You're going to get back to back apologies this week. Over the past two days I've been tremendously undisciplined with my wager weight. It wasn't an accurate representation of my confidence and/or the value. Simply put I was extreemly greedy. FunPlus very nearly punished me dearly for this almost dropping a game to Rogue Warriors. I'm going to look into my results coming off of weekends in the LPL because I feel like I always punt away money on Monday and Tuesday LPL. Anybody that followed me last year knows that the Summer LPL, particularly the second half of the season, absolutely killed me and I've been betting the LPL thus far this summer as if I learned no lessons at all. I'm going to try to remedy this moving forward and be more discplined.
Dominus were active early and looked fine in game one but LNG were just better. I'm beginning to gain even more respect for this LNG team. They just outplayed them straight up and it wasn't like Dominus were bad in this game. Both teams looked excellent and that should be the data point we should take from this match regardless of how it turned out for us as bettors. These teams are good, likely a couple of the best that aren't the elite teams right now.
-----------------------------
LCK Summer 2019 - Week 2 Day 1
So far this season there have been three teams in the LCK that I've thought have looked exceptional; Kingzone, Griffin, and Afreeca. SK Telecom will likely round out that list in a few weeks but for the time being they look off, likely from vacation time taken after MSI but who knows. You could consider Sandbox potentially in this group too but I don't think they've looked quite as potent. These three teams have looked a cut above the rest in quality and are, as of right now, S tier squads to me. Afreeca is one of those squads. Hanwha has taken an absolute thrashing of a loss at the hands of Sandox and defeated a KT Rolster team that, unfortunately, looks to have no fixed any of their problems from last season even with the addition of Pray to their lineup. Hanwha got whooped be a team I'd put 4th in the LCK and defeated a bad KT team but it took a 50 minute game two to do so.
Hanwha look a little better than I expected them to be and it appears they've learned their lesson from Spring split and are playing star mid laner Lava again but they completely fell apart against Sandbox, a team I'd say is one of the better LCK teams and one that I think Afreeca currently looks stronger than. The point I'm making is that Afreeca are a significantly better team than their 3-3 game score indicates. They played a slugfest series against Griffin and another against SKT but in those series they've looked remarkable. They utterly dominated Griffin in game two and could have won game one if not for some unbelievable plays by the world class Griffin squad. Against SKT, Afreeca's early pressure was able to be impressively defended by SKT but finally broke through in game three to take the series.
Afreeca are a damn good team. If you look at their game score and statistics it doesn't tell the entire story at all. This team is playing at a really high level right now. They understand the proper picks and compositional charactersitics to emphasize in drafts, are playing unbelievably good with lane priority against great teams, and are completely grabbing games by the collar and taking control. Dread is playing the best I've ever seen him play in his career. The way he and his lanes are working together right now is clinical. They're even managing even or unfavorable lane matchups and outplaying them. Afreeca look like the "sky is the limit" potential team we were excited about going into Spring split before things became derailed. They've settled on a roster, it's working, and they're using their players skillsets excellently.
If it wasn't abundently clear by this point, this is my pick of the week. The fact that we're getting a number this low for a moneyline when Afreeca look like a truly dominant team on film is absolutely absurd to me. Afreeca legitimately look like a world class team right now. If Worlds were today I'd almost certainly want them to represent Korea. They are playing with skill, nuance, and a lot of confidence. Hanwha, despite looking better than we'd anticipated, still don't look like that impressive of a team. I'd handicap this series around -250 in favor of Afreeca. We're getting a lot of value because these teams both have .500 records but Afreeca have not only looked impressive against better teams than Hanwha, but could have reasonably gone undefeated against Griffin and SKT. The metrics add up too. Afreeca have a +368 gold differential at 15 and +14 CS differential at 15 while Hanwha are -2066 and -36.3 respectively in the same categories.I'll also be taking the under game time. 34:00 seems about right for how Korea is playing right now but Afreeca are playing an excellent tempo game and the only reason their games went long is because they played against two outstanding defensive teams in SKT and Griffin.
I got in on this on Sunday afternoon, the line has since gone up a bit but is still absolute robbery.
This is a Dominique Wilkins windmill slam dunk!
Moneyline: Afreeca -133 (BOOK MAX ~15 units)
Spread: Afreeca -1.5 @ +189 (BOOK MAX ~4.1 units)
O/U: Map 1 UNDER 34:00 @ -114 (0.5 units)
O/U: Map 2 UNDER 34:00 @ -114 (0.5 units)
Part of my gushing for Afreeca was their excellent performance against Griffin. It'd be easy to assume that I thought Afreeca "should have won" that series when, in fact, Griffin were also playing at a ridiculously high level. This team has change but hasn't changed. What do I mean by that? We'll they're taking a different, very old school Korean approach, but doing so in a way that few teams, one of which is Griffin, can execute. Griffin look like the SKT teams that dominated seasons five through seven. Cold, calculated, impenetrable defense. Do I think it's optimal to play that way right now? I don't but Griffin are so damn good at it that they can. They're like a boa constrictor. They win seemingly every lane regardless of matchup. Once the other team realizes they're being choked out of the game they desperately lash out and try to force a play to escape, from there Tarzan is ALWAYS exactly where he needs to be to shut the escape down and soon enough their foe is devoured whole. Much like one of those nature documentaries it's fascinating to watch. Griffin have such a ridiculous caliber of players that they feel invincible. You basically have to make creative and weird plays and not play them straight up or you lose.
