Full Disclosure:
I'm going extremely heavy this weekend. When I say extremely heavy I mean likely my biggest single day ever on Saturday. I'd advise cutting my actual pick wagers in half or just ignoring one or the other of the moneyline/-1.5s. I'm doing both.
I'm going extremely heavy this weekend. When I say extremely heavy I mean likely my biggest single day ever on Saturday. I'd advise cutting my actual pick wagers in half or just ignoring one or the other of the moneyline/-1.5s. I'm doing both.
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Ahh Finals Week (mostly)! We got absolutely crushed last week but as we talked a lot about on the podcast this week it wasn't all bad beats either. I actually feel just as strong about this weekends slate. We're going to see the cream rising to the top as we get deeper into the final rounds of playoffs here and I'll be super heavy duty this weekend. I'm not going to scare from a historically bad week when the lines are ripe for the picking! Let's get to it!
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(NOTE: I put a lot of these bets in Tuesday and Wednesday this week so the lines likely changed significantly. Use your judgement on whether it's grown out of range or adjust your weight acccordingly.)
LCK Spring 2019 Finals:
Man oh man is this going to be a match! The last meeting between these two in the regular season was, for my money, the best series worldwide so far this season. Super high level, dramatic, twists, turns, the whole nine yards! We talked at length about this one on the podcast but I'll recap a few of the major ideas I had. I'm on Griffin here. I know they looked shakey to end the season but they've literally had a couple weeks to prepare for SK Telecom, who you'd presume to be facing and SK Telecom had their moments of shakiness as well this season.
The public is going to be on SK Telecom I think. All of my cohosts were on SKT for various reasons that mostly amounted to a combination of veteran experience and gut feeling. There's also the narrative of the kings recapturing their throne. I for one feel that while not quite as experienced as the four Hall of Famers on SKT, Griffin were here last season against a KT Rolster team that was just as formidable and in their very first split nearly walked to Worlds as Korea's #1 seed.
SK Telecom did just 3-0 Kingzone who were blazing hot the entire second half and playoffs and that's significant even if we think the 3-0 was a closer series than the score indicates. It means something to defeat such a good squad that way but it's like we completely forgot just how ridiculous this Griffin team was for most of the season.
Another aspect to this series is information. Information matters more in Korea than any other region because of the way they approach and play the game. Griffin with information and time to prepare is a much more potent weapon than I think people are giving credit for. They'll have seen film from SKT's series against a great Kingzone team AND will have side selection. I think this series goes the distance but Griffin edge it out 3-2. My colleagues had this more of a 3-2.8 score for SKT I'm closer to a 3-2.1 for Griffin. As impressive as SKT's victory was I think people are just forgetting how good this Griffin team is and to me the only two arguments you can make against them is the veteran leadership on SKT or the "getting cold" from not playing factor. This team might not be as experienced but they're ready and I think they get the job done!
(This bet is a little heavier than I think this series actually deserves because I want to hammer the point home that I like Griffin but I do think this is a 1-2 unit moneyline wager without the amplified point)
Moneyline: Griffin -149 (3 units)
Prop: Exact Griffin 3-2 @ +407 (1 unit)
Prop: Game five played? Yes @ +188 (1 unit)
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LPL Spring 2019 Semifinals:
We spent a lot of time talking about this matchup on the podcast so I'd encourage you to listen to that discussion. The long and short of it is that we parsed out exactly why JDG has been able to do what they've done in back to back series and it goes beyond just "they're hot." JDG are hot. They're playing more or less at their ceiling and have been for a few series now but I, as well as my cohosts, believe that they've benefited quite a bit from a stylistic advantage that we just didn't give enough credence to.
Team WE and RNG are both ADC-centric strategic teams. Of course one of those is better than the other but the big picture philosophical approach is similar by both teams. JDG had an execellent game plan that plays directly to their strengths as a team to attack those kinds of teams which was, quite simply, dive the ADC and that's what they did. They made life a living hell for Uzi and Mystic. Now that's certainly not an easy thing to do so I'll give credit where it's due for that but FunPlus are a completely different animal. They're more like the roided up version of JDG. They're a deathball style team and they're damn good at it, so much so that I've taken to calling FunPlus "The Juggernaut" because they just bullrush and you have a lot of trouble stopping them regardless of whether they show any tact or not.
The counterargument to this selection is actually rather simple. You could say that JDG and FunPlus are "basically the same team so this is closer to a 50/50" and I wouldn't fault anybody for approaching it in that way but to me if we're going to rate the "deathball" teams in the LPL I actually think FunPlus are the best at it and JDG wouldn't even crack the top five in that style alone. I even think teams like Victory Five and SinoDragon do this better than JDG does but JDG aren't totally one dimensional like those teams are. Speaking of that, I don't want to just paint JDG one color here. They're more than capable of playing other strategies but they're significantly worse at them (except maybe 1-3-1).
To me this series boils down to two primary factors.
First, that FunPlus are simply a much MUCH better team. FunPlus are just about as strong a brute force team that I've ever seen. There isn't even a lot of creativity to them they're just better than you and they play like they know it and often win bad compositional and individual matchups regardless. FunPlus also have the best individual player and this season LPL MVP DoinB as well as a distinct advantage at all positions except the top lane where GimGoon has actually done an excellent job neutralizing other threatening top laners.
Second is that JDG have benefited tremendously from favorable stylistic matchups. In other words if JDG are scissors in rock-paper-scissors they just ran into paper twice. Admittedly this is something I should have factored in more than I did but if you remember I did call RNG carbon filament or something that could beat the scissors in this metaphor. FunPlus Phoenix are the rock. A really big, rolling rock... hell let's just call it the Pokemon Golem.
The point I'm getting at is that not only are FunPlus Phoenix significantly better, despite their strategic shortcomings, but JDG honestly wouldn't be anywhere close to here without catching a few favorable matchups. Because of this we're getting better than expected value on FunPlus as well, not by a lot but certainly better than I thought this series would be. I'm firing heavy once again on this selection and it honestly wouldn't surprise me to see FunPlus 3-0 bulldoze JDG.
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LEC (Europe) Spring 2019 Round 3:
I'm not quite as bullish on Fnatic as I am on FunPlus simply because I think there is a slightly smaller gap between these two teams but I'm still quite heavy on Fnatic. To me, Europe sort of feels like Korea in that the top three teams are distinctly tiered. G2 are the clear cut best team, Fnatic are the next best currently, and I think Vitality would be at the top of the next tier which you could argue includes Origen. So are Fnatic going to utterly destroy this with absolute certainty? No. As a matter of fact I actually do think Origen will get a game against Fnatic because if each team had it their way, they'd play a very similar style. The big difference to me is that Fnatic, like G2 but to a lesser extent, have more weapons in their arsenal and we saw how that panned out in the G2 series for Origen.
I also think Bwipo has returned to his MVP level. He's not perfect by any stretch but the opportunities he creates with his stalls, counterplay to dives, and his versaility just make him such a nightmare for other teams to deal with in much the same way that TheShy does in the LPL. Fnatic look a lot like the team we thought they'd be before the season started and a lot of people had them at #1 in Europe by the end of the split. It turns out G2 had something to say about that but Fnatic are still an excellent fundamental team with some extra surprises cooked in.
Origen, on the other hand, are exactly what they look like. Origen are kind of like 100 Thieves in NA last year in that they just play good, solid, fundamental League of Legends and they do their best to gameplan to attack the weakness of the opponents even if it's not flashy in much the same way that the New England Patriots do. The difference is that this team doesn't have Tom Brady or Bill Belichek. I'm higher on Origen than a lot of people are and teams like this always do well domestically but struggle against the top teams in their region or against elite, international competition because, to put it simply, their ceiling is just not that high.
Origen are a high floor, low ceiling, consistent team and those often don't get the job done in clutch situations where elite players can break games open. Fnatic have gamebreaking players like G2 does. These are two teams that are going to be international contenders and likely will make it out of groups at Worlds if their draw isn't absymal. These are World Class Teams. Origen just isn't and unlike a team such as Vitality or Schalke where you could envision a spike in play quality towards that teams ceiling and an upset of Fnatic, I'm just not seeing it with Origen. If Fnatic were able to 3-0 Vitality I'm extremely confident they'll at least 3-1 Origen. By no means is Fnatic flawless or as good as G2 but after handling two distinctly different teams in Vitality and Splyce they now get to face perhaps the most fundamentally sound but also a significantly limited team in Origen.When we're getting close to even money on the -1.5 I'm going to slam that all day.
Handicapped: Fnatic -1.5 maps @ -112 (4 units)
Moneyline: Fnatic -238 (8 units)
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North American LCS Spring 2019 Finals:
I want to give a lot of credit to TSM for that comeback against Cloud 9 because they did play quite well but the fact is Cloud 9 threw that series in spectacular fashion. Even in game three I thought they were in good shape to clean up a sweep before a few arrogant mistakes cost them the game. Game four was a panic/punt draft if you ask me and I'm not sure but perhaps Reapered thought they could slam the door shut but as soon as that doesn't work you can't go back to the well. What I'm saying is that while TSM earned the win I think this was much more a Cloud 9 loss than it was a TSM win.
Going into the TSM/C9 series I tried to figure out exactly how the line had TSM slightly favored and in my search I believe I figured it out. If you were to build and ELO model for professional play I could see TSM being higher rated than Cloud 9 solely based on the fact that they had two wins against the top rated team in Team Liquid while Cloud 9 had zero. Those familiar with ELO systems will know that your quality of oppoennt has a great impact on rating earned and lost relative to you. Anyway the point I'm getting at is that this matchup looks like it could be interesting with Bjergsen playing in great form AND the fact that TSM took both games during the regular series. I'm here to tell you it's not going to be.
Team Liquid are a lot like G2 to me in that they're just so much better than their region that they're in a tier all their own. I'm not sure Liquid are quite as creative and good as G2 is but they also don't get the credit they deserve for a lot of the things they do because people just like to rag on them for punting a few games while experiementing in the middle of the season. You wanna talk about experimenting? Supposedly, based on comms which could be BS so take this with a grain of salt, but Team Liquid said in comms that they'd only scrimmed with Sona+Taric once before bringing it on stage and I actually believe that because it wasn't that clean. Teams like this can get away with that. Team Liquid are smurfing.
I actually like TSM quite a bit going into this season so I'm not surprised at all to see them performing as well as they are but they're still not even in the same ballpark at Team Liquid if you ask me. As a matter of fact, just like in Korea and Europe, I think the top three teams are distinctly tiered from each other which puts TSM two tiers below Team Liquid for me. Liquid is a world class team and while TSM might end up going to worlds, much like Origen, they simply are not. Team Liquid also didn't need to show much against FlyQuest and will have side selection for this series.
Strategically I think Team Liquid have a lot more depth and a higher ceiling. The statistics also tell us this should be a fairly lopsided victory for Team Liquid. The eye test tells me this should be clean victory for Team Liquid. Factor in side selection and the fact that Cloud 9 threw harder than Nolan Ryan to get TSM here and I think we're look at a 3-1 Liquid win. I do think TSM are good enough to take a game in this series but I'd be shocked if it was more than that. Because of the models I presume the books are using we're actually getting a tasty +105 on the handicap for Liquid now which incentivizes us even more and to me we're actually getting a bit of value on the moneyline too even though it's still pricy. I think this is a series where it'd be easy to get fooled into thinking TSM have a good shot because of how they played and who they just beat but upon further investigation you'd find this should be more lopsided than this. I give them a game, two at best.
Handicapped: Team Liquid -1.5 maps @ +105 (5 units)
Moneyline: Team Liquid -196 (10 units)
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Wildcard Regions Finals/Semifinals:
Brazil:
I used to watch Brazil a fair amount but I just haven't kept up with it this season. Flamengo went 20-1 in the triple round robin, best of one CBLoL losing only to Kabum! (RIP). INTZ went 13-8 for the #2 seed. INTZ battled to a 3-2 victory against #3 seed Redemption POA last round while Flamengo 3-0'd #4 CNB. This is probably a Flamengo 3-0 and weirdly, as you'll see, we're getting WAY better odds on the -2.5 than we are with DFM who are a -1429 favorite.
Handicapped: Flamengo -2.5 @ +156 (1 unit)
Japan:
Detonation Focus Me are just too good for this region. With a ridiculous 20-1 game score in the triple round robin best of one LJL, DFM utterly obliterated the competition. Unsold Stuff ended the regular season #3 with a 12-9 game score but decisively 3-0'd #2 seed Crest in the first round of the playoffs. You could see Unsold taking a game here but there's a reason this line is -1429... in a finals.... In a 21 game regular season DFM won SEVEN MORE GAMES THAN 2nd PLACE.
Handicapped: Detonation FM -2.5 @ +117 (0.5 unit)
(max allowed by book)
Turkey:
This is actually going to be a really interesting final because unlike previous years, the TCL has three really excellent teams in SuperMassive, Fenerbahce, and Royal Youth. Both SuperMassive and Fenerbahce finished the season 16-2 but Supermassive had the significantly harder road to finals. After taking a two game lead in the series, Royal Youth was able to bring it all the way back to a game five with a decisive game three win to turn the momentum.
If I had to bet this I'd take the underdog Fenerbahce to finally unseat this SuperMassive team that has more or less become a dynasty despite roster changes. I think SuperMassive have the better players individually if you consider history but in the current season Ruin, Kirei, and Hades have been absolutely ridiculous. Ruin inparticular has been borderline unstoppable this season and is putting up a performance similar to TheShy... but so is Frozen and the SuperMassive bottom lane.
This is ultimately a battle of top of map vs bottom of the map. If you prefer bottom take SuperMassive. I'm going to put money on the underdog Fenerbahce because I think these teams should be 50/50 and that fabFabulous is going to get utterly destroyed by Ruin while Hades and Japone could hold their own. Also I think Fenerbahce have been better on the whole this season.
Moneyline: 1907 Fenerbahce +122 (1 unit)
Commonwealth of Independent States (LCL):
I unfortunately haven't been able to catch any of the LCL this split so take this with a grain of salt. The LCL is 8 teams and they play best of one double round robin for regular season. Elements and Gambit finished the regular season atop the standings at 12-2 while Vega finished #3 at 10-4. Vega Squadron split their regular season series 1-1 with both Elements AND Gambit. Vega Squadron then decisively 3-0'd Gambit in their first playoff match. Elements ALSO 3-0'd their playoff series but against the much softer M19.
I haven't watched the LCL all split but Vega Squadron absolutely dismantled Gambit with a 25 minute game one win, 27 minute game two (despite even kill total), and a longer 35 minute win in game 3. A cursory review of these drafts would reveal that Gambit really do not have a firm grasp on this metagame and while the strong teams can sometimes get away with that in an IWC region it's not always the case. Vega are drafting the power picks and using them well. Elements are a weird. Yorick, Jarvan, Vi, Urgot jungle (just like Gambit btw), Miss Fortune in two games... like what is this?
Again take this with a grain of salt because I didn't watch these games but honestly on drafts and momentum alone I'm willing to take a two unit gamble on the underdogs to take this at this number. If you consider Elements and Gambit similar level and Vega Squadron trashed the veteran Gambit squad AND have a great read on this metagame I absolutely love the underdogs here. One unit for pure value, the other because I think they're actually the right side. Light wager obviously because this isn't a region I'm in tune with.
Moneyline: Vega Squadron +194 (2 units)
Vietnam (VCS):
Vietnam plays best of three for their regular season. Phong Vu went 13-1 with a 27-5 game score. Their only match loss was to #5 ranked GAM. EVOS entered playoffs as the #3 seed with their 9-5 regular season record and 18-11 game score. Phong Vu went 4-0 in the regular season series between the two. Three of the four games were very lopsided stomps by Phong Vu and one was a close 39 minute win by Phong Vu. This is a pretty obscene line but I think it's accurate. I'm going to put a unit on the Phong Vu 3-0. You could hedge and do a 0.5-0.8 unit pick on the 3-1 if you like but in all likelihood this is going to be an utter stomping. Phong Vu are like Flash Wolves the last four years, simply too good for this region to keep up with. That said I haven't watched a ton of VCS just Phong Vu's games so I'm keeping action light here.
Prop: Exact Phong Vu 3-0 @ +140 (1 unit)
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(NOTE: I put a lot of these bets in Tuesday and Wednesday this week so the lines likely changed significantly. Use your judgement on whether it's grown out of range or adjust your weight acccordingly.)
Man oh man is this going to be a match! The last meeting between these two in the regular season was, for my money, the best series worldwide so far this season. Super high level, dramatic, twists, turns, the whole nine yards! We talked at length about this one on the podcast but I'll recap a few of the major ideas I had. I'm on Griffin here. I know they looked shakey to end the season but they've literally had a couple weeks to prepare for SK Telecom, who you'd presume to be facing and SK Telecom had their moments of shakiness as well this season.
The public is going to be on SK Telecom I think. All of my cohosts were on SKT for various reasons that mostly amounted to a combination of veteran experience and gut feeling. There's also the narrative of the kings recapturing their throne. I for one feel that while not quite as experienced as the four Hall of Famers on SKT, Griffin were here last season against a KT Rolster team that was just as formidable and in their very first split nearly walked to Worlds as Korea's #1 seed.
SK Telecom did just 3-0 Kingzone who were blazing hot the entire second half and playoffs and that's significant even if we think the 3-0 was a closer series than the score indicates. It means something to defeat such a good squad that way but it's like we completely forgot just how ridiculous this Griffin team was for most of the season.
