March 30th: LPL

March 29th Recap:

LCK: 13 - 24 (-0.284 units)

LPL: 8 - 14 (-2.493 units)
LCS: 1 - 22 (-4.141 units)

Live: 1 - 2 (-1.0 units)

Parlays: 1 -3 (-0.5325 units)

TOTAL: -5.6735 units

DOM/eStar (Net: +0.287)

TOP/OMG (Net: -2.93)

EDG/RNG (Net: +0.15)

Hanwha/T1 (Net: +0.835)

Sandbox/APK (Net: -1.974)

Afreeca/KT Rolster (Net: +0.855)

FlyQuest/GG (Net: -2.399)

TSM/Dignitas (Net: -1.742)

I'm not always a gut handicapper but there are spots where I tend to trust my intuition on certain things. More often than not, when my instinct of watching this game for so long is telling me something, it's right or at least raises enough flags for me to get out of the way. That wasn't the case in the West this weekend. 

Week 9's are so difficult to manage. Sometimes, even with nothing on the line, people care, sometimes they don't. Sometimes there's a clear lack of preparation. I think this weekend was a mix of all of those things but there is a big elephant in the room and that's the fact that value prevailed this weekend as it always does in the long run. 

Until this point, Europe had been totally dominated by favorites so it was reasonable to expect regression at some point. In North America, however, that had not been the case and that's where my approach this weekend was dead wrong. Especially after seeing mutliple good teams in multiple regions giving away potent champion picks from red side without good answers, I should have just hammered the dogs but I was stubborn in my "these teams are better" mentality. Being better isn't as important as the champions you play in the current state of the game and that has mixed consequences. On one hand, there's more parity and it makes things interesting. On the other hand, it makes it significantly harder for better teams to differentiate themselves. This has been the case this entire season and I was blinded by my willful ignorance of this and punished by it this weekend.

Lesson learned. Onward I march.

Some of this I've done from my phone so apologies for any formatting issues.

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The LCK DOES NOT RELEASE LINEUPS! 

They are actively against gambling. The casters will not release lineups ahead of time. I get asked the question a million times a year. It just is what it is. Understand this when building DFS lineups.

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(all lines are from Nitrogen unless stated otherwise)

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LPL (China)

Week 5 - Day 1

LNG eSports -123 (+1.5 @ -350)
vs
Vici Gaming -123 (-1.5 @ +236)

Lineups:
LNG: Flandre, Xx, Maple, Asura, Duan
Vici: Cube, Aix, Forge, iBoy, Hang

This is a really interesting matchup because both of these teams have shown the ability to perform better than their record. Obviously there's a lot of juice on this number if you shop around it's mostly even money so let's see if we can figure out who has been the better team.

Economy:
LNG  1719 gold per minute, -6 gold differential per minute, 30.5 CS per minute
Vici 1655 gold per minute, -115 gold differential per minute, 31.3 CS per minute
Edge: LNG

These numbers mostly align with few outliers involved. Generally speaking, LNG get more money from kills while Vici get most of theirs from farming. LNG have more kills per win and per loss, a higher AMOV and a better AMOD meaning they've been more competitive against a similarly challenging schedule.

Vision:
LNG 3.3 wards per minute, 1.7 wards cleared per minute, 47.7% of enemy wards cleared
Vici 3.4 wards per minute, 1.5 wards cleared per min, 44.4% of enemy wards cleared
Edge: LNG slightly

Recent Performance:

LNG have won three of their last five matches with an 8-5 game score in that time. Wins against Rogue Warriors, V5, BiliBili, and losses to eStar and Suning (both 1-2).

Vici have won two of their last five matches but have a 7-6 game score in that time against LGD, EDG, RNG, TOP, JDG. Their wins were 2-0 vs LGD and 2-0 vs RNG.
Edge: LNG slightly

Overall, I think LNG have been the better team this split. They have an aggressive and proactive identity that only the good teams have been able to successfully quell. They drop games to bad teams because of their tunnelvision sometimes (see V5, LGD) but have been much more competitive overall against good teams with competitive series agaisnt eStar, Suning, and OMG. Vici have really only had one "quality" win against RNG. They have also put up a good fight against teams like EDG, TOP, and JDG.

I give a slight edge to LNG in this matchup on paper but I like this team quite a bit more from a strategic standpoint. They don't dilly dally, their drafts make sense and have philosophical alignment with what they like to do, and they've kept the same roster together all split. Vici have been inconsistent. I also think Maple has been an outstanding player this season and gets a juicy matchup against Forge who, admittedly has been decent in the past few series he's started. Asura has also been heating up.

It doesn't always correlate but LNG have gone to three games in six of their eigth matches and Vici in five of their nine. I think this is a close LNG win. At the very least they'll take a game. LNG have only been swept once this season and it was in week one, prior to the hiatus against TOP. I'm actually going to lay the big number to get the +1.5 and all the plus odds LNG kill spreads for the first two maps.

