March 19th: LPL

March 18th Recap:

LPL: 0 - 5 (-7.45 units)
Parlays: -0.5 units


TOTAL: 0 - 5 (-7.95 units)

February 1st: -11.32 units

February 7th: -5.64 

February 15th: -4.79

 February 21st: -3.74

February 24th: -7.48

(now) March 18th: -7.95

I've had a few really bad days betting this year. This was my first bad one for March. Out of 47 mostly daily posts this season these are my worst. Going back and looking over a few of them, which you can do yourself since they're catalogued here, it's mostly been a case of a missed read on a team like some of the earlier spots on Schalke or simply just multiple misses on higher risk plays that I did not properly stake. Those sorts of things you can learn from, variance is a different animal.

The only play from this morning that I'm rethinking is the TOP -1.5. We got to see that TOP is clearly the stronger squad and that they're slowly figuring things out bit by bit but it may have been a bit naive to think Vici wouldn't also be competitive. I thought both teams showed a lot of good things in this series. The BiliBili wager I'd probably make again but with half the weight on the +1.5. That was greedy but I felt very confident about how ADD would open the draft up. As a matter of fact, he did but they decided to try some things which I'll discuss below. 

Lessons learned, onto the recap.

Victory Five managed to actually snowball a win on LNG in game one before being destroyed in the next two games with their cheesey nonsense. I don't want to look too much into it but LNG do need to clean up their teamfighting a bit. Multiple times during the second and third games in this series, Asura and Light were completely left out to dry with absolutely no peel whatsoever. That's fine if they're on Ezreal or Lucian or even Jhin but on something like Miss Fortune or Aphelios it's a different story. We've seen that the meta has developed a lot around Aphelios comps vs Dive Aphelios comps. If you've got a vulnerable carry playing against divers or assassins you've got to at least do something.

BiliBili pulled the flex Maokai into the jungle for ADD to get his Gangplank. The Maokai is risky but I like it in principle against something like JDG's Leblanc where it gets punished by the crowd control lock Maokai can bring but when you're trying to scale and play defense against a good snowballing team like JDG you have to play something with a better clear speed. Meteor was just too far down in levels. 

The casters were really critical of the pick but I think the flexible nature of it makes it a lot more forgivable than they seemed to think. You could have picked a Sejuani or Gragas or another position with your first pick in the draft but to just summarily dismiss it as a poor selection I feel is incorrect. Maybe choosing to flex it to jungle was incorrect but early picking it with the idea that it could be counterpicked and then flexing it to jungle is fine as long as you have lanes that can manage to survive the early game. Against a worse team this can work but against good snowballing teams you have to play more proactive defense. BiliBili do a lot of things right but they're handicapping themselves sort of like T1 were doing earlier this year. Don't make it so hard on yourselves. Pick two winning lanes. It's not hard fellas!

I don't want to completely ignore JDG in this series just because I was heavy on BLG. JDG have been a lot like FunPlus last year. They'll occassionally dig themselves into a hole or get into an awkward situation and they consistently play their way out of it. They always seem to find a way which is impressive and often the sign of a great team.

Rough days happen. There will be plenty more. Is what it is. Onward we ride!

I was honored to be a guest with @StevieTPFL on the RotoGrinders' Morning Grind Podcast. It was a blast!

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(all lines are from Nitrogen unless stated otherwise)

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LPL (China)

Week 3 - Day 4

Team WE -234(-1.5 @ +147)
vs
Dominus +160 (+1.5 @ -207)

Starting Lineups:
WE: Morgan, Beishang, Teacherma, Jiumeng, Missing
DOM: Natural, Xiaopeng, Xiye, Gala, Mark

This was -286 / +197

I wish I'd jumped on this one sooner because I was liking the spot for Dominus anyway with extra time. Now with Teacherma starting I absolutely love Dominus. For those that don't know, Teacherma is sort of a global ult one-trick pony. Nocturne mid, Pantheon, Ryze, etc. I'm sure he can play other stuff but in the six game we saw in the Demacia Cup that's all we saw. He won his group stage match against an academy team then won their first two games in a best of five vs EDG before losing three in a row. From that limited sample size he's isn't particularly good. He's like a bad version of Fly from the LCK.

WE have looked good at times but I often find their process and approach to set up situations lackluster. They don't look like they know how to play from a deficit but that could be a subject of their similarly difficult schedule that includes FPX, RNG, Vici, and JDG. WE 2-0'd Vici and 2-0'd Victory Five. They haven't gone to a third game yet this season. 

Other than the Teacherma sighting I was liking this spot for Dominus anyway. Dominus have faced an extremely difficult schedule including FunPlus and Invictus, as well as an improved Vici. Their only win was in a bit of a slugfest against LGD that they took down 2-0 in two long games. They've had off since their match on Friday where they got obliterated by FunPlus. 

Dominus have the same roster as last year and while they aren't a playoff caliber team, we saw moments from them last year, especially after switching to Natural where they were a competitive team. They're a cohesive unit that know how to play within structure they just struggle outside of that. Their metrics and rate statistics are remarkably similar to WE we've just seen two fewer series of them since Dominus were one of the few lineups to get two matches in before the COVID-19 hiatus.

I like this spot anyway, I love that we're getting a predictable mid laner for the veteran Xiye, and I tend to favor the unknown slightly more than a lot of people do. A lot of people are just assuming WE will win this match but how much do we really know about 2020 Dominus?

The underdog spread has covered 25 out of 42 matches with underdogs winning outright 16 times. Give me the dogs!

Spread: Dominus +1.5 maps @ -207 (2.07 units)(Nitrogen)

Moneyline: Dominus +160 (1 unit)(Nitrogen)

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LGD Gaming +543 (+1.5 @ +147)
vs
Invictus -1136 (-1.5 @ -207)

Starting Lineups:
LGD: Lies, Peanut, Yuuki, Kramer, Chance
IG: TheShy, Leyan, Rookie, Puff, Southwind

I'm not touching any part of this. Invictus look somewhat like they've gotten back to their disrespectful ways and I'm to afraid they'll drop a game clowning around. LGD actually looked pretty good in their last outing but I still don't think this is a particularly dangerous team. I'm just avoiding this one.

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FunPlus Phoenix -885 (-1.5 @ -193)
vs
Suning Gaming +444 (+1.5 @ +135)

Starting Lineups:
FPX: GimGoon, Tian, Doinb, Lwx, Crisp
Suning: Biubiu, SofM, Angel, Huanfeng, SwordArt

While I think this matchup is closer, I trust FunPlus to take care of business slightly more than Invictus. If you check out Suning's stats and metrics you could probably convince yourself to take a shot on them since they've been pretty good but don't trust the relatively easy schedule they've had. This team hasn't been tested. FunPlus are quite the test. FunPlus roll.

Spread: FunPlus Phoenix -1.5 maps @ -193 (1.93 units)

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Other Leagues

none yet

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Parlays:

none for now