Betting: July 24th and 25th (LPL, LCK)

LCK Summer 2019 - Week 7 Day 1

Griffin haven't looked themselves at all recently and it's definitely cause for at least some degree of alarm. For a team that's had the majority of it's success through superior discpline they've been uncharacteristically impatient since returning from Rift Rivals. Perhaps FunPlus' mid Pantheon tilted them off the face of the earth and has thrown this team into an identity crisis but I tend to think this might just be some midsummer malaise. Griffin have faced DAMWON, who look like one of the best teams on the planet right now, Afreeca, and the new look Gen.G since the Rift Rivals break. A challenging and stylistically varied set of opponents that would prove difficult for any team to prepare for. We even got to see Doran substitute for Sword against DAMWON for both games (I didn't think he looked bad in these series DAMWON is just really good). 

KT Rolster have also mixed their lineup up once again trying out Kingen and Score has proved to bring some degree of success as they managed to take down Afreeca 2-1. Before that it was Smeb and UmTi with losses 0-2 to SKT and 1-2 to Kingzone. KT looked pretty good against Afreeca but game one really fell off the rails for Afreeca so I don't want to look too much into that KT smashing. A lot of it was Afreeca's doing to themselves. Game three they managed to win a close, back and forth game with great use of map leverage and a camp that I thought would get outscaled. Long story short, we can expect KT Rolster to remain at least competitive and not mail things in as they battle Hanwha to avoid a relegation spot for the time being. 

This is a tricky game to cap. Last time these two teams faced off Griffin won the entire series in just under 53 minutes  (KT took one tower in two games) with an uptempo, fast paced game plan and executed it to near perfection. My eyes tell me Griffin have a somewhat poor read on the metagame right now and look uncharacteristically impatient. They remind me a lot of the SKT teams in meta's where Kkoma had a poor understanding of what's important in drafts. A lot of times they managed anyway but not always. It's almost like you can visually see the pressure on this team, like there is some sense of dread that they won't make worlds or playoffs or something. But my gut tells me that this team gets it together and either grinds KT Rolster to a pulp or comes out with a completely new look and just runs KT over in this series. 

The question is whether or not you consider the -133 a value or not and that largely depends on your projections for these two teams moving forward. Griffin should have been able to punish a very one dimensional Afreeca team but they didn't. Over the course of the last calendar year that has been such a rare occurance that I'd call it an outlier but between that and the past couple series showing us a Griffin team that looks mortal I'm a tad concerned. I think Griffin take this series convincingly. They've had another week on this patch and now get to see how other teams are operating as well. With this information I feel pretty confident in Griffin to bounce back here. I think people are getting a little too quick to dump on Griffin right now and we're getting a reasonable enough line to bet it.

Spread: Griffin -1.5 maps @ -133 (3 units)

Gen.G have dropped just a single game since the Rift Rivals break and they've faced the challenging schedule of Kingzone, Sandbox, Hanwha Life, and Griffin and remained undefeated in matches. A lot of people are pointing to the substitution of Fly for Kuzan as the primary difference but this entire team has transformed. They're no longer stubbornly drafting purely for scaling and they've unlocked Peanut to play the uptempo, aggressive style he became famous for. I want to take some time to dive into each of Gen.G's matches since the break. 

Against Griffin we saw the competitive debut of the Volibear support. As I've discussed this was something that was going to rear it's head at some point but we shouldn't really give Gen.G credit for innovating this it was just a niche pick a lot of pro supports have been testing. Anyway it threw Griffin for a loop in game one and the combination of that and Fly's Pantheon warped the draft enough in Gen.G's favor over these two games that Griffin just seemed off their game. Griffin were uncharacteristically impatient in these games. In game one there was a fight at dragon early that Griffin simply could have poked and not all-in'd for because they had superior scaling AND a 1-3-1 that was borderline unstoppable by Gen.G but they lost their nerve and fed a few kills and a tower over and that would eventually snowball the game too far in Gen.G's favor. 

