Monday, April 6, 2020

April 7th: LPL, LCS




April 6th Recap:




LPL:  17 - 18 (+1.562 units)



Total:  17 - 18 (+1.562 units)



Victory 5/Suning (Net: -0.235)

After seeing a handful of days on 10.6 I can honestly say that the new re-worked Wukong is going to steal games for awhile but this wasn't one of them. Y4 punted away yet another great start. I don't know how many more of these there will be. That's 4 or 5 games this season where he's been tremendously fed and positions poorly or gets caught at an inopportune time. Some of it this time around was the team composition not providing a lot of peel for him but it's been what's kept Y4 from being something to be optimistic for on this V5 lineup. We're in the red because Suning had to come from behind in this one which is somewhat damning to their prospects moving forward as well.


Vici/OMG (Net: +2.236)


I'm a Forge hater but I have to admit that in this current metagame with picks like Sylas and Kassadin as good options that he's been pretty good. That said, he also got caught out a number of times in this series. I don't know what to think about him. He shows moments of brilliance and then twice as many of idiocy.


OMG just outclassed Vici in every position and it turns out the ridiculous schedule they've had to face in their three most recent matches was good training. Curse with the hard Ornn carry was a riot to watch too.


Rogue Warriors/TOP (Net: -0.439)


Game one was somewhat competitive with TOP winning in typical TOP fashion grinding the game to a halt and outmaneuvering on the map. Game two, they decided to play with their food a little and try out the bouncey castle composition with all the knockups. While I think the Malphite top might be some sweet tech into the new Wukong, it didn't work out as RW were just able to dive Photic over and over. Game three TOP put on the most savage stomping they've put on anyone this season just as a message. If it wasn't clear they were experimenting, that cleared things up for you.If TOP don't clown around in game two we would've spiked this for a decent amount too.


Update on trends in the LPL:

94 matches played
Favorites: 63-31
Favorite Spreads: 38-56
Underdog 2-0's: 16 out of 94

Average Odds of Underdog Spread: -142.9
Average Odds of the Underdog in dog 2-0's: +192.2

LPL League Average Margin of Victory (AMOV): 10.49 kills
LPL League Average Margin of Defeat (AMOD): 10.01 kills
LPL League Average Kills per Win (KPW): 18.45 kills
LPL League Average Kills per Loss (KPL): 8.46 kills

Underdogs have reigned supreme in the LPL with even underdog spreads moving into the green this week assuming you bet the blind. Do I think that continues with teams being eliminated from playoff contention? No. There's also the consideration that a majority of the underdog profit this season in underdog moneylines has been from OMG and eStar. One of those was severely mispriced before the season (OMG) and the other was the dark horse underdog very few saw coming. 

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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.Every so often somebody will get them shortly before game time. Do you research.

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(all lines are from Nitrogen unless stated otherwise)


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LPL (China)


Week 6 - Day 2


BiliBili Gaming -181 (-1.5 @ +160)
vs
Dominus +123 (+1.5 @ -234)

Lineups:

BLG: ADD, Meteor, FoFo, Jinjiao, XinMo
DOM: Natural, Xiaopeng, Xiye, GALA, Mark

Trends:

BiliBili are 1-4 as favorites, 0-5 ATS
Dominus are 2-8 as underdogs, 3-7 ATS



Dominus looked like they were finally piecing things together with a coach in the building now but then they ran into a good team in EDG and got pretty thoroughly smacked down. 


BiliBili... man this team. So BiliBili still just lose games hard in the draft I'd say about half the time so they're really difficult to evaluate. They should have won their series against EDG. In game three, EDG had a big lead, punted it really badly, and then BiliBili screwed up the opportunity that was handed to them and ended up losing by being run around the map. Game one was a thorough and convincing win. 


On one hand you could look at BiliBili "beating" EDG and be optimistic. Perhaps the second half trend upward that I anticipated could be coming to fruition. On the other hand, the fact that they couldn't put that game away and still have some strange drafting tendencies leaves little to be optimistic about. I'm going with a 75% former/25% latter weighting which brings us to this series.


It feels like a spot for Dominus who were trending upward but I'm still not buying that team and even with reduced expectations for BiliBili I'd expect them to take this down. BiliBili have actually hung tough taking games against some good teams like EDG, eStar and FunPlus and despite their issues do appear to at least be partially turning things around. Even baking in some "Dominus will continue to improve" ingredients, I still think BiliBili win this series at closer to a 65-70% clip which provides some tremendous value on the best number I found.


4 out of 5 of BiliBili's most recent wins were under the 32:11 mark. All four of Dominus' most recent victories were under the 32:30 mark. This line is set at 33:00 primarily because the average game time between these two is closer to that number. Typically when these teams win its through a snowball. 


If we remove the two biggest outliers in BiliBili's KPW we get a 16.66. 

Dominus have lost by double digits in only 4 of their 16 losses. If we look at their most recent 8 losses their KPL is 6.0.

Given that BiliBili's KPW and KPL are both well below league average and Dominus is well below average in KPL but slightly above in only KPW and I don't think Dominus win this I think there's a good chance we have a low scoring match. I'd set the number at 22.66 (~0.5 variable). I like the under 23.5 at plus odds as well as the BiliBili kill spreads since they're on the smaller side and well within their AMOV.


Moneyline: BiliBili Gaming -145 (2.9 units)

Spread: BiliBili -1.5 maps @ +197 (0.25 units)

Map 1:

Time Total: UNDER 33:00 @ -103 (1.03 units)
Kill Total: UNDER 23.5 @ +103 (0.5 units)
Kill Spread: BBG -4.5 kills @ +109 (0.2 units)
Kill Spread: BBG -5.5 kills @ +134 (0.1 units)


Map 2:

Time Total: UNDER 33:00 @ -110 (1.1 units)
Kill Total: UNDER 23.5 @ +100 (0.5 units)
Kill Spread: BBG -4.5 kills @ +113 (0.2 units)
Kill Spread: BBG -5.5 kills @ +132 (0.1 units)
(5Dimes)

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JD Gaming +108 (+1.5 @ -287)
vs
eStar Gaming -154 (-1.5 @ +197)

Lineups:

JDG: Zoom, Kanavi, Yagao, Loken, LvMao
eStar: Xiaobai, Wei, Cryin, Wink, ShiauC

It was against LNG and Suning but JDG seem to be back on the right track after a difficult schedule of RNG, TOP, and EDG that, admittedly they should have probably won besides RNG. We also have Zoom in his first series back dominating on the weak side Mordekaiser and Sett and, perhaps most importantly, crushing Wukong in two different matchups. 


eStar are coming off back-to-back losses against RNG and Vici. If you've been following most of the season, this regression was to be expected but just how far down the slope are eStar going to go? Unfortunately for them, this is yet another difficult matchup. We also haven't seen a lot of adjustment from eStar to change who they are. With Zoom's excellent weak side (or strong side really) play back in the lineup and the ability for JDG to play towards the inevitable bottom lane bonanza that eStar seