February 7th Recap
LCK: 1 - 2 (-1.91 units)
LEC: 0 - 4 (-3.73 units)
LEC: 0 - 4 (-3.73 units)
Parlays: 0 - 0 (0 units)
NET: 1 - 6 (-5.64 units)
Really bad day for us. LCK started off with an absolutely terrible performance from T1 against Hanwha. This T1 team consistantly handicap themselves in the draft in a number of ways. Picking themselves into counters even when the other team shows you. First pick blue side Sett has proven to be an exposable pick and T1 knowingly select Mordekaiser into it, an extremely difficult and fickle matchup for the Morde. That's just one example but there have been a number of them. I'd honestly say this T1 team have lost every single draft so far in their six games this season and even though the'yre 3-3 in game record in that time this is something that needs to be remedied otherwise you're going to lose to double support bottom lanes (HLE's sub Vsta is a support main). I do like HLE's willingness to draft aggressively, this could end up being a team that was like Afreeca last year if they can keep this up. The only selection we hit on was our hedge against DRX's subs. DRX eventually won the series, their player quality was simply too much to overcome for KT. Won't hold this too much against KT but it certainly wasn't a good look.
The LEC we were= in a situation where we know what we were signing up for with the dogs we had. Excel came extremely close and probably should have taken the win over Fnatic but punted a strong early lead and a 3 kill Gangplank for Expect. Fnatic are so good at constantly pushing you to be in the right place and Excel just weren't ready for the pace at which Fnatic play. Got a little to comfortable with their lead. Still could have won. Rogue also could have taken one over G2. These teams both just need a little bit more experience together. I'm confident these were the right sides we just missed out.
SK Gaming on the other hand was not the right side. This team looked like they just didn't show up to play today. I mentioned a lot about MAD Lions on a long Twitter thread. MAD are going to end up being betting poison for the rest of the season. A team that was 100% incorrectly overpriced before the season started, a team that I projected to start slow but eventually round into form as they grow together and end up a pretty good team will now be a team that is both perpetually overpriced in the market AND a team we don't want to fade if we still project improvement. These are the worst and they don't happen very often but we'll probably be staying out of the way of MAD from here on out unless the market is completely egregious.
Schalke... man this team. So Schalke had a decent opening in this game. They had superior scaling and kept this game slow. They lost the first dragon fight because they didn't have teleport advantage in top lane, although it was nearly a one for one. They got the TP from DanDan and from there Odoamne was able to amass a huge CS lead. They were able to get the herald afterwards so all in all this is an even trade. If you consider the Lee Sin vs J4 matchup was one that can sometimes be difficult for J4 to navigate this early game was actually going quite well, albeit not perfect for Schalke. Then the second dragon fight happened... Schalke had herald. All they needed to do was drop the herald bottom and use that to force Misfits to answer it while they take the dragon which creates a much more advantagous position for the fight if it were to even happen. Instead they start it, miss a few abilities, and then Misfits take advantage of all the dragon damage that was taken. Then the game got out of control from there.
Schalke are really frustrating. They seem like they have the right idea most of the time but either one person every game tremendously underperforms or they make one boneheaded mistake that loses them the game on the spot. This was by far their worst loss of the season. So the question for us, as bettors, is how do we proceed with this team. If you think Schalke are actually bad then you suddenly need to reevaluate the teams they've given wins to and put less weight on them. So do I think Schalke are bad? No. I'm certainly downgrading them from my preseason expectation but I don't think this is a bad team or at least don't think they're any worse than a lot of the bottom five LEC teams. I'm not making excuses for this team but I can say that a lot of the things that are plaguing them right now are relatively easy fixes. This team needs to just settle down, take a deep breath, and assess game states more accurately and that's something that can be coached up and figured out through VOD review fairly easily. I don't know if it was just the expectations on this team that's forcing them to overplay like this but they're overplaying in big moments. The small stuff they're doing is quite good they just make the big mistake seemingly every game and eventually that will stop.