Sandbox have looked impressive and haven't fallen off at all like I thought they would. Their solo laners have been tremendous this season and, as usual, OnFleek is performing like one of the best junglers on the planet. Even their bottom lane of Ghost and Joker who I thought were prime for some regression haven't really missed a beat. Sandbox were looking great and then they ran into Kingzone. Kingzone look like one of the elite teams right now and it wasn't like Sandbox looked like a bad team, in fact they were actually ahead for in gold for the majority of the first twenty five minutes but they were eventually outclassed.
I think Griffin are in the same class or better as Kingzone and while I think Sandbox is perhaps the next team after these elite teams there is a reasonably large gap between them. In this particular matchup I actually think Sandbox will have a harder time with Griffin than they did with Kingzone because Griffin's solo lanes are even better and I think Tarzan is the best jungler in the league, maybe the world. I know there is a history and a rivalry between these two organizations and they're more than familiar with each other providing competitive matches but I think this is a really poor matchup for Sandbox. All of their strengths line up with Griffin's but aren't on the same level as Griffin's AND I like Griffin's bottom lane by a lot.
I think the best value is the Griffin -1.5 here and I'm fairly confident in it even though these teams appear close. I think the moneyline is out of reach. You could make a reasonable argument for taking Sandbox ML or +1.5 but I think Griffin take this one down.
Spread: Griffin -1.5 maps @ -103 (pending, currently limited on book, likely 2-3 units)
-----------------------------
LPL Summer 2019 - Week 3 Day 2
** WE will be starting substitude ADC Jiumeng over Mystic for this match. **
This should be interesting. A lot of people are instantly downgrading WE and slamming Suning and while it looks tempting to do so I actually think a new look could be refreshing for WE. Maybe they'll play a more uptempo game to take advantage of Beishang instead of constantly trying to play around bottom lane with Mystic in the lineup. Maybe it backfires but I don't mind the change in direction. Suning looked absolutely terrible even though they won against Vici, six days later they took down an LGD team that I think is at least a little better than the true bottom dwellers in the league and a team that I had rated similarly to Suning.
I'm skeptical. I don't trust Suning at all and they're currently in the "show me and I'll believe you" category for me. These two teams are about even to me with their full lineups and I don't think the Mystic sub is as much of a detriment as people think otherwise the team wouldn't be doing it (give them some credit until they prove otherwise). I'm going to abstain from a side in this game but I'm looking towards the under 33:00. I think subbing out Mystic hints at a different direction for WE that's hopefully more focused on priority play around Beishang to snowball the game.
O/U: Map 1 UNDER 33:00 @ -125 (0.5 units)
O/U: Map 2 UNDER 33:00 @ -125 (0.5 units)
I'm really intrigued by this matchup. BiliBili dumpstered Victory 5 and then got dumpstered by FunPlus in a match where I was hoping they'd be more competitive but FPX just had too much pent up rage apparently :-). After that they played a surprisingly competitive game one against upstarts OMG who look significantly improved this season before turning the corner and soundly defeating them in the next two games. BiliBili look like they prefer to scale but aren't opposed to scrapping and they've shown a willingness to draft both ways which I think is really important in a league as diverse as the LPL is. I still think they'll be one of the best teams.
EDG have also looked impressive. I'll use this as my "I told you so" moment but Jinoo looks like the missing piece or fresh blood this team needed because they look unstoppable albeit against mid tier opponents so far. This will be EDG's toughest match of the season so far and while I do feel they should be favored here I can't help but like the underdogs a bit. I'm going to hold off on this one until later to see how the line moves but I'm leaning the BiliBili +1.5 and a small wager on the ML. I think these two teams are basically right next to each other in the standings even if I have EDG a half tier higher.
No wager
(waiting on line movement, STRONG lean BBG+1.5 and small wager BBG ML)
-----------------------------
Parlays:
Parlay (2): Griffin -1.5 + Afreeca -1.5 @ +469 (0.25 units)
Parlay (2): Griffin ML + Afreeca -1.5 @ +281 (1 unit)
(I'm currently limited on my book, I'd likely make a 3 teamer involving the BBG +1.5 and maybe some more with the BBG ML. Mix these as you like.)
No comments:
Post a Comment