Sunday, April 26, 2020

April 27th: LPL Semifinals



April 26th Recap:


LPL: 2 - 4 (-1.61 units)


Total: -1.61 units


TOP / Invictus (Net: -1.61)

I talked about it a little bit on Twitter while watching the VODs since I was unfortunately unable to watch this one live. I have absolutely no clue with Invictus was thinking with these drafts. I don't usually hate forcing the weakest player off their comfort picks as a strategy but this weird fascination with the hook supports (Thresh, Nautilus, Blitzcrank) in this series was a little baffling to me. They're all exceptional against Aphelios but there were multiple times where IG would hint that they maybe wanted Aphelios or MF and then just kept banning out more counters anyway. Also banning out Thresh and then banning out the counters was just bizarre. I thought not putting a higher priority on eliminating Syndra was a mistake for IG as well.

In terms of actual play TOP was just better. 369 had an outstanding showing  which was one of the thing TOP was going to need to get out of this one alive. 

There's not really a lot else to say. Invictus didn't really hard lose these drafts they were just really weird and I thought the overall plan lacked clarity, at least to me. The better team won today. Props to you TOP.

Clapping Leonardo Dicaprio GIF - Clapping LeonardoDicaprio ...


--------------------------

The content I provide here is always and will always be free but if you ever want to chip in and buy me a beer or pitch in to keep the lights on for the podcast there's a donation tab up top or you can DM me on Twitter if you prefer crypto or other means.

--------------------------

CHECK OUT THE GOLD CARD PODCAST!

Available on Spotify, iTunes, Podbean, Stitcher, and wherever you get your podcast fix!

-------------------------

(all lines are from Nitrogen unless stated otherwise)


------------------------



LPL (China)


Futures Positions (post in link and on sidebar):


JDG to win Spring: 1.375 units to win 20.875 units

FunPlus to win Spring: 2.125 units to win 5.3125 units
eStar to win Spring: 0.1 units to win 25.0 units




Playoffs - Semifinals

FunPlus Phoenix -144 (-1.5 @ +160, -2.5 @ +395)
vs
JD Gaming -101 (+1.5 @ -233, +2.5 @ -806)


Lineups:

JDG: Zoom, Kanavi, Yagao, Loken, LvMao
FPX: Gimgoon, Tian, Doinb, Lwx, Crisp

Trends:
FPX are 13-4, 8-9 ATS as favorites
FPX are 4-1, 2-3 ATS in their past five appearances as favorites
(vs EDG, TOP, RW, LGD, EDG)

JDG are 2-1, 3-0 ATS as underdogs

FPX won the first meeting 2-1 in JDG's first match back from the hiatus March 9th

 This should be an awesome series. FPX won the first meeting but it was so long ago and with different lineups that it's tough to really take too much from it. FPX are coming off of an impressive showing against EDG where both teams played well but the defending world champs were just a little better. JDG get to enter this series "cold" just like Invictus did this morning but unlike IG, JDG are a team that I actually trust to formulate a good, sensible game plan. Doing that against FPX is challenging but you can expect JDG to be more prepared.

These two teams are remarkably similar in pretty much everything we have a measure for over the course of the season but JDG have had the edge big a bit more substantial a number in trending since Zoom has returned to the lineup. FPX also lost some matches in this time which contributes to this as well. All told, this is an even matchup from a metrics standpoint.

JDG will have side selection on maps 1, 3, and 5 with their higher seeding. They've also had the ability to watch film on FPX. Even if you don't put a lot of weight on those factors, this should be an even money series. FPX are getting the benefit of the doubt because they're coming off of a good performance and have the name brand value that JDG do not. In my opinion, JDG should be small favorites here. They've been the better team over the past few weeks. For this reason we'll be dropping an underdog special in semifinals.

With that in mind, I do have futures on both of these teams. I stand to benefit a lot more if JDG win but I do think either of these teams will probably be near even money against TOP in the finals which will set up for some nice hedge opportunities. If I wanted to think long term I'd just back FunPlus here since I stand to benefit much more if JDG end up winning this and moving onto finals where I can then hedge yet again but I think the value we're getting on JDG is simply too good to pass up for at least something.

Notes on kill total:

FPX season long C+K: 25.9
FPX trending: 24.88
FPX trending KPW: 18.625
FPX trending KPL: 8.125 (17, 23 as outliers)


JDG season long C+K: 24.0
JDG trending 26.66
JDG Trending KPW: 18.75
JDG trending KPL: 6.75

Last meeting C+K: 26.0 (two games under 25)

This number spot on at a juiced 25.5 so no play on the total here. Typically I'd lean over with these two teams and their willingness to skirmish and take isolated 2v2's and 3v3's as a hallmark of their style but I don't think there's any real edge on this number with the juice involved.

JDG have one of the higher first blood rates in the league while FPX are in the bottom half. Again this isn't necessarily a strong correlation but the value is better than the implied percentage so we'll be playing JDG first bloods.

Map Total: OVER 3.5 maps @ -400 (8 units)
Spread: JDG +1.5 maps @ -213 (2.13 units)
Moneyline: JDG +116 (0.5 units)
Spread: JDG -1.5 maps @ +241 (0.25 units)
Prop: Exact FPX 3-1 @ +322 (0.25 units)
Prop: Exact JDG 3-1 @ +395 (0.25 units)

Map 1:
Prop: JDG first blood @ -112 (0.56 units)

Map 2:
Prop: JDG first blood @ -112 (0.56 units)

Map 3:
Prop: JDG first blood @ -112 (0.56 units)

(all at 5Dimes)
------------------------



Other Leagues



I had some pre-season futures on Isurus Gaming @ +200 to win the league. Game is currently happening as I write this. Will include update in tomorrow's post.



--------------------


Parlays:

Saturday, April 25, 2020

April 26th: LPL Playoffs



April 25th Recap:


LCK Finals: 2 - 9 (-7.88 units)

LPL: 4 - 8 (-1.291 units)

Live: 1 - 3 (+1.5 units)

Parlays: 0 - 1 (-1.31 units)

Futures: +7.67 units



Total: -1.301 units


T1 vs Gen.G (Net: +1.79)
Somehow managed to have such a poor finals showing that we ended up barely positive even considering out +7.67 unit futures hedge lock. Gen.G sort of just rolled over and died in this series. A few really uncharacteristic mechanical misplays in the first two games disrupted any sort of momentum Gen.G would have had. 

I gotta give credit to T1. They just show up when it matters time and time again with every single iteration of this roster over the years. Canna is a rookie and made a couple huge plays killing Bdd on the back of fights that looked to be going Gen.G's way. That kind of thing happened multiple times this series. Anytime something looked to be going Gen.G's way somebody on T1 just stepped up and outplayed a situation to completely shut it down.

It's a damn shame we're not going to get an MSI this year so we're going to have to wait until worlds to see T1 against international competition.

That's a wrap for the LCK season. I was more or less spot on about the top three teams. Afreeca crashed and burned, KT Rolster showed some veteran savvy to massively overperform, and DAMWON didn't fix any of their problems or they probably could have been a contender (I know they got 4th, they weren't good this season...). 

The biggest takeaway I have for Korea this split is that drafts were king. It's why APK with their lackluster roster was able to do fine and why the bottom teams remained bad. Any time the good teams lost it was an awful draft. IT was a very binary region much like North America. I'm not comparing the two in skill level just that they have that in common. It's going to be interesting to see the direction the bottom half teams decide to take for the summer. I'll have power rankings out in a few weeks.

EDG / FPX (Net: -1.791)

This was a bizarre series. EDG had a commanding lead in game two that they completely punted away at two separate fights one near dragon pit, the other a blind approach on baron. The baron play was just a bit unlucky, it appeared to me that they thought they were catching FPX mid recall and hoping somebody was already backed so they'd have a numbers advantage. It's a very headsy play and I liked it but FPX hadn't finished and was able to turn the fight. The dragon fight (Doinb Penta) was more jus approaching into Varus being extremely difficult. Honestly that champion somewhat defined both series this morning. Lethality Varus has this bad reputation for falling off but in this new dragon soul world I'm somewhat surprised more poke comps haven't been established world wide. 

EDG played mostly well in this series but FPX are just really damn good. This easily could have gone the distance or even turned into an upset. Aodi was outstanding and probably just earned himself a starting position here or on another team this year or next year.

FunPlus had a few things I'd like to see them clean up but I don't know what else to say, this team is good. They can pull a rabbit out of a hat in so many situations. They're great in set plays, great at trading resources, and great improvisors as well. News flash: FPX is good.


--------------------------

The content I provide here is always and will always be free but if you ever want to chip in and buy me a beer or pitch in to keep the lights on for the podcast there's a donation tab up top or you can DM me on Twitter if you prefer crypto or other means.

--------------------------

CHECK OUT THE GOLD CARD PODCAST!

Available on Spotify, iTunes, Podbean, Stitcher, and wherever you get your podcast fix!

-------------------------

(all lines are from Nitrogen unless stated otherwise)


------------------------


LPL (China)


Futures Positions (post in link and on sidebar):


JDG to win Spring: 1.375 units to win 20.875 units

FunPlus to win Spring: 2.125 units to win 5.3125 units
eStar to win Spring: 0.1 units to win 25.0 units




Playoffs - Semifinals

TOP eSports +147 (+1.5 @ -163, +2.5 @ -535)
vs
Invictus Gaming -208 (-1.5 @ +110, -2.5 @ +297)


Lineups:

TOP: 369, Karsa, Knight, JackeyLove, Yuyanjia
IG: TheShy, Leyan, Rookie, Puff, Southwind

Trends:
Invictus are 13-2, 8-7 ATS
Invictus are 4-1, 1-4 ATS in their past five appearances as favorites

TOP are 3-1, 3-1 ATS as underdogs
All three TOP underdog wins were 2-0
(vs FPX, eStar in week 7, JDG week 4, their loss was to IG)

Everyone is sipping the JackeyLove Kool-Aid. EVERYONE. This is going to be an unpopular opinion but so much of TOP's success the past couple of weeks has so little to do with JackeyLove since he joined. Am I saying he's performing badly? Absolutely not, the dude's has like 800 DPM since re-joining the league. That's never a bad thing. He's a beast, one of the best ADC's in the league.... but he's not the  sole reason TOP are winning like it appears everyone seems to believe.. Normally I'd get all old man "get off my lawn" about the shrine level worship he's getting right now but when someone gets people this excited you're not going to change their minds. Power to you if you love him, that's all fine and good if it gets your jollies off, I just don't get it this ridciulous level of hype.

Clint Eastwood Kids GIF

That said, TOP have looked really good for the most part with him in the lineup. Sometimes a change like this just gives a team a certain confidence level or changes something from a chemistry standpoint that just "clicks."  It's tough to argue with that. Their ability to just outplay you individually at any given time is very potent in a league that doesn't know a fight it won't take. It's what made Invictus so good for so many years... wait, I know that team... we'll get to them in a second.

I thought the last series was the worst TOP have looked since JKL joined the lineup. Was it bad? No. It just wasn't as dominant as the box score or highlight reel would show you. That's something a lot of people don't seem to understand. A lot of times, a highlight outplay is something that either had to happen because you screwed something up or shouldn't have had to happen because you shoulnd't be there in the first place. Frankly, the fewer highlights, the better even if it's less exciting to watch, at least in most cases. 

TOP had great drafts and basic game plans in their Team WE series. Shut the mid-lane down. Easier said than done but on paper it's a pretty easy plan to execute. It helps that WE handed over Syndra twice, a champion that Teacherma's pool simply cannot deal with and effectively pinned him down in two of the four games. I'd argue this lost them both of those games. I can't really hold that against TOP but just keep in mind that it was a pretty "free" win and then WE not adapting after the first loss and running it back was questionable, at least in my opinion but I digress.

What concerned me was TOP's implimentation of their game plan. For example, in game four WE had a very cooldown centric, early-mid spike team composition focused around the Camille ult+Galio ult combination with Aphelios and Camille split push as backup win conditions. TOP opted to go with strong outer lanes, the safe Corki scaling option in the mid lane, and a Lee Sin to help out their side lanes early. It's a bit counterintuitive but having strong outer lanes is going to make it challenging for Teacherma's Galio to find many options for plays which should dampen the effect that the "free" lane he gets to shove Corki in might have. This is all fine and good from a big picture standpoint but TOP has no way to reliably get onto the backline so they were going to have to get ahead early in this game or risk being outmaneuvered early AND outscaled late. So that's the thought process you have to go through when heading into this game. I'd want to get bottom lane or top lane ahead prior to Galio getting six and beat WE to objectives to be able to utilize your poke. 

TOP opted to go for double cull... You could argue that this accelerates them to their mid-game spike but it also completely neuters you in early fights and skirmishes as well as in lane for a lane dominant champion like Renekton. Also makes things extremely difficult for your Lee Sin who is looking to help bridge you to mid with effective early play. Why pick Lee when you're not going to use it early... It was just so weird. You pick to do one thing and then surrender that things... it's just odd. 

Below is the draft.



I also thought that outside of game two where TOP just looked crisp as ever, that they relied a lot more on Team WE's mistakes than they did plays of their own engineering. In other words, Team WE made a lot of unforced errors that TOP took advantage of. Perhaps this was part of their game plan and you can't ever really fault a team for this but you can question whether or not those situations would even present themselves against stronger comeptition. 

A few additional notes: Other than the Lee Sin I thought TOP had good game plans in this series but to me the fact that they relied on having to outplay a lot of situations is more of a yellow than a green light if you follow me. 369 didnt exactly have a great showing against Morgan (of all people) either. 

Invictus... man this team. So IG have actually been more consistent LOOKING than they've actually been consistent this season which is really confusing. Their record is not indicative of how they've played. IG won a lot of games they should have lost this season is the short way of putting it. The thing is, they do this all the time and just rolled high this season. This team makes so many stupid mistakes so often that it's infuriating given how immensely talented they are.... but they make it work. This team honestly looked like they were trolling at a lot of points this season. Almost like G2. They make you want to hate them and fade them as a bettor but they ALWAYS ELEVATE. IG have been much more "The Rookie Show" this season than in the past which is somewhat cathartic for me as I've been pounding the drum for him for years. Anyway...

The first time these teams faced off it was back in late March and it was still the Photic/Qiuqiu iteration of TOP. Game one was a fairly close endeavour with TOP utilizing the broken Senna+Tank bottom lane combination alongside Knight's Leblanc before evneutally losing to Ning's Zac and a Puff pop off game on Aphelios. Game two was a complete dismantling of TOP at the hands of IG. Obviously the situation is different now with TOP looking much better but I think people seem to forget that TOP actually looked pretty damn good after that winning five series in a row and 8 of their next 10. 

I think you can probably tell already just based on my tone and the things I'm pointing out but I'm going to be on Invictus here for a few reasons.

First, generally I need a really good reason not to take a good closing line. I'm not opposed to betting into lost value if I feel strongly on a position but I need a good reason to. Obviously the lines in LOL aren't as sharp as say the NFL but generally when you get more than 60 points of value on either side it's a good thing. This line opened -260 earlier in the week and has been bet down/adjusted down and all over the place. Shop around for a good spot.

Second, TOP are very good but also overrated right now. I sincerely question whether or not people would be as hype on this team if they didn't 2-0 FPX. Game one of that series could have gone either way, if FPX won and they 2-0'd or 2-1'd I feel like they wouldn't be riding this hype train nearly as hard as they are. Other than that, 2-0'd eStar (somewhat impressive), and then 2-0 vs Victory Five (meaningless). People are reacting to the "turnaround." When you combine going from a loss streak-->swapping in a super star--> going on a win streak including a win against FPX-->playoff win people get really amped up. I'm saying cool the jets.

Third, Invictus have the players to actually win individually against TOP. You could say that FPX do as well but I think IG have even stronger individual players. This will be a step up in competition individually as well as in overall pace of the game.

Fourth, Invictus have gotten to sit quietly and observe everything around them for a week now. We saw in the LCK this morning that that can be a detriment if you've got rust to shake off or aren't riding the momentum but it can also mean that you can formulate good game plans like FPX did this morning with the Twisted Fate.

Breaking Bad He Cant Keep Getting Away With This GIF - Find ...

Fifth, my gut. I know it's taboo to say gut in handicapping but I don't ignore it. Invictus are a frustrating team because honestly, they get away with murder and people think they're gods because of it... but so have TOP recently. I hate them both. There's also the angle that Invictus seem to always elevate to their competition. Something just tells me that Invictus show up here and remind everyone why they were first place even with all their issues this season. Guys, TheShy has more or less been feeding the entire season and this team still went 15-2 and 28-11 in games... that's ridiculous! 369 is also just coming off of a rough performance against Morgan and the jump from Teacherma to Rookie is a pretty drastic one. 

Overall this is mostly an overrated/underrated play combined with Invictus actually having a ton of upside that we haven't seen this season. TOP are everyone's hot new side piece. Invictus are one you keep going back to (although they've got their drama and side pieces too)... ok that analogy got weird. The point is, Invictus have been relatively poor compared to what we'd expect from them and still dominated the LPL and I think people just seem to have forgotten that amidst the distraction of TOP's hot new run and the reintroduction of JKL. 

