Tuesday, February 11, 2020

February 12th: LCK

February 10th Recap


LCS: 1 - 0 (+1.08 units)
TOTAL NET: 1 - 0 (+1.08 units)

Liquid losing to Golden Guardians is another data point on a narrative I've been constructing but haven't really discussed. Other than representing North America (or Europe) at the Mid-Season Invitational, there is absolutely no reason to win the Spring split anymore in the Western regions due to the elimination of the championship/circuit point system. I don't want to operate under the assumption that teams don't care about winning or anything but Liquid have been playing extremely recklessly, and downright disrespectfully in a lot of their games. I think this game sort of got away from Liquid on a nice baron call by Golden Guardians. To be honest with you this was a bit surprising but didn't particularly move the needle very much for either team. It was a close game until that baron call so it's not like Liquid are mailing it in but they just aren't as sharp as they usually are, possibly because they don't want to emotionally invest too much into this non-Broxah form but who knows. Golden Guardians showed up to play and really took the fight to Liquid but I still think this team ultimately lacks the talent to really compete with the top teams consistently. They'll be another nice fade option as people overreact to an "elite team losing." 

Immortals vs CLG was a really weird game. CLG had a great opening getting first blood, executing a dive and looked well on their way to an easy, clean victory but instead of walking out together after the dive they split up and let Immortals reengage on their retreat when they should have been long gone. From there CLG just got incredibly sloppy over the next 10 minutes. They remained ahead on gold, maintained dragon control, got the first baron, and even got the ocean dragon soul. CLG were once again in full control of the game but got picked off retreating. Sloppy... 40 minutes into the game CLG start the second baron and it looks like a cataclysmic teamfight but Altec had mid priority and Immortals had the wedge between mid lane towards CLG's base and the baron pit. Eika teleported to assist Altec and the remaining three just fought a slow fight to deny recalls and CLG ended up losing the game.

You could look at CLG as "snakebitten" or unlucky or any number of things but I'm going to choose to use a frequently used saying from sports; "They aren't following through." Whether it's swinging a baseball bat, throwing a pitch, serving in tennis, finishing a tackle in football, or any other reference you can come up with, CLG are doing the proper delivery and simply not finishing. It's the League of Legends equivalent to finishing your essay and not proof-reading it only to find a ton of stupid errors once you get it back with a poor score. CLG look checked out. I want to blame the coaching staff for letting it get this way but the truth is this cuts both ways. 


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(all lines are from Nitrogen unless noted otherwise)

LCK (Korea)
Week 2 - Day 1

Afreeca Freeca -4000 (-1.5 @ -329)
vs
APK Prince +972 (+1.5 @ +312)

If DAMWON didn't have an absolute miracle hail mary in game one they would have dropped a game to APK. While they don't look particularly sharp, APK are being proactive and aggressive. They've lost a lot of really close fights and in a number of them the game could have turned in their favor. Now maybe that will turn into the story of APK but as I stated, in so many words, in my pre-season tier list article, this team won't be nearly as bad as people think and I think that's mostly been the case despite the zero in the wins column. 

Afreeca dropped a game to Hanwha already this season and the odds on this are just so outrageous that I feel like I have to take a shot with APK here. They certainly have more than a 24.5% chance to win a single game which is what the implied odds suggest. The game is fairly high variance right now and with gamebreaking picks like Soraka, Qiyana, and Aphelios available I'm willing to say pretty much anything can happen plus APK aren't that bad.

Another angle to think about is that Afreeca might take this opportunity to play some substitute players. Afreeca have excellent subs that could hold their own on most teams but it absolutely would not surprise me to see them lose a little bit of their edge, especially if Hoon plays for Kiin. 

All of these factors are enough for me to take a shot on APK. At +308 to take a single game you really can't go wrong and this team legitimately should have just taken one from DAMWON. We're going to take a shot on game one specifically as well because I could see Afreeca playing subs, losing a close game, and then bringing in the big guns in game two. We also literally just saw a game where APK had more kills than DAMWON and they stole the game, something that I think might happen just a tad more frequently with the way most League games are playing out right now.

On sites like Nitrogen betting the map one moneyline isn't really the map one moneyline it's whoever has the most kills but it is written as the map one moneyline. I'll differentiate it here but just know that when looking on the book.

Spread: APK +1.5 maps @ +310 (0.5 units)(5Dimes)

Map 1 Moneyline (most kills): APK +516 (0.25 units)

Moneyline (full match): APK +1350 (0.1 units)(@5Dimes)

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Sandbox -253 (-1.5 @ +135)
vs
Griffin +178 (+1.5 @ -141)

Sandbox look like they haven't missed a beat even though they lost 1-2 to a great DragonX team. Griffin have been struggling to find an identity. I do want to make one thing clear and that is to not be fooled by the winless record. If we consider Gen.G and Afreeca good teams, and most of us do even with some early season hesitation, then Griffin have simply lost two matches to two great teams.  Both games against Afreeca were competitive endeavours and I'd say Afreeca should have lost game one for sure and pulled a rabbit out of a hat similar to T1 the day before. 

So where does that leave us? I think this number is way too big even for a team with question marks like Griffin. They haven't been that bad this season and this is massively inflated because of their 0-4 start. I mentioned before the season started that I think the top seven LCK teams and even the 8th and 9th are going to be a lot closer to even than the records will end up showing. Legitimately any one of them could win and I wouldn't be surprised. Give me Griffin here this number is way too big.


Spread: Griffin +1.5 maps @ -141 (1.41 units)

Moneyline: Griffin @ +190 (0.5 units)(5Dimes)

Spread: Griffin -1.5 maps @ +432 (0.25 units)

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Parlays:

none for now

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