Another aspect to this series is information. Information matters more in Korea than any other region because of the way they approach and play the game. Griffin with information and time to prepare is a much more potent weapon than I think people are giving credit for. They'll have seen film from SKT's series against a great Kingzone team AND will have side selection. I think this series goes the distance but Griffin edge it out 3-2. My colleagues had this more of a 3-2.8 score for SKT I'm closer to a 3-2.1 for Griffin. As impressive as SKT's victory was I think people are just forgetting how good this Griffin team is and to me the only two arguments you can make against them is the veteran leadership on SKT or the "getting cold" from not playing factor. This team might not be as experienced but they're ready and I think they get the job done!
(This bet is a little heavier than I think this series actually deserves because I want to hammer the point home that I like Griffin but I do think this is a 1-2 unit moneyline wager without the amplified point)
"Gut": Griffin ML (light)
Confidence: 2 / 5 (handicap), 3 / 5 (ML)
Value: 0 /1.5 (handicap), 0 /1.5 (ML)
Value: 0 /1.5 (handicap), 0 /1.5 (ML)
Moneyline: Griffin -149 (3 units)
Prop: Exact Griffin 3-2 @ +407 (1 unit)
Prop: Game five played? Yes @ +188 (1 unit)
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LPL Spring 2019 Semifinals:
We spent a lot of time talking about this matchup on the podcast so I'd encourage you to listen to that discussion. The long and short of it is that we parsed out exactly why JDG has been able to do what they've done in back to back series and it goes beyond just "they're hot." JDG are hot. They're playing more or less at their ceiling and have been for a few series now but I, as well as my cohosts, believe that they've benefited quite a bit from a stylistic advantage that we just didn't give enough credence to.
Team WE and RNG are both ADC-centric strategic teams. Of course one of those is better than the other but the big picture philosophical approach is similar by both teams. JDG had an execellent game plan that plays directly to their strengths as a team to attack those kinds of teams which was, quite simply, dive the ADC and that's what they did. They made life a living hell for Uzi and Mystic. Now that's certainly not an easy thing to do so I'll give credit where it's due for that but FunPlus are a completely different animal. They're more like the roided up version of JDG. They're a deathball style team and they're damn good at it, so much so that I've taken to calling FunPlus "The Juggernaut" because they just bullrush and you have a lot of trouble stopping them regardless of whether they show any tact or not.
The counterargument to this selection is actually rather simple. You could say that JDG and FunPlus are "basically the same team so this is closer to a 50/50" and I wouldn't fault anybody for approaching it in that way but to me if we're going to rate the "deathball" teams in the LPL I actually think FunPlus are the best at it and JDG wouldn't even crack the top five in that style alone. I even think teams like Victory Five and SinoDragon do this better than JDG does but JDG aren't totally one dimensional like those teams are. Speaking of that, I don't want to just paint JDG one color here. They're more than capable of playing other strategies but they're significantly worse at them (except maybe 1-3-1).
To me this series boils down to two primary factors.
First, that FunPlus are simply a much MUCH better team. FunPlus are just about as strong a brute force team that I've ever seen. There isn't even a lot of creativity to them they're just better than you and they play like they know it and often win bad compositional and individual matchups regardless. FunPlus also have the best individual player and this season LPL MVP DoinB as well as a distinct advantage at all positions except the top lane where GimGoon has actually done an excellent job neutralizing other threatening top laners.
Second is that JDG have benefited tremendously from favorable stylistic matchups. In other words if JDG are scissors in rock-paper-scissors they just ran into paper twice. Admittedly this is something I should have factored in more than I did but if you remember I did call RNG carbon filament or something that could beat the scissors in this metaphor. FunPlus Phoenix are the rock. A really big, rolling rock... hell let's just call it the Pokemon Golem.
"Gut": FunPlus -1.5 (heavy)
Confidence: 4.8 / 5 (handicap), 5 / 5 (ML)
Value: 0.5 /1.5 (handicap), 0 /1.5 (ML)
Value: 0.5 /1.5 (handicap), 0 /1.5 (ML)
Handicapped: FunPlus Phoenix -1.5 maps @ +105 (5 units)
Moneyline: FunPlus Phoenix -208 (10 units)
LEC (Europe) Spring 2019 Round 3:
I'm not quite as bullish on Fnatic as I am on FunPlus simply because I think there is a slightly smaller gap between these two teams but I'm still quite heavy on Fnatic. To me, Europe sort of feels like Korea in that the top three teams are distinctly tiered. G2 are the clear cut best team, Fnatic are the next best currently, and I think Vitality would be at the top of the next tier which you could argue includes Origen. So are Fnatic going to utterly destroy this with absolute certainty? No. As a matter of fact I actually do think Origen will get a game against Fnatic because if each team had it their way, they'd play a very similar style. The big difference to me is that Fnatic, like G2 but to a lesser extent, have more weapons in their arsenal and we saw how that panned out in the G2 series for Origen.
I also think Bwipo has returned to his MVP level. He's not perfect by any stretch but the opportunities he creates with his stalls, counterplay to dives, and his versaility just make him such a nightmare for other teams to deal with in much the same way that TheShy does in the LPL. Fnatic look a lot like the team we thought they'd be before the season started and a lot of people had them at #1 in Europe by the end of the split. It turns out G2 had something to say about that but Fnatic are still an excellent fundamental team with some extra surprises cooked in.
Origen, on the other hand, are exactly what they look like. Origen are kind of like 100 Thieves in NA last year in that they just play good, solid, fundamental League of Legends and they do their best to gameplan to attack the weakness of the opponents even if it's not flashy in much the same way that the New England Patriots do. The difference is that this team doesn't have Tom Brady or Bill Belichek. I'm higher on Origen than a lot of people are and teams like this always do well domestically but struggle against the top teams in their region or against elite, international competition because, to put it simply, their ceiling is just not that high.
Origen are a high floor, low ceiling, consistent team and those often don't get the job done in clutch situations where elite players can break games open. Fnatic have gamebreaking players like G2 does. These are two teams that are going to be international contenders and likely will make it out of groups at Worlds if their draw isn't absymal. These are World Class Teams. Origen just isn't and unlike a team such as Vitality or Schalke where you could envision a spike in play quality towards that teams ceiling and an upset of Fnatic, I'm just not seeing it with Origen. If Fnatic were able to 3-0 Vitality I'm extremely confident they'll at least 3-1 Origen. By no means is Fnatic flawless or as good as G2 but after handling two distinctly different teams in Vitality and Splyce they now get to face perhaps the most fundamentally sound but also a significantly limited team in Origen.When we're getting close to even money on the -1.5 I'm going to slam that all day.
"Gut": Fnatic -1.5 (heavy)
Confidence: 4.5 / 5 (handicap), 5 / 5 (ML)
Value: 1.0 /1.5 (handicap), 0 /1.5 (ML)
Value: 1.0 /1.5 (handicap), 0 /1.5 (ML)
Handicapped: Fnatic -1.5 maps @ -112 (4 units)
Moneyline: Fnatic -238 (8 units)
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North American LCS Spring 2019 Finals:
I want to give a lot of credit to TSM for that comeback against Cloud 9 because they did play quite well but the fact is Cloud 9 threw that series in spectacular fashion. Even in game three I thought they were in good shape to clean up a sweep before a few arrogant mistakes cost them the game. Game four was a panic/punt draft if you ask me and I'm not sure but perhaps Reapered thought they could slam the door shut but as soon as that doesn't work you can't go back to the well. What I'm saying is that while TSM earned the win I think this was much more a Cloud 9 loss than it was a TSM win.
Going into the TSM/C9 series I tried to figure out exactly how the line had TSM slightly favored and in my search I believe I figured it out. If you were to build and ELO model for professional play I could see TSM being higher rated than Cloud 9 solely based on the fact that they had two wins against the top rated team in Team Liquid while Cloud 9 had zero. Those familiar with ELO systems will know that your quality of oppoennt has a great impact on rating earned and lost relative to you. Anyway the point I'm getting at is that this matchup looks like it could be interesting with Bjergsen playing in great form AND the fact that TSM took both games during the regular series. I'm here to tell you it's not going to be.
Team Liquid are a lot like G2 to me in that they're just so much better than their region that they're in a tier all their own. I'm not sure Liquid are quite as creative and good as G2 is but they also don't get the credit they deserve for a lot of the things they do because people just like to rag on them for punting a few games while experiementing in the middle of the season. You wanna talk about experimenting? Supposedly, based on comms which could be BS so take this with a grain of salt, but Team Liquid said in comms that they'd only scrimmed with Sona+Taric once before bringing it on stage and I actually believe that because it wasn't that clean. Teams like this can get away with that. Team Liquid are smurfing.
I actually like TSM quite a bit going into this season so I'm not surprised at all to see them performing as well as they are but they're still not even in the same ballpark at Team Liquid if you ask me. As a matter of fact, just like in Korea and Europe, I think the top three teams are distinctly tiered from each other which puts TSM two tiers below Team Liquid for me. Liquid is a world class team and while TSM might end up going to worlds, much like Origen, they simply are not. Team Liquid also didn't need to show much against FlyQuest and will have side selection for this series.
