to this bet. I really like the UOL composition and that alone could win them this game whether they outplay Misfits or not. 0.5 units on UOL @ +326 would recover some of our losses if comp alone wins this)
Misfits had a week they'd like to forget this past weekend. They had a 4 dragon, 9k+ gold lead on Giants and just hard threw the game which helped our bankroll but did not justify the wager. They then went on to get "perfect" gamed by ROCCAT. It was more of a ROCCAT win than a Misfits loss as bad as that sounds considering they got shutout but good teams have had bad weeks in the past. We probably wouldn't be talking about this team in "free fall" if they had won that Giants match and moved to 5-3. This is a combination of two main factors: Unicorns of Love just plain suck and Misfits AT WORST are average and at best are a top 3 team. I should probably start a subsection of these picks for "psychological edge" because this is a "get right" game for Misfits after a miserable showing against ROCCAT and an bad throw against Giants and the Unicorns of Love are the perfect target dummy to beat on. Misfits should stomp this game. As a matter of fact I'll be taking the under in this game as well.
Result: WIN (+5.2 units)
Result: WIN (+1.75 units)
Result (In Game): LOSS
I second guessed myself here so I didn't quite make out how I thought but Misfits absolutely rolled this game even with their 1.5 carry comp. Galio can just snowball games ridiculously hard. All told we won 6.45 units for a net of +1.45 units.
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Moneyline: ROCCAT -294 (4 units)
Moneyline: UNDER 37:00 @ -133 (1 unit)
You know this would normally be a perfect spot for an upset win. ROCCAT riding high after a perfect game against a tilted Misfits team is the perfect setup for a "let down" game but I think even if ROCCAT play at 75% of last weeks capacity they'll stomp this dumpster fire of an H2K team. I had H2K winning two more games the entire season and this COULD be one of them but I think it's more likely that they win one more game. This team is really bad and have a rookie player learning an entirely new roll on the fly. I also think it's a pretty bad matchup for H2K. ROCCAT have shown unbelievable macro game from both ahead and behind which means that even if H2K jumped out to a lead I don't trust them to be able to close it. ROCCAT have the superior bot lane with Norskeren really coming into his own, stronger jungle in solid veteran Memento, and a major advantage in top lane with the red hot Profit against the "how is he still in the league" SmittyJ. Mid lane is the only real question mark. To me it's a 50/50 even if you're really down on Blanc and really high on Selfie. There's a reason he wasn't picked up by anyone until now folks and while sometimes that chip on the shoulder can mean something I don't think it's enough here. With how well ROCCAT have been as a macro team both early and late and how many mistakes H2K are likely to make with this roster still getting it's feet under it (will they ever?) I'm comfortable taking the under as well.
Result: LOSS
Result: WIN (+3.5 units)
This was 100% an oversight on my part. I didn't see before leaving yesterday afternoon that Shook would be replacing Caedrel in the jungle. Had I known this I would have bumped this down to a 2 unit wager. A veteran presence that has jumped in on short notice with success before would have fixed at least some of the issues this team has. Tough way to lose but had I done a better job it would've been a smaller loss.
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Moneyline: Fnatic -152 (3 units)
I'm a tad conflicted on this one. On one hand I think Schalke will finish the season strongly and are due to start winning their way towards the top but Fnatic are also coming off their strongest week and seem to finally be looking like the elite team they should be. Rekkles and Hyli are going to have their way with rookie Upset. Caps and Nukeduck should be an excellent matchup to watch seeing as I think they're the second and third strongest mids in the region overall and are both playing at a high level at the moment. I will give a slight edge to Schalke's top side of the map but barely. I just can't look past the bottom lane. People like to think the apprentice/rookie can outperform the master in these types of situations but with how Rekkles looked last week it seriously appears as though he can just decide if he wants to win a game. I'm expecting the wet blanket for Upset. He's been very good overall but has made a lot of really dumb, meaningless positioning mistakes too and that's going to be punished. I'm maybe a tad heavy on this but it's about time for Fnatic to be cementing themselves atop the EU LCS and I think they'll be in or tied for first after this weekend.
Result: WIN (+4.97 units)
This was a close game but the trinity force + 2nd item spikes and a huge baron fight win ended the game 30 seconds later. Schalke was competitive in this game and Upset actually looked excellent but this was a draft issue. IF Schalke didn't snowball this game it was going to be really really hard for an AP Galio to defeat double ADC.
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TCL (Turkish Champions League) February 16th:
Royal Bandits -556 @ Galakticos +350
Team AURORA +340 @ SuperMassiveTNG -556
Dark Passage -400 @ HWA Gaming +266
YouthCrew +210 @ 1907 Fenerbahce -303
I don't normally bet the TCL but the region, similar to the LPL, has extremely fast games especially when heavy favorites are involved.
Moneyline: Royal Bandits @ Galakticos UNDER 33:00 @ -116
Moneyline: Team AURORA @ SuperMassiveTNG UNDER 33:00 @ -116
Moneyline: Dark Passage @ HWA Gaming UNDER 34:00 @ -116
Result: WWL, 0.5 unit wagers on each, Total payout +0.72 units
Fenerbahce tend to play more slowly with an average game time over 38 minutes despite a good record. That's 5 minutes slower than the second slowest team. I'll take the unders for a half unit each on these other games and will likely parlay them for 0.2 units.
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