I did want to take a second to talk a bit more about the non-playoff LEC teams. I'm not entirely buying most of these teams yet. If you think Schalke are actually bad (I'm not sold on that yet) then you DEFINITELY should have questions about a few of these teams that have faced them. In short, nobody has really impressed me. MAD Lions appear to be ahead of projection but I sort of think they've been handed a few of their wins on a silver platter. They get credit for taking care of business but not anything more than that. Misfits have been mostly hard carried by specifically Febiven's Leblanc until today when they were hard carried by Schalke making a massive mistake to spoon feed them the game. I don't think that's something you can rely on. Vitality and SK just look terrible. We're starting to get some clarity in Europe. If I had to lay out a tier list right now it would look something like this:
S+ Tier: G2 and Fnatic
A Tier: Origen and Rogue
B Tier: Excel
C Tier: MAD Lions (C+), Misfits, Schalke
D Tier: SK Gaming, Vitality
The LEC we were= in a situation where we know what we were signing up for with the dogs we had. Excel came extremely close and probably should have taken the win over Fnatic but punted a strong early lead and a 3 kill Gangplank for Expect. Fnatic are so good at constantly pushing you to be in the right place and Excel just weren't ready for the pace at which Fnatic play. Got a little to comfortable with their lead. Still could have won. Rogue also could have taken one over G2. These teams both just need a little bit more experience together. I'm confident these were the right sides we just missed out.
SK Gaming on the other hand was not the right side. This team looked like they just didn't show up to play today. I mentioned a lot about MAD Lions on a long Twitter thread. MAD are going to end up being betting poison for the rest of the season. A team that was 100% incorrectly overpriced before the season started, a team that I projected to start slow but eventually round into form as they grow together and end up a pretty good team will now be a team that is both perpetually overpriced in the market AND a team we don't want to fade if we still project improvement. These are the worst and they don't happen very often but we'll probably be staying out of the way of MAD from here on out unless the market is completely egregious.
Schalke... man this team. So Schalke had a decent opening in this game. They had superior scaling and kept this game slow. They lost the first dragon fight because they didn't have teleport advantage in top lane, although it was nearly a one for one. They got the TP from DanDan and from there Odoamne was able to amass a huge CS lead. They were able to get the herald afterwards so all in all this is an even trade. If you consider the Lee Sin vs J4 matchup was one that can sometimes be difficult for J4 to navigate this early game was actually going quite well, albeit not perfect for Schalke. Then the second dragon fight happened... Schalke had herald. All they needed to do was drop the herald bottom and use that to force Misfits to answer it while they take the dragon which creates a much more advantagous position for the fight if it were to even happen. Instead they start it, miss a few abilities, and then Misfits take advantage of all the dragon damage that was taken. Then the game got out of control from there.
Schalke are really frustrating. They seem like they have the right idea most of the time but either one person every game tremendously underperforms or they make one boneheaded mistake that loses them the game on the spot. This was by far their worst loss of the season. So the question for us, as bettors, is how do we proceed with this team. If you think Schalke are actually bad then you suddenly need to reevaluate the teams they've given wins to and put less weight on them. So do I think Schalke are bad? No. I'm certainly downgrading them from my preseason expectation but I don't think this is a bad team or at least don't think they're any worse than a lot of the bottom five LEC teams. I'm not making excuses for this team but I can say that a lot of the things that are plaguing them right now are relatively easy fixes. This team needs to just settle down, take a deep breath, and assess game states more accurately and that's something that can be coached up and figured out through VOD review fairly easily. I don't know if it was just the expectations on this team that's forcing them to overplay like this but they're overplaying in big moments. The small stuff they're doing is quite good they just make the big mistake seemingly every game and eventually that will stop.
I did want to take a second to talk a bit more about the non-playoff LEC teams. I'm not entirely buying most of these teams yet. If you think Schalke are actually bad (I'm not sold on that yet) then you DEFINITELY should have questions about a few of these teams that have faced them. In short, nobody has really impressed me. MAD Lions appear to be ahead of projection but I sort of think they've been handed a few of their wins on a silver platter. They get credit for taking care of business but not anything more than that. Misfits have been mostly hard carried by specifically Febiven's Leblanc until today when they were hard carried by Schalke making a massive mistake to spoon feed them the game. I don't think that's something you can rely on. Vitality and SK just look terrible. We're starting to get some clarity in Europe. If I had to lay out a tier list right now it would look something like this:
S+ Tier: G2 and Fnatic
A Tier: Origen and Rogue
B Tier: Excel
C Tier: MAD Lions (C+), Misfits, Schalke
D Tier: SK Gaming, Vitality
I'm just going to take this time to remind everyone once again that you need to be significantly less results oriented in the best of one regions as a bettor and truly dive into the film as often as possible. It's a smaller sample size and there isn't the capability to "feel out" a team like there is in best of threes or even twos. It's much more difficult to parse out the real from the fake. That said, you do need to be pretty quick on your feet to adapt to things you're seeing in a smaller sample size as well. A team like Schalke I'm willing to admit I was wrong about but I'm also not entirely abandoning any and all hope. This isn't a team that's clueless, they're just made some game ending decisions and we've seen decent and even good teams have starts like this in the past so I'm not jumping ship like everyone else is.