My position on this match isn't going to be large but I'm going against the numbers and going with Invictus. For a team that's as reliant on outplaying individual lanes as TOP have been, Invictus are exactly the type of team you don't want to see on the other side. They aren't going to be able to rely on acruing advantages that way like they have in most of their wins recently.

Moneyline: Invictus -185 (1.85 units)
Spread: Invictus -1.5 maps @ +118 (0.5 units)
Prop: Exact Invictus 3-1 @ +300 (0.25 units)

Map 1:
Kill Total: UNDER 30.5 @ -105 (1.05 units)

Map 2:
Kill Total: UNDER 30.5 @ +100 (1 units)

Map 3:
Kill Total: UNDER 30.5 @ -101 (1.01 units)
------------------------


Other Leagues



none yet



--------------------

Parlays:

Friday, April 24, 2020

April 25: LCK Finals, LPL Playoffs



April 24th Recap:


LPL: 4 - 2 (+1.835 units)



Total: 
4 - 2 (+1.835 units)

I had a lot of thoughts about this series on Twitter 

Neither team played particularly well to me which doesn't bode well for TOP's prospects moving forward. We got to see the indiividual skill on display but there were also lapses in execution. My primary concern isn't execution though it's playing to your win conditions. TOP seem really set on whatever they have their mind on and are unwilling to adapt. Going tear AND double cull in that game four against a WE comp that absolutely had to get ahead and then willingly taking losing fights is just not a good idea. It spoon-feeds the enemies win condition to them. That was just one example but that, their weird fascination with Lee Sin, and some just weird evaluations (or lack thereof) of game states was concerning to me. TOP are still tremendously talented but I'm not as confident in them as I was before this series. They didn't exactly look sharp in their approach or execution relative to what I'd expect from a team of their potential caliber.

--------------------------

The content I provide here is always and will always be free but if you ever want to chip in and buy me a beer or pitch in to keep the lights on for the podcast there's a donation tab up top or you can DM me on Twitter if you prefer crypto or other means.

--------------------------

CHECK OUT THE GOLD CARD PODCAST!

Available on Spotify, iTunes, Podbean, Stitcher, and wherever you get your podcast fix!

-------------------------

(all lines are from Nitrogen unless stated otherwise)


------------------------




LCK (Korea)


T1 to win Spring: 2 units to win 17.6 units
DragonX to win Spring: 2 units to win 16.2 units

Will talk about this at the bottom

Gen.G eSports +132 (+1.5 @ -190, +2.5 @ -690)
vs
T1 -175 (-1.5 @ +126, -2.5 @ +335)


This line has been all over the place. I've seen as high as -188 and as low as -143 for T1 but it's also been up and down. Earlier in the week you could find those lower numbers and then it spiked up to the -170s+ range and now it seems to be settling down to around the mid -150s most places.

The TL:DR is that I think these two teams are evenly matched but that T1 look scary at the moment so I'd give them a slight edge. I think T1 win this series but that it will be competitive. Given all the money pouring in on T1 the "value" is almost definitely on Gen.G. After all, how often do you see the #1 seed as a dog (more about that in the TAN article) .

Luckily for me I'm not going to have too much skin in the game on this one because I set myself up nicely through futures before the season started.

Typically you want to hedge in a way that maximizes the highest guaranteed profit. In this case it would be to hedge my futures position on T1 by putting 7.93 units on Gen.G @ +122 to lock a 7.67 unit profit. I was going to do a hedge that slightly leaned in favor of T1 since I think they win this series but the correct thing to do is to just take the guaranteed profit so I will. (I did this earlier in the week because I wasn't entirely confident the line would move as strongly as it did toward T1). You can get +141 on Gen.G on Nitrogen if the value sticks out to you.

For book keeping purposes I'll be counting this hedge in my futures portfolio not my LCK bets for the split so you won't see it on the LCK page on the spreadsheet.