Spread: LNG +1.5 maps @ -333 (1.665 units)

Map 1:
Kill Spread: LNG +1.5 kills @ +100 (0.1 units)
Kill Spread: LNG +0.5 kills @ +110 (0.1 units)
Kill Spread: LNG -0.5 kills @ +116 (0.1 units)
Kill Spread: LNG -1.5 kills @ +132 (0.1 units)

Map 2:
Kill Spread: LNG +0.5 kills @ +104 (0.1 units)
Kill Spread: LNG -0.5 kills @ +111 (0.1 units)
Kill Spread: LNG -1.5 kills @ +130 (0.1 units)

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FunPlus Phoenix -10,000 (-1.5 @ -885)
vs
Victory Five +1384 (+1.5 @ +444)

Lineups:
FPX: Khan, Tian, Doinb, Lwx, Crisp
V5: Mole, Xiaohan, Clx, y4, Max

There's a school of thought that says to just take the Victory Five +1.5 and hold your nose especially with Khan getting his first start since before the break on January 17th but I Victory Five are so awful I'm just going to abstain from even messing with them. I'd target Khan in DFS because he's going to absolutely smoke Mole wanting to prove himself deserving of a spot on this roster. 

Victory Five have lost 12 out of 16 of their losses by at least double digit kills. 

FunPlus have won 12 of their 16 wins by double digits. The four that they didn't were against RNG, Invictus, and JDG. 

These kill spreads are kind of insane but we'll take the full package. FunPlus tend to completely destroy bad teams. Dominus they won by 10 and 11.

Map 1:
Kill Spread: FPX -8.5 kills @ -179 (0.179 units)
Kill Spread: FPX -9.5 kills @ -152 (0.152 units)
Kill Spread: FPX -10.5 kills @ -132 (0.132 units)
Kill Spread: FPX -11.5 kills @ -114 (0.114 units)
Kill Spread: FPX -12.5 kills @ +103 (0.1 units)
Kill Spread: FPX -13.5 kills @ +124 (0.1 units)
Kill Spread: FPX -14.5 kills @ +147 (0.1 units)

Map 2:
Kill Spread: FPX -8.5 kills @ -175 (0.175 units)
Kill Spread: FPX -9.5 kills @ -152 (0.152 units)
Kill Spread: FPX -10.5 kills @ -125 (0.125 units)
Kill Spread: FPX -11.5 kills @ -108 (0.108 units)
Kill Spread: FPX -12.5 kills @ +110 (0.1 units)
Kill Spread: FPX -13.5 kills @ +132 (0.1 units)

Kill Spread: FPX -14.5 kills @ +158 (0.1 units)

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Suning Gaming +172 (+1.5 @ -207)
vs
JD Gaming -234 (-1.5 @ +147)

Lineups:
SN: Bin, SofM, Angel, Huanfeng, SwordArt
JDG: 705, Kanavi, Yagao, Loken, LvMao

I don't want to overreact to JDG losing three straight because it was against a tough schedule of RNG and the overperformers TOP and EDG. Prior to that they were 6-1 with their only loss to FPX. Suning are coming off of two losses in a row as well to Invictus and Team WE but won four out of the five previous series with their only loss coming to FPX. 

JDG haven't been playing poorly during this run. Against RNG they had some suspect drafts where they were trying to tempo a game out and win in a hurry but for the most part they've been competitive. 

There is a huge difference in this line depending on where you look. I've seen as high as JDG -260 to as low as -182. 

JDG are 5-3 straight up and 4-4 ATS as favorites but two of those losses to the underdog were 2-0 shutouts and they were both this week (RNG and TOP). 

Suning are 3-2 straight up and 3-2 ATS (the same matches). Two of their wins were 2-0's (vs BLG and EDG in first week back from break). 

The tale of the tape between these two is relatively even as well with each leading in some categories.

JDG should win this series but not as often as the odds imply. Suning are a great value here even at smaller numbers. This is a 60-40 matchup for JDG at worst, and that's if you're still optimistic they get it together. This should probably be a -150 / +130 range moneyline. 

Suning have been surprisingly scrappy in their losses with a 12.42 kill per loss the highest in the LPL by far. They've had single digit kills only 4 out of their 12 losses.

Spread: Suning +1.5 maps @ -207 (1.035 units)
Moneyline: Suning +160 (0.25 units)
Spread: Suning -1.5 maps @ +345 (0.1 units)

Kill Total: Map 1 Suning OVER 11.5 kills @ -104 (0.52 units)
Kill Total: Map 2 Suning OVER 11.5 kills @ -102 (0.51 units)

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Other Leagues

none yet

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Parlays: