Betting: February 20th (LCK, LPL)

I know it's been a really weird weekend and beginning to this week but is anybody honestly giving Gen.G a chance here? I think the bigger question is why on earth is this under set at 33:00 when Griffin's average game time this season has been 31:56. If you count the LMS, LCK, LPL, NA, and EU the average game time on patch 9.3 (combined hotfix and not) was 33:52 which was down from 35+ the patch before. So why are we going to bet the unders? Because this is Griffin and this is Gen.G. Gen.G don't deal well with teams that play fast and even with subs in I just can't imagine a world where Griffin don't completely run over Gen.G's anemic early game.

O/U: Map 1 UNDER 33:00 @ +101 (1 unit)

O/U: Map 2 UNDER 33:00 @ +101 (1 unit)

While I think KT Rolster are ever so slowly and slightly trending up I think they're unfortunately going to run into a buzzsaw here in SKT. While they haven't looked as crisp and clean coming out of the break with game losses to Gen.G and Kingzone they're still a top team and KT are still in that weird "are we bad?" phase. KT did take a game off of Sandbox and have had the unfortunate displeasure of facing both Sandbox AND Griffin as their first two games coming out of the break but this feels like an SKT 2-0 to me. 

If you're looking for angles on the KT +1.5 you could make the "Telecom Wars are always good" arguement as well as the SKT have looked sloppy relative to them while KT have looked ever so slightly improved. I don't know I'm just not seeing it. It took a massive throw from Sandbox in game two to even make people consider this. If that game becomes a clinical close like it looked like it could be then we'd be talking about double sub-34 minute victories which is a decisive win in most cases. There is also side selection for KT in their favor.

This match goes one of two ways to me. Either it'll be a swift SKT 2-0 or a 2-1 SKT win but maybe a bit of a rough and tumble slugfest. I'm leaning towards the former despite all of the historic trends saying otherwise. SKT are just miles better than this current KT roster and neither team has looked exceptionally good or bad coming out of the break week even with  SKT's dropped games and KT's tough schedule. They are who they are and I think SKT take this down 2-0 despite the side choice disadvantage AND historic trends saying these Telecom Wars tend towards three games. I tend not to give too much credit to historic trends in league where the teams, attitudes, coaching staffs, etc change frequently.

Handicapped: SKT -1.5 maps @ +112 (1 unit)

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This matchup is mildly interesting to me because I think they're both teams that could be mid tier by seasons end and are playing that way at the moment but it's hard to tell if it's just a favorable metagame for them. I think Victory Five are the better team but not by this much. That said I don't really feel strongly enough either way to make a wager here. If I had to pick a side I'd probably take the underdog Vici for the value but I do think Victory probably win this match.

No wager (lean Vici ML for value)

The toilet bowl... so you could look at this match and say it's similar to Vici/V5 in that it's two teams trying to prove their worth but I think both Vici and V5 look better. Team WE might be the worst team in the league and while I was initially excited after OMG's first few matches they've fallen promptly on their face. WE did 2-0 EDG right before the break but that looked a little like EDG looking forward to the time off. WE was immediately spanked by FunPlus when they returned. Team WE have definitely faced the harder schedule here facing FunPlus, EDG, Suning, and SinoDragon while OMG have faced V5, TopSports, BiliBili, and Invictus but it's fairly similar. Both of these teams have one random spike victory and garbage otherwise. I'd lean toward OMG here because just from the film they look like a slightly better organized team while WE just look like they're playing solo queue but the truth is both of these teams are so bad I'm going to just avoid this one. I might change my mind in the morning and place a light wager on OMG but for the time being we'll pass.

No wager (strong lean OMG ML)