Betting: February 24th (LCK, LPL, NA LCS)

LCK Spring 2019 W5D5:

We talked about this matchup a bit on The Ignite Podcast this week and Kalvin @RulerrSama made a really good point about DAMWON in that, against the elite teams, they don't play like their normal, confident and aggressive selves. So the question is whether or not you think they can break that trend of take the fight to SKT or not. I'm betting on not. The last time these teams met SKT won 2-1. The weird draft by SKT kind of spoon-fed a win to DAMWON. Credit it where it's due but SKT came right back in game three and took care of business. 

DAMWON have faced and 2-0'd their last three opponents HLE, Jin Air, and Afreeca but two of those teams look like absolute dumpster fires right now so how much credit do we really want to give them. Before that they got stomped by Kingzone and played a slugfest against Sandbox. SKT have won four series in a row but they haven't been the cleanest themselves either dropping games to Gen.G and Kingzone.

I don't think there's a real "momentum" advantage to either squad here I just think SKT are a much better team despite being really close in the standings currently. DAMWON have gotten at least partially figured out and Nuguri inparticular has been exposed a few times now. Do I think DAMWON have been solved and they're due to crash and burn? No. DAMWON are a good team and they'll be in the playoff conversation but SKT are pretty clearly, to me at least, in their own class above the rest of the LCK but below Griffin. DAMWON have gotten by on just having superior players to other teams but they don't have superior players to SKT so I just don't think they'll get an advantage that way. You could spin that the other way and explain that that is a reason to take the dogs here but I'll be on SKT to soundly 2-0. We're not going to see a number like this for SKT very often the rest of the season especially with the metagame moving towards a place that's even more pro-Teddy. There's just too many things to deal with against this roster.

Moneyline: SK Telecom -169 (4 units)

Handicapped: SKT -1.5 maps @ +174 (1 unit)

I'd been loving Hanwha Life but the series they played on Friday against DAMWON was really bizarre. A 21 minute loss? Did you really just let that happen? It wasn't like a flukey level one or anything it just got blown wide open around the 11 minute mark. Maybe it was the lineup change I don't know but based on what we saw from this squad the rest of the season I'm going to consider that match a bit of an outlier. Hanwha have been pretty clearly better than the bottom dwellers with 2-0 victories over Gen.G, Jin Air, and Afreeca. They also have a 2-0 against Kingzone and the weird 0-2 loss to DAMWON both in the last nine days. 

Afreeca.... oh Afreeca who are you? After an embarassing game one loss to Sandbox where they had a lead and looked completely confused on how to slam it home they came out and blew Sandbox out of the water in games two and three playing a complete change of pace uptempo style. So the question is, as we also talked about on the podcast, is that who Afreeca will be moving forward? Did a light just switch on for them or was that just the coaches lighting a fire under their ass for that day? Along the same lines is Hanwha really that much worse than Sandbox? In the standings it sure looks like it but we've discussed a lot about how Sandbox have holes in their game that haven't been exposed and Afreeca didn't even expose them and still won. 

There's a lot of questions with Afreeca. I desperately want this team to be good. Kiin and UCal are too talented to not carry a team to playoffs but this team legitimately looks lost when they have a lead unless the game happens to push them in the direction of winning. Hanwha on the other hand are well-coached and kind of the opposite. They lack the players (besides Tempt apparently...) to overwhelm you so they have to be more than the sum of their parts. 

I hate to say it but I think Afreeca might turn back into a pumpkin here. I'm not going to change my analysis of them based on one series and while I'd like nothing more than to see them completely stomp Hanwha tonight and make things interesting I can't help but think this goes the complete opposite direction. I'll be placing light wagers on this match but I think Hanwha is the correct side.

Moneyline: Hanwha Life -159 (1 unit)

Handicapped: Hanwha -1.5 maps @ +165 (0.25 units)

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LPL Spring 2019 W5D5:

So I'm not saying OMG is a good team. They did look better towards the end of last year and decently in the first few series this season but they've been pretty bad since. That said, JD haven't really impressed me either. They've had a few surprising series so far, inparticular their upset win over Invictus before the break, but they've largely been very mediocre. JD are somewhere in the mid tier and it's yet to be decided. So far I'd say they're like more D-Tier if we were doing A through E. Definitely better than the awful teams but not proving enough to convince me they're really in the middle of the table yet. OMG I have as in that E-tier but they started the season closer to C. I don't know this is a tough game to call because I really don't think OMG have been that great but the truth is I don't think JD should be -417 favorites over ANYONE especially without side selection.

We'll be firing on OMG here mostly for line value. I don't think JD is that much better than anybody. It's not a statement in faith of OMG but they've shown signs of life this season and JD, while better, isn't this much better than even the worst teams.

Moneyline: OMG +275 (1 unit)

This series is a head scratcher. Both teams have looked good sometimes and horrible others. I actually think SinoDragon should be just short of favored here and that sounds kinda crazy but hear me out because this is how we got an edge with Victory 5 this morning as well. 