Strategically I think Team Liquid have a lot more depth and a higher ceiling. The statistics also tell us this should be a fairly lopsided victory for Team Liquid. The eye test tells me this should be clean victory for Team Liquid. Factor in side selection and the fact that Cloud 9 threw harder than Nolan Ryan to get TSM here and I think we're look at a 3-1 Liquid win. I do think TSM are good enough to take a game in this series but I'd be shocked if it was more than that. Because of the models I presume the books are using we're actually getting a tasty +105 on the handicap for Liquid now which incentivizes us even more and to me we're actually getting a bit of value on the moneyline too even though it's still pricy. I think this is a series where it'd be easy to get fooled into thinking TSM have a good shot because of how they played and who they just beat but upon further investigation you'd find this should be more lopsided than this. I give them a game, two at best.
"Gut": Liquid -1.5 (heavy)
Confidence: 4.5 / 5 (handicap), 5 / 5 (ML)
Value: 1.5 /1.5 (handicap), 0.5 /1.5 (ML)
Value: 1.5 /1.5 (handicap), 0.5 /1.5 (ML)
Handicapped: Team Liquid -1.5 maps @ +105 (5 units)
Moneyline: Team Liquid -196 (10 units)
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Wildcard Regions Finals/Semifinals:
Brazil:
I used to watch Brazil a fair amount but I just haven't kept up with it this season. Flamengo went 20-1 in the triple round robin, best of one CBLoL losing only to Kabum! (RIP). INTZ went 13-8 for the #2 seed. INTZ battled to a 3-2 victory against #3 seed Redemption POA last round while Flamengo 3-0'd #4 CNB. This is probably a Flamengo 3-0 and weirdly, as you'll see, we're getting WAY better odds on the -2.5 than we are with DFM who are a -1429 favorite.
Handicapped: Flamengo -2.5 @ +156 (1 unit)
Japan:
Detonation Focus Me are just too good for this region. With a ridiculous 20-1 game score in the triple round robin best of one LJL, DFM utterly obliterated the competition. Unsold Stuff ended the regular season #3 with a 12-9 game score but decisively 3-0'd #2 seed Crest in the first round of the playoffs. You could see Unsold taking a game here but there's a reason this line is -1429... in a finals.... In a 21 game regular season DFM won SEVEN MORE GAMES THAN 2nd PLACE.
Handicapped: Detonation FM -2.5 @ +117 (0.5 unit)
(max allowed by book)
Turkey:
This is actually going to be a really interesting final because unlike previous years, the TCL has three really excellent teams in SuperMassive, Fenerbahce, and Royal Youth. Both SuperMassive and Fenerbahce finished the season 16-2 but Supermassive had the significantly harder road to finals. After taking a two game lead in the series, Royal Youth was able to bring it all the way back to a game five with a decisive game three win to turn the momentum.
If I had to bet this I'd take the underdog Fenerbahce to finally unseat this SuperMassive team that has more or less become a dynasty despite roster changes. I think SuperMassive have the better players individually if you consider history but in the current season Ruin, Kirei, and Hades have been absolutely ridiculous. Ruin inparticular has been borderline unstoppable this season and is putting up a performance similar to TheShy... but so is Frozen and the SuperMassive bottom lane.
This is ultimately a battle of top of map vs bottom of the map. If you prefer bottom take SuperMassive. I'm going to put money on the underdog Fenerbahce because I think these teams should be 50/50 and that fabFabulous is going to get utterly destroyed by Ruin while Hades and Japone could hold their own. Also I think Fenerbahce have been better on the whole this season.
Moneyline: 1907 Fenerbahce +122 (1 unit)
Commonwealth of Independent States (LCL):
I unfortunately haven't been able to catch any of the LCL this split so take this with a grain of salt. The LCL is 8 teams and they play best of one double round robin for regular season. Elements and Gambit finished the regular season atop the standings at 12-2 while Vega finished #3 at 10-4. Vega Squadron split their regular season series 1-1 with both Elements AND Gambit. Vega Squadron then decisively 3-0'd Gambit in their first playoff match. Elements ALSO 3-0'd their playoff series but against the much softer M19.
I haven't watched the LCL all split but Vega Squadron absolutely dismantled Gambit with a 25 minute game one win, 27 minute game two (despite even kill total), and a longer 35 minute win in game 3. A cursory review of these drafts would reveal that Gambit really do not have a firm grasp on this metagame and while the strong teams can sometimes get away with that in an IWC region it's not always the case. Vega are drafting the power picks and using them well. Elements are a weird. Yorick, Jarvan, Vi, Urgot jungle (just like Gambit btw), Miss Fortune in two games... like what is this?
Again take this with a grain of salt because I didn't watch these games but honestly on drafts and momentum alone I'm willing to take a two unit gamble on the underdogs to take this at this number. If you consider Elements and Gambit similar level and Vega Squadron trashed the veteran Gambit squad AND have a great read on this metagame I absolutely love the underdogs here. One unit for pure value, the other because I think they're actually the right side. Light wager obviously because this isn't a region I'm in tune with.
Moneyline: Vega Squadron +194 (2 units)
Vietnam (VCS):
Vietnam plays best of three for their regular season. Phong Vu went 13-1 with a 27-5 game score. Their only match loss was to #5 ranked GAM. EVOS entered playoffs as the #3 seed with their 9-5 regular season record and 18-11 game score. Phong Vu went 4-0 in the regular season series between the two. Three of the four games were very lopsided stomps by Phong Vu and one was a close 39 minute win by Phong Vu. This is a pretty obscene line but I think it's accurate. I'm going to put a unit on the Phong Vu 3-0. You could hedge and do a 0.5-0.8 unit pick on the 3-1 if you like but in all likelihood this is going to be an utter stomping. Phong Vu are like Flash Wolves the last four years, simply too good for this region to keep up with. That said I haven't watched a ton of VCS just Phong Vu's games so I'm keeping action light here.
Prop: Exact Phong Vu 3-0 @ +140 (1 unit)
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Parlays:
I haven't done a ton of this this year but I was profitable running what I like to call grid parlays last year on slates of 3-4 games I'm extremely confident in. Essentially you bet relative weights on outcomes of series to net money from the plus odds even if one goes awry. Just for sheer amount of work I won't list the odds of each individual bet but the two part parlays are mostly in the +100 (lowest the FPP + IG MLs) to +290 range (TL + FNC -1.5's). You could do the same with three and four parts if you like but anybody that knows factorials know the amount of entries gets pretty nuts. I'll pick a few choices ones in the next section.
- 1 unit on moneyline + moneyline
- 0.5 unit on one moneyline + one handicap
- 0.25 unit on one handicap + one handicap
I'll also be doing a few "moonshots" or fun larger parlays on this weekend since I feel quite strongly that I have this weekend nailed down entirely. On the fun ones tail at your own caution since I'm not weighting them relatively just kinda firing.
Grid Parlays:
(parts to the left, wager to the right)
Moonshots / Fun Parlays:
(TAIL AT YOUR OWN RISK these are mostly for entertainment! Weights are not relative to confidence!)
Saturday Major Non-LCK ML Parlay (3):
Fnatic ML + Liquid ML + FunPlus ML @ +183 (2.5 units)
Saturday EXACTA Parlay (4):
FNC 3-1 + Liquid 3-1 + Griffin 3-2 + FunPlus 3-0 @ +20,097 (0.25 units)
Saturday Major ML Parlay (4):
Fnatic ML + Liquid ML + Griffin ML + FunPlus ML @ +373 (1.5 units)
Saturday Major Handicap Parlay (4):
Fnatic -1.5 + Liquid -1.5 + Griffin -1.5 + FunPlus -1.5 @ +1545 (1 units)
Sat + Sun Major Handicap Parlay (5):
Fnatic -1.5 + Liquid -1.5 + Griffin -1.5 + FunPlus -1.5 + Invictus -1.5 @ +3140 (1 unit)
Mixed Major Parlay (5):
FunPlus -1.5 + Griffin -1.5 + SuperMassive ML + Liquid ML + Fnatic ML @ +1570 (0.5 units)
Full Saturday Slate Moneyline Parlay (6):
Fnatic ML + Liquid ML + Griffin ML + FunPlus ML + SuperMassive ML + Phong Vu ML @ +878 (1 unit)
Saturday + Sunday Handicap plus Liquid -2.5 from last week (5):
Liquid -2.5 (won) + Fnatic -1.5 + Griffin -1.5 + FunPlus -1.5 + Invictus -1.5 @ +3921 (0.25 units)
The Big Kahuna #1 (8):
Invictus -1.5 + Fnatic -1.5 + Liquid -1.5 + Griffin ML + FunPlus -1.5 + Flamengo -2.5 + Detonation FM -2.5 + Phong Vu -1.5 @ +18,370 (0.05 units)
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