March 15th: LPL

March 14th Recap:

LPL: 2 - 1 (+1.0 units)
Other Regions: 2 - 3 (-0.87 units)

TOTAL: 4 - 4 (+0.13 units)

Game one of BiliBili vs Suning looked like a great draft by BBG and they had slowed the game down to a crawl while ekeing out small edges exactly like a scaling team comp wants to until they severely punted a dragon fight around the 6:30 mark. Way too much invested and gave Kassadin two kills to get him accelerated into mid game form. Just poor approach and communication which is really uncharacteristic of this team over the past few years. Just a poor series overall by BiliBili. I still think they're going to be fine but they've had a few hiccups. Suning have gotten a little bit lucky that teams have thrown while having superior drafts against them but I love their decisiveness overall. A much MUCH different look than last Summer where their indecision was often their downfall. Perhaps the move away from Maple was the way to go as both seem to be winning out on the separation.

JDG didn't roll V5 nearly as hard as the scoreline would tell you but I do think V5 actually had a better approach in this series. Drafting for winning lanes and actually giving Elise lanes that could assist a gank is exactly how you want to do it. I also think this is a good way to beat teams that are better than you. Victory Five showing they might need to adjust for how poor they've been is notable moving forward as I could actually see them stealing some games here and there while I didn't see that happening often before this series. JDG should have been better and if you don't believe me watch the tape, this was a bit sloppy. Won't hold it too much against them but consider this a reminder.

EDG vs eStar was kind of wild. Xiaobai had a hilarious double dive repel in the top lane on pre-6 Mordekaiser that was comical and made me think this was going to be a long day for this new look EDG. The first was botched resulting in a kill and Xiaobai living, then Xiaoxiang immediately teleported back and they re-dove only for Xiaobai to kill JunJia. Eventually he went down but starting the Mordekaiser 2-1 against your lane dominant Renekton choice off of two botched dives before the Morde even has ult is pretty bad. There were a lot of sloppy fights with poor target selection by both teams in this game but eStar eventually lost out because they didn't know a fight they could say no to in the mid game. I think eventually EDG might figure some things out with this new lineup but I'm not sure how much credit to give this 2-0. eStar continue to show that they have a few really good mechanical players in Xiaobai and Wei but that the team overall is extremely linear. Their tunnelvision will be their greatest weakness and greatest strength over the course of this year. They remind me a lot of a slightly worse DAMWON. They've got the brawn but, for the time being, lack the brains. Typically early in the season teams like this succeed because of their decisiveness and once the good teams figure out how to pull the cape from the bull like a matador they struggle until they adapt, if they adapt.

I dabbled for some small stakes in the PCS and VCS. I've slowly been catching up on what's going on in these regions and will be posting plays from time to time when I see value. Last night was just a lot of spots I liked. Didn't pan out.


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(all lines are from Nitrogen unless stated otherwise)

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LPL (China)

Week 2 - Day 7

Invictus Gaming -2564 (-1.5 @ -350)
vs
Rogue Warriors +741 (+1.5 @ +236)

Lineups:
IG: TheShy, Ning, Rookie, Puff, Southwin
RW: Holder, WeiYan, Ruby, ZWuji, Ley


I'll have more trend statistics once we get a little more sample size. We've still only seen 3-4 matches from these teams.

While Rogue Warriors were competitive in their first game they were still overwhelmed in the match. I'm not sure if RW are going to be able to differentiate themselves from the other bad teams or if ZWuji is just going to be stuck in prison again.

No wager

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Royal Never Give Up -535 (-1.5 @ -141)
vs
Team WE +329 (+1.5 @ -102)

Lineups:
RNG: Langx, XLB, Xiaohu, Betty, Ming
WE: Morgan, Beishang, Plex, Jiumeng, Missing


I think a lot of people are going to be on Team WE here but I'm not. RNG have looked like the best team in the league since we've returned from the break and while WE have looked pretty sharp themselves, I'm not sure they'll fair as well against a higher level of competition. We saw WE against JDG before the hiatus and it wasn't pretty and while this team might look better now, it might be telling of things to come once WE face off against the elite. 

I made this my pick of the week on the podcast this week and that hasn't changed.

Spread: RNG -1.5 maps @ -125 (3.75 units)

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LGD +444 (+1.5 @ +135)
vs
TOP eSports -885 (-1.5 @ -193)

Lineups:
LGD: Lies, Peanut, Yuuki, Kramer, Chance
TOP: 369, Karsa, Knight, Photic, Yuyanjia

TOP didn't look like themselves upon returning from the break but they also ran into arguably the best looking team this week in RNG so I'm not sure how much of that we want to hold against them. It's not that they were bad, they were just a bit slow to the punch in a few spots. It looked to me more like rust than anything to be truly concerned about. With more time and experience this team is going to be good, the players are simply too talented and intelligent not to be. You have three of the best in the world on the top half and LGD can't even hold a candle to them. I'd say LGD could win through their bottom lane in this game but with how poor Kramer looked over the course of these two series combined with the swaps at the support position starting already, it's hard to be optimstic. If Photic and Yuyanjia or Qiuqiu look bad in this series it might be time to be concerned.

This feels like a TOP bounceback spot and I think we're getting a slight value on the number because TOP got whooped by RNG who we now know are an excellent team.

Spread: TOP -1.5 maps @ -193 (3.86 units)

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Other Leagues

none yet

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Parlays:

none for now