Hedge on T1 Future
Moneyline: Gen.G +122 (7.93 units)

---

Map Total: OVER 3.5 maps @ -400 (4 units)
Map Total: OVER 4.5 maps @ +164 (0.25 units)

Map 1:
Kill Total: OVER 20.5 @ -101 (1.01 units)
Prop: Gen.G first blood @ -141 (0.705 units)
Prop: Gen.G first tower @ -114 (0.57 units)

Map 2:
Kill Total: OVER 20.5 @ -102 (1.02 units)
Prop: Gen.G first blood @ -137 (0.685 units)

Prop: Gen.G first tower @ -111 (0.555 units)

Map 3:
Kill Total: OVER 20.5 @ -101 (1.01 units)
Prop: Gen.G first blood @ -139 (0.695 units)

Prop: Gen.G first tower @ -115 (0.575 units)


------------------------



LPL (China)


Futures Positions (post in link and on sidebar):


JDG to win Spring: 1.375 units to win 20.875 units

FunPlus to win Spring: 2.125 units to win 5.3125 units
eStar to win Spring: 0.1 units to win 25.0 units

Still looking pretty good. If FunPlus beat whoever wins EDG / RNG I'm more or less locked in for profit in LPL futures this season. If JDG wins I'm in line for some big ones.




Playoffs Round 1


EDward Gaming +274 (+1.5 @ +118, +2.5 @ -287)
vs
FunPlus Phoenix -424 (-1.5 @ -167, -2.5 @ +197)


Lineups:

EDG: Aodi, JunJia, Scout, Hope, Meiko
FPX: GimGoon, Tian, Doinb, Lwx, Crisp


See the Action Network article for trends and details on my positions. 

Gotta save these wrists homies.



Spread: EDG +2.5 maps @ -244 (2.44 units)
Spread: EDG +1.5 maps @ +140 (0.5 units)
Moneyline: EDG +349 (0.25 units)

Map 1:
Kill Total: OVER 25.5 @ -119 (0.595 units)
Kill Total: OVER 26.5 @ +110 (0.2 units)
Prop: EDG first blood @ -120 (0.6 units)

Map 2:

Kill Total: OVER 25.5 @ -110 (0.55 units)
Kill Total: OVER 26.5 @ +122 (0.2 units)
Prop: EDG first blood @ -119 (0.595 units)

Map 3:


Kill Total: OVER 25.5 @ -119 (0.595 units)
Kill Total: OVER 26.5 @ +111 (0.2 units)
Prop: EDG first blood @ -114 (0.57 units)

------------------------



Other Leagues



none yet



--------------------


Parlays:

Parlay (2): Gen.G/T1 OVER 3.5 maps + EDG +2.5 @ -131 (1.31 units)

Thursday, April 23, 2020

April 24th: LPL Playoffs



April 23rd Recap:


LPL: 6 - 4 (+1.25 units)

Live: 1 - 1 (-0.06 units)



Total: +1.19 units



RNG / EDG

I don't always like to say I told you so but....

Honestly EDG didn't even play in any kind of exceptional manner although I'll give credit to Aodi and Junjia who were absolute studs in this series. Good for them. Scout had an off series getting caught out multiple times for no reason. RNG just set their players up for failure and in the one game that they had a draft that I didn't hate, they didn't properly evaluate the opposing team's win conditions and played directly into them. 

This isn't rocket science. I'm not some neurosurgeon. Get a damn drafting coach. I loved Mata as a player. I'd honestly call him the second best player of all time (at least there's an argument for it). He's not done a good job as a coach. Period. This situation, much like TSM, is making these players look far worse than they actually are and it's a damn shame that they're going to be crucified for this performance when it wasn't entirely their fault. Is there things they need to recognize? Absolutely but this is like 80% on the coaching staff.

I seriously feel like Captain O'Hagan in SuperTroopers
"Oh Give me the damn soap!"

Easy Rod.... - GIFs - Imgur

--------------------------

The content I provide here is always and will always be free but if you ever want to chip in and buy me a beer or pitch in to keep the lights on for the podcast there's a donation tab up top or you can DM me on Twitter if you prefer crypto or other means.

--------------------------

CHECK OUT THE GOLD CARD PODCAST!

Available on Spotify, iTunes, Podbean, Stitcher, and wherever you get your podcast fix!

-------------------------

(all lines are from Nitrogen unless stated otherwise)


------------------------



LPL (China)


Futures Positions:


JDG to win Spring: 1.375 units to win 20.875 units

FunPlus to win Spring: 2.125 units to win 5.3125 units
eStar to win Spring: 0.1 units to win 25.0 units




Playoffs Round 2

Team WE +331 (+1.5 @ +135, +2.5 @ -260)
vs
TOP eSports -549 (-1.5 @ -199, -2.5 @ +172)


Lineups:

WE: 
TOP: 

Trends:

TOP are 8-4 as favorites, 4-8 ATS
TOP are 3-2, 1-4 ATS in their past five appearances as favorites

Team WE are 6-5 as underdogs, 7-4 ATS
Team WE are 3-2, 4-1 ATS in their past five appearances as underdogs


I've been taking a very rock-paper-scissors approach to handicapping the LPL this split. One type of team tends to beat another type of team, etc. Team WE have thrived on beating up lane kingdom/resource-focused teams this season by forcing them out of their comfort zone. 