I've had a relatively poor start to 2020. In NA I've been rewarded a lot more for the things I've seen in the tape than I have in Europe but I'm applying the same exact concepts. Pedal to the grindstone, lets go into Saturday's games!
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(all lines are from Nitrogen unless noted otherwise)
LCK Spring 2020 - Opening Week
Week 1 - Day 4
DAMWON -1538 (-1.5 @ -239)
vs
APK Prince +658 (+1.5 @ +228)
It's been one series and I'm not going to call any team Jin Air after one series but you saw pretty clearly that APK have a ton of work to do to get to any kind of competing level. DAMWON are going to smash this game. I know you could point to the fact that they lost to T1 and T1 lost to Hanwha and transitive property, blah blah blah but we've seen T1 seemingly refuse to draft well and play the game on hard mode. DAMWON had a solid victory against T1 in game one and were utterly smashing game two before a few absolute miracles by T1 brought them back and eventually won them the second two games. Not only do I think DAMWON are going to be pissed because of this and want to remind everyone, but APK Prince are the unfortunate punching bag that DAMWON get to take out their frustrations on. I rarely lay this much juice, especially on a sweep, but DAMWON are going to destroy APK.
Spread: DAMWON -1.5 maps @ -239 (2.39 units)
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Griffin +236 (+1.5 @ -118)
vs
Gen.G -340 (-1.5 @ +113)
Gen.G are going to be a pretty good team just on their talent alone, at least I hope, but so far they've been a bit like T1 in that they haven't exactly been putting themselves in good places to succeed. They've been a bit better than T1 in this department but generally I feel similarly about both squads. Griffin almost definitely should have taken game one against Afreeca, a team that I have a tremendous amount of respect for, and were in the conversation in game two of that series as well before Mystic and Fly went ballistic.
I mentioned it before the season started and I'll continue to mention it. Korea is going to have a ton of parity this season. The top seven teams are all highly competitive, and #8 and #9 are also solid rosters with a lot of veterans so they'll remain interesting as well. APK is the only true throw away for the time being. While everyone is figuring things out the playing field is going to be fairly leveled off. Gen.G are only favored this much because of their preseason projection. I think this line is way too far off. Maybe by seasons end this is closer to accurate but right now give me the Griffin spread and sprinkle a little on the moneyline.
Spread: Griffin +1.5 maps @ -118 (1.18 units)
Moneyline: Griffin +236 (0.5 units)
Spread: Griffin -1.5 maps @ +534 (0.25 units)
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LEC (Europe)
Week 2 - Day 2
SK Gaming -123 vs Schalke -123
Excel -193 vs Vitality +135
Rogue -141 vs MAD Lions -102
Origen -369 vs Misfits +246
Fnatic +197 vs G2 eSports -287
I mentioned it in the recap of yesterday but I'm not abandoning Schalke and some over reaction already has this line at -105 over at 5Dimes. I already wrote on S04 enough up there so check that out but backs against the wall I think they get this done. This is more or less their season. Maybe this all comes unraveled and the tilt sets in but I think with a bunch of experienced veterans and a hungry rookie they'll show up to play, unlike the lethargic SK did today.
Moneyline: Schalke -105 (1.05 units)(5Dimes)
Vitality look awful. I know they kept it interesting forcing fights against Origen yesterday but everything from botched dives, poor execution, and fundamentally poor understanding of their win conditions I think Vitality, along with SK, might be the two worst teams in the league. Excel are good and while you could fault them for not abusing their lead, it's a lot easier said than done against a team like Fnatic or G2. Excel are currently my #5 and are almost a lock to make playoffs at this point to me. I'm buying them a lot more than I am the other teams with similar records like Misfits and MAD Lions. This number should be way way higher. Give me the favorites.
Moneyline: Excel -170 (1.7 units)(5Dimes)
Again I'll reiterate my point about not buying MAD Lions. We aren't going to get many good chances to fade the Lions the rest of the way out but Rogue look outstanding to me and nearly got one from G2 today. We're getting a really good price for a legitimate team vs a slightly fraudulent team here.
Moneyline: Rogue -141 (1.41 units)
I was kind of hoping we'd get a bettable number here for Origen but it's just a bit rich for my blood.
Origen/Misfits: No wager (maybe Origen in parlays)
I'm not going to wager on the game of the week between Fnatic and G2. The value is probably on Fnatic and you can get +200 or so at some books if you look around but I'll be abstaining and just enjoying this matchup.
G2/Fnatic: No wager
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LCS (North America)
Week 3 - Day 1
CLG +118 vs Evil Geniuses -167
Team Liquid -313 vs 100 Thieves +222
Dignitas +108 vs Team Solo Mid -154
FlyQuest +197 vs Cloud 9 -287
This first matchup between CLG and EG is a test of whether or not you're buying a CLG bounce back or not. If you think CLG are going the way of Schalke and are just a bad team then this is a pretty good value on an EG team that's shown pretty well so far this season. If you think CLG are due to bounce back a bit then you'll want to avoid this because I don't think you're getting enough value on them to take the shot. I'm going to lay the money to win half a unit here. I think this is a tough enough ask for a struggling CLG team but if this was against one of the other middle of the table teams that I'd like CLG at this number quite a bit more. EG look like the #4 in the league to me.
Moneyline: Evil Geniuses -160 (0.8 units)(5Dimes)
I'm staying away from this Liquid/100T matchup. I tend not to lay -300 in best of one formats in general and with Liquid still having some questions they're out of range for me but I also don't really buy the 100 Thieves upset either.
Liquid/100T: No wager
I discussed last week that Dignitas are my most overrated team in the LCS. Are they a bad team? No. As a matter of fact they've really impressed me so far and as I discussed in my preseason rankings, where I had them higher than most of my colleagues, I had a feeling this team would start strong with four experienced veterans gelling immediately. Dignitas are a high floor, low ceiling type of team. TSM look like they've rounded into form after a rough week one. They have enough unique picks to make drafting a bit challenging and it looks like our #2 prediction could be shaping into form.
There is a pretty big disparity in the number for this match. I found a -130 on TSM so I'll be taking that. Long story short is I'm buying TSM and selling Dignitas and we're getting a pretty good number on what I'm expecting to be an elite LCS team in TSM. We won't see a number like this again.
Moneyline: TSM -130 (1.3 units)(5Dimes)
FlyQuest are playing really well of late but I also think they haven't been tested by someone as good as Cloud 9. I could see wanting to take a shot on the dogs at this number but I'm going to pass. Cloud 9 look sharp and their bottom lane liability from last season seems to have been completely remedied by the roster swaps they've made. Cloud 9 are in mid season form and other than matchups against other top teams it's going to be pretty tough to bet against them. I'll pass this one.
C9/FlyQuest: No wager
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Other Regions:
VCS (Vietnam):
Lowkey eSporst -750 vs Cerberus eSports +480
I haven't dabbled too much in the other regions so far this year but I was doing some my diligence looking around and spotted a potential gem. The VCS (Vietnam) started up last week. Some familiar team names and familiar players are around that most people have probably only seen as Worlds representatives but there have been a number of roster shakeups but a few teams have stayed mostly the same.
Lowkey eSports is a team people will recognize from Worlds 2019. They're currently 1-1 in matches and 2-2 in games. Hani, their top laner from Worlds has only played one game but new top laner Coated has played the rest. They have a 1.2 kill death ratio as a team and respectable gold and damage per minute numbers if you just look at them but relative to the rest of the league they're very average. In their first match Lowkey completely smashed what looks to be the worst or second worst team in the league in FTV eSports. They then lost to Dashing Buffalo (formerly PhongVu Buffalo) and while it wasn't a smashing, the Buffalo won in decisive fashion.
Cerberus were the last place team last split and while they returned RonOP (support), Yado (mid), and LL (top), they brought in one of the better ADC's in the region in Artemis from 2nd place Team Flash last year as well as former player DotA pro and Gigabyte Marines support/top Archie who has been coaching in the VCS for GAM since 2018. After losing their first game this season to GAM in a 21 minute stomp, they played a close and competitive game two against what looks to be the best team in the region by a decent margain. In their next series they took down middle of the table VGaming Adonis (who actually beat Dashing Bufalo 2-1.
This is a long winded way of saying these teams are almost definitely closer to even than these absurd odds. This is a best of three region so dogs tend to be a little tougher to hit on but I like our chances on this one. Cerberus aren't as bad as they were last year and after a brief VOD review of both these teams games I think we're getting an absolute steal here.
Moneyline: Cerberus eSports +480 (0.25 units)(5Dimes)
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Parlays:
check back later, none for now
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