Betting: January 14th (LPL)

LOL Pro League (China) - January 14th

First bet of the 2019 season is going to have to get out a bit early as I'll be on the road this weekend. I'll be slightly adjusting release schedule this season a bit. Picks will be coming out a few hours later than they were last year. There's a few reasons for this but for the most part I think it will be easier to have a consistent release schedule if I aim for evenings instead of afternoons. Things happen. I'll have my LCK, NA LCS, and EU LCS Pre-Season Power Rankings coming out next week (LCK hopefully Monday). Anyway, on with the selections!

Anybody that watched Knight last year could have told you he was this good but a superstar mid laner does not a great team make so why are people so hype on TopSports? Firstly we have LGD analyst Quanquan going over his rankings on a video uploaded to Bilibili. (here is the actual video) Obviously this guy is doing this for a living and sees these players in scrims more than I do but I tend to think Loken and Ben's experience as a bot lane could prove worthwhile. For the most part I agree with most of his ideas in this but I also think simply grading players individually to a total score isn't always an accurate representation of that team. We see this in football with Pro Football Focus' player rankings and ratings all the time. While they may be accurate it doesn't necessarily mean the team will be good. Secondly I think people tend to be really hype about the "next great player" which, in this case, is Knight and people tend to overrate that a bit.

So it may seem like I'm a bit of a wet blanket regarding TopSports but I actually do think they'll be a Top 4 team this split. Are they in the same tier as Invictus? I don't think so. To me they're the best of the rest and IG and RNG are just a cut above everyone until proven otherwise.

Some points to consider with these two teams:

• Invictus has never been a team to have slow starts and/or not "care" about regular season (see Gen.G/Samsung). They literally lost two best of threes in BOTH the Spring and Summer split combined last year. TWO! 
• Invictus have the continuity advantage bringing back the same lineup as last year.
• TopSports are going to have their growing pains with this new roster even if they are a Top 4 team.
• Individually there is potential for TopSports to "cancel" out Rookie with Knight. These are two of the best individual players in the world and I'm looking forward to the two of them duking it out this season. Invictus have the advantage in every other position and a dramatic one in top lane.
• Potential revenge factor here for TopSports after their loss in the Demacia Cup a couple weeks ago.
• Fatigue or "hangover" potential for the World Champs if you believe in that.

I really want to like TopSports here but I just can't bring myself to bet against the champs. I'm not a believe in championship "hangovers" in any sport and anecdotally there's absolutely no real evidence supporting them in most sports and competitive activities. In League specifically the champs often come back just as solid but tail off a bit in the middle of the year from fatigue. I was originally going to place a small moneyline wager on TopSports here but I'm instead going to go two units on the IG moneyline and a half unit on the -1.5 handicap. I wouldn't fault anybody for taking TopSports here but I just can't bring myself to do it.

Moneyline: Invictus Gaming -233 (2 units)

Handicapped: Invictus -1.5 maps @ +122 (0.5 units)

---------------------------------------------------------------

FunPlus Phoenix are another team that's been hyped a bit with the acquisition of stud mid laner and leader DoinB. Adding him to a team that really struggled from the mid lane with the aging Cool giving it one last go could be a huge improvement. I'm still skeptical but DoinB has a history of leading rosters he's on to overperform. He's one of the most vocal and charasmatic leaders in the world of League of Legends and I expect that to be the case here as long as his health holds up.

Rogue Warriors on the other hand are a completely revamped squad. On one hand I love when a team opts to bring in fresh new blood instead of just trying to rebuild with one or two pieces of an old team. It's almost always a trap and rarely ends up working out.With the amount of players in China any up and coming young talent is always promising but historically it hasn't been as productive as you'd think. 

To me this comes down to whether or not you trust the "fresh blood" approach Rogue Warriors are taking. Truth be told I simply don't know enough about most of these Rogue Warriors players to have a great read on them. The things I do know:

• Top laner Jiangqiao is formerly Betsy, not the LMS Betsy. 
• Killua is the only remaining member of the previous LPL roster
• Most of these players were on Rogue Warriors developmental team the Sharks.

So it's not like these are a random hodge podge of players. Most of them played together in the challenger scene and Killua has LPL experience to guide them so it's not an absolute given that this team will be one of the worst in the LPL but if I'm being honest, I look at the improvements made by a lot of these squads and it looks rather grim for the previously mighty Rogue Warriors. They're in "rebuild" mode and unless you believe that will happen a lot more quickly than I do, which I won't rule out, then this is EASY money with FunPlus.

FunPlus were a middling team last year but landed a potential prize in DoinB if he can stay healthy and lead this team. They'll be fired up and ready to go. They've got a great leader, continuity, and experience on their side as well as a relatively disappointing season last year and I expect them to come out the gates firing. One last thing of note is that if the metagame is heavily dependent on individual lanes as I think it will be, FunPlus were surprisingly good in that style last year. The current metagame suits the way they played last year. Does that mean they'll play that way? Not necessarily but it's just another reason to like their side here.

Moneyline: FunPlus Phoenix -270 (3 units)

Handicapped: FunPlus -1.5 maps @ +110 (1 unit)