TL:DR - Griffin were off in this one and the weird draft's by Gen.G in the first series back from Rift Rivals for Griffin really threw them for a loop Not gonna give too much credit although some must be given for defeating Griffin.

Hanhwa was actually competitive in game one against Gen.G and dictated the pace of the game for the first 35 minutes. Gen.G made a decisive call to take the second baron and Hanwha weren't ready for it. They traded the second baron for elder drake and inhibitor. By the time the third baron rolled around Hanwha forced the issue, CuVee commited the base race, Peanut got the steal on the baron and Gen.G stole one. Hanwha had zero business losing this game but showed, for lack of better terms, why they're a bottom team. They've been better recently but this still isn't a great team and we saw that here. Game two was fairly even but eventually CuVee's Vladimir just got huge, including a 1 for 1 in a 4 vs 1 that was almost a 2 for 1. This game was way sloppier and neither team played really well. It honestly looked like solo queue a bit and Gen.G came out on top after a pick near baron, baron take, and close all in one swift motion. 

TL:DR - Hanwha had a huge lead in game one and don't know how to close a game, and game two was a total clown fiesta where Gen.G eventually got a baron and Hanwha picked poor places to defend in a game they easily could have stalled out and lost quickly.

Another long game one that Sandbox punted badly at a goofy elder drake dance around 38:30. Gen.G once again had no business winning a game one and managed to convince the other team to throw. Game two they get credit for as they managed to out early game Sandbox's early game priority trio of Karma, Olaf, and Leblanc pretty handedly. Extremely impressive actually especially given their combination of Kennen, Skarner, and Taliyah. 

TL:DR - Sandbox punt a game one that was in their hands at a stupid elder drake dance and eventually lose off the momentum of that. Gen.G completely body Sandbox in game two with a vastly inferior early game trio but outmaneuvered Sandbox early. Impressive.

Kingzone utterly smashed Gen.G in game one winning every lane and styling pretty hard on Gen.G. Kingzone had a really weird throw around 13 minutes into game two where Cuzz gets caught on Zac in the bottom river and it devolves into this weird skirmish that nets Gen.G three kills including two onto the Veigar. I'll give credit to Gen.G for outplaying it but this could have gone really bad because their bottom lane didn't have priority but still beat Kingzone's bottom lane to the fight. Potentially a really risky play but worked out for them. From that point Gen.G ran away with this game decidedly. Game three it needs to be noted that Gen.G got Yuumi. A really weird, or perhaps next level (? I don't know...) bait for first blood by Fly and Peanut. It got a bit weird at times during the mid game for both teams. Kingzone with a weird overstay after a fight around 27 and a teleport back in to force the baron was a questionable decision without the Azir ultimate. It basically spoon fed a baron and multiple kills to Gen.G. Just a really bizarre play by Kingzone. I know what they were thnking but I'm really not sure they had to risk it when they had the Azir scaling in this game. There was a split call to finish the baron or turn... Gen.G just about won the game off of it. 

TL:DR - Gen.G get demolished in game one, looked like one of the best teams on the planet in game two, and then Kingzone forgot how to play League of Legends around THIS baron sequence to hand Gen.G the game in game three. 

So where did I end up on Gen.G after all this VOD re-review? I'm not buying Gen.G but I do respect that they're better than I initially thought. Games like the second one against Kingzone make me think this team should be good but then I see that they were more or less handed four of their last eight game wins and it becomes really hard to judge what this team really is. 

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum is SK Telecom who have faced a very easy schedule since coming back from Rift Rivals but have completely obliterated their competition. In their three series since returning they haven't lost a game and haven't played one that was more then 30:39. In this six game span SKT have only died 22 times while scoring 67 kills. SKT are rolling.

SKT and Gen.G played a series before Rift Rivals. In a long game one with a superior scaling composition including Corki, Jax, Ezreal, and Yuumi, Gen.G managed to lose to SKT's early game team (with Gangplank backup). In game two SKT more or less ran them over without losing a tower. It must be noted that this series was played with Kuzan and SeongHwan played a game as well.

You could aruge that Gen.G are a different team since Rift Rivals. Fly is now the starting mid laner and Gen.G appear to have been rolling. You could also make the arguement that SKT are benefitting from an easies schedule. You could also argue that SKT could turn back into what they were at the beginning of the season but I tend to think both of these teams have turned the corner. The difference is that I believe one has gone from 0-100 mph while the other just appears to be going fast.

I'm not buying Gen.G and I am buying SKT. I know the easier schedule makes this look like a sucker bet but SKT are exactly the kind of team that Gen.G are going to struggle with. SKT make very few mistakes early or late and Gen.G have been benefitting greatly from their opposition making crucial errors. I also think SKT's solo lanes are playing at a very high level right now. Sandbox's solos have fallen off drastically and Hanwha and Kingzone had moments where their mediocre solo lanes were destroying Gen.G. Griffin I'll give credit to Gen.G for but again that matchup wasn't won in the lanes it was lost out of lanes by Griffin in game one. 

SKT are firing on all cylinders, their solo lanes at this exact moment in time appear vastly superior to Gen.G, and SKT aren't going to make the same errors that all of these other teams have made. Realistically Gen.G should have lost four of their last eight game wins and who knows where those series would have gone after that. Maybe they win them anyway, maybe they go 0-4. Gen.G are improved but have also been extremely lucky.

I think we're getting absurd value with SK Telecom at this number. I know I haven't had the greatest track record betting against Gen.G and I know this sounds an awful lot like what I said about them against Kingzone this past weekend but I think SKT are better than Kingzone at the moment by a big enough margain that I'm firing for the max amount on this matchup and making it my pick of the week.

PICK OF THE WEEK

Moneyline: SK Telecom -161 (6.5 units) 

Spread: SK Telecom -1.5 maps @ +156 (1.5 units)

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LPL Summer 2019 - Week 8 Days 2 and 3

FunPlus should smash this but there isn't really any value to be found in anything other than the over/unders. I'm going to play the under game time here. FunPlus are averaging 29:36 for the season and while they just played a 32+ minute game against the awful Vici I've generally been trusting FunPlus to stomp on bad teams. They're proactive and aggressive enough to want to slam the door shut and not give these weaker teams a chance back into games. They've also not taken games off against poor squads.

O/U: Map 1 UNDER 30:00 @ -109 (2 units)O/U: Map 2 UNDER 30:00 @ -109 (2 units)

We saw what happened when LNG finally faced one of the better teams after their relatively easy schedule to start the season. They weren't embarassed but they were soundly defeated by EDG. TOP are about the same rating as EDG to me and both play a similar style. TOP, along with FunPlus have been the two teams we can rely on to not take games off ... until TOP did the other day. QiuQiu, after looking outstanding in his debut looked downright unqualified to be playing the Volibear support. I don't want to go into it too much but with the starters out and the sub on a champ it looked like he never played before it's no wonder TOP lost. With the starters back in (announced on Twitter) I expect TOP to be back to business as usual. Now LNG have been respectable this season and even a bit surprising but TOP are one of the elite teams in the LPL and there is a huge huge gap between the top five teams and the rest of the league. I'm willing to bet that.

Moneyline: TOP eSports -175 (7 units, BOOK MAX)

Spread: TOP eSports -1.5 maps @ +162 (1.5 units, BOOK MAX)

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Parlays:

Parlay (2): Griffin ML + SKT ML @ -109 (2.5 units)

Parlay (2): Griffin -1.5 + SKT ML @ +169 (2 units)

Parlay (2): Griffin -1.5 + SKT -1.5 @ +329 (1 unit)