After all, "What good is your superior laning if you are unable to lane." -The Matix/Gelati circa April 2020 actually maybe

Unable To Speak GIF | Gfycat


Team WE have been doing this against all the different tiers of the lane kingdom teams too. They've taken games off of Invictus, LNG (ok maybe this is a bad thing cuz they lost), TOP (won 2-1), and OMG (won 2-0). They're not quite as good as FunPlus Phoenix at this but honestly they remind me a lot of that team last year. 

That said, TOP just beat FPX and I think they're the original Coca Cola of this style while Team WE are more like Diet Coke. Hey, at least they aren't Diet Shasta or the store general label! 

What I'm getting at is that I think TOP probably win this series but I absolutely think Team WE are going to get a game. This team is running so hot right now and this approach to the game allows them to snowball a game seemingly out of nowhere. It's tough to sweep a team that plays they way WE do, they're almost certainly going to take a game or two. TOP may have shown some adaptation to playing with tempo recently but over the course of the season they prefer to have a long laning phase. They're going to have to get outside their comfort zone in this matchup.

I'm also not ruling out the fact that TOP, while they've looked impressive at times, could just have an off day. JackeyLove just got here, the supports have been splitting time with the top trio, it's very possible they aren't quite as dialed in as other teams that have been together all split. 

Another note. One of the best ways to deal with ADC's that play the way JackeyLove has historically is to just camp them and there isn't really a better way to do that than with a mid laner like Teacherma and his Aurelion Sol, Nocturne, Twisted Fate, Pantheon, etc. All of these champions are designed to punish overextension or to just straight up dive. I could see TOP being drawn to the allure of 200 years of balance experience (Aphelios) and Team WE just send JKL to the nexus 5 times in the first 15 minutes in a game. It's really not that difficult a situation for me to imagine happening especially considering TOP tend to want to prolong lane phase as much as possible. 

All of this is to say that I'm going to have a very light touch here but I think Team WE will be more competitive than almost everyone thinks in this series. TOP haven't exactly been the most disciplined team either so I could see this series getting wonky way more often than the odds imply. 

Even looking at the numbers, these teams aren't nearly as far apart as you'd think. Team WE's heavy reliance on kills somewhat skews their economic numbers but TOP's 1794 gold per minute  isn't much further ahead. Their 31.3 cs per minute is actually extremely low for a team that plays the way they want to. 

I really just think people are overexcited for TOP just a bit. It's awesome that they're looking like what thought they'd be before the season and have added a big free agent at a position of need but it feels like there's a bit too much overreaction on both sides. People want to fade WE, understandably but I also think people are overeager to back a TOP team that we have a small sample size from this iteration for. Don't crown them kings of the LPL yet is all.

It's going to be a Diet Underdog Special. TOP win but they shouldn't be favored by this much, plain and simple.

The kill total of 28.5 is about right from every measure I have. I generated more outcomes under it but not by a meaningful enough margin to make any plays. I won't be making any kill spread plays either since WE tend to lose in spectacular fashion when they do lose with an extremely high AMOD of 13.26.

Our first blood plays on the best first blood team EDG missed today even though they won the series 3-1 although to be fair, we should have hit in game two, XLB basically traded it barely getting FB before dying himself. Coincidentally and unsurprisingly Team WE are 2nd in first blood rate this season which makes a lot of sense given that they want to get shit started ASAP. We'll be playing the underdog first blood in this spot. 

Spread: Team WE +2.5 maps @ -238 (2.38 units) (5Dimes)
Spread: Team WE +1.5 maps @ +147 (0.5 units)(5Dimes)
Moneyline: Team WE +331 (0.25 units)(Nitrogen)

Map 1:
Prop: WE first blood @ +107 (0.5 units)

Map 2:
Prop: WE first blood @ +103 (0.5 units)

Map 3:
Prop: WE first blood @ +107 (0.5 units)
(5Dimes)

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