BiliBili play more like a Korean team which isn't all the different from last year other than the players so this isn't some sort of revelation. They play a great macro game when ahead and know how to choke you out of a game but where they struggle is against team fighting teams that manage to get any kind of lead. BiliBili have a tendency to just get run over. Now against a team that I'd consider similar to SinoDragon in Victory 5, BiliBili were able to get and maintain a lead and just strangle them out of the game but against yet another similar team in JDG they were just overpowered. 

BiliBili have the individual players to be able to stand up to SDG and not get completely run over but we've also seen this team lose outright to OMG. We're betting a little on BiliBili's inconsistency and a little on the stylistic mismatch here. I don't think BiliBili should be favored by this much here. Are they deservedly favorites? Probably but just not by this much. We'll be putting a unit on SinoDragon as value dogs.

Moneyline: SinoDragon +125 (1 unit)

If you exclude their most recent win, a surprise 2-0 of Suning, Rogue Warriors look like one of the worst teams in the league. ZWuji and Killua are a great bottom lane and perhaps ZWuji is the next great Chinese ADC but overall this team has looked pretty bad. The question is how much stock do we put into their win over Suning which is ultimately a judgement decision on your part. I'll give you my take on it which is that Suning didn't look like themselves. They looked uncharacteristically lazy and got punished for it and I think the shock of actually dropping game one might have scared them off in game two. I expect Suning to bounce back but this isn't a Suning thread....

Rogue Warriors might not be quite as bad as I think but I still don't think they're a great team. EDG also took care of Suning on Friday morning and while they struggled against the Uzi-equipped RNG last week have appeared to have a strong grasp on the metagame showing the ability to play split push as well as traditional 5v5. EDG look like EDG has looked for the past few years; an LPL team that will be a playoff contender with a ceiling to be more than that. As an added bonus ClearLove actually looked really good in his first two games back in the lineup including a saucey win on Skarner!

I actually love the 2-0 here but I'm a tad skeptical that RW might be a tad better than I'm giving them credit for so I'm going to be limiting this wager to a single unit. I think EDG should be able to break serve and then take game two down as well. EDG are a top five team and RW are likely bottom five and EDG don't really have a stylistic weakness that I've seen thus far.

Handicapped: EDG -1.5 maps @ -133 (1 unit)

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NA LCS Spring 2019 W5D2:

I don't know why Golden Guardians played into that weird Clutch draft yesterday but I'm going to pretend it didn't happen. On the podcast we were all pretty much in universal agreement and John @TheEsportsPlug even made this his pick of the week. Screw the "Rush doesn't lose on Sunday" narrative. I'm going to keep betting this until everyone realizes it's just an anomaly and not an actual thing. I also think Golden Guardians are the better team anyway. They better at every position individually. You could argue the bottom lanes are even based solely on Apollo and Hakuho being together for so long but with the meta trending in Deftly's favor and  hopefully a more standard draft coming in this game I just can't see how GG don't obliterate Echo Fox. It would take a heroic performance by Rush to get his lanes ahead and I'm going to bet against that. This is a slam dunk for me. I'll be putting my best of one maximum three units on this one even with the weird performance yesterday. 

Moneyline: Golden Guardians +104 (3 units)

OpTic and Clutch are just so tough to get a read on. OpTic played the split push well against 100 Thieves but 100 Thieves also left themselves totally exposed to it in the draft with no real engage tool available to them something that I feel could be remedied easily. Clutch took a match convincingly over GG yesterday. I don't really know what to think here. My gut tells me Clutch is the right side but I haven't had a good read on these two all season so we're going to abstain from this game.

No wager

Cloud 9 is the right side but this is too rich. I know we took CLG "for value" yesterday but I think Cloud 9 are a significantly better team than TSM so we'll just be passing on this one.

No wager

TSM absolutely demolished a CLG team that suddenly turned into exactly what I thought they'd be going into the season so this is going to look sketchy but I'm in agreement with Chris on his pick of the week from the cast. FlyQuest are a WAY better team than CLG so we're potentially getting a lot of value here from overhyped bettors riding TSM. I might not be as heavy on it as @Prim3_t1m3 but I'll be placing a one unit wager on FlyQuest. TSM has struggled against stronger teams (except Liquid Kappa) and even lost to FlyQuest the first time around in convincing fashion. I love the underdogs for a unit here.

Moneyline: FlyQuest +113 (1 unit)

100 Thieves could win this. I know that sounds nuts but it's best of one and after getting humiliated by OpTic yesterday it wouldn't surprise me at all to find that they had prepared more for Team Liquid. That said I'm not going to touch this game. I know Kalvin (@RulerrSama) had 100T as his pick of the week here citing that they shouldn't be underdogs by this much and while I agree with him I'm going to abstain. I'll be honest I was scared off this by rewatching that match once again this morning. It wouldn't surprise me but I'm not going to get burned on this one.

No wager (strong lean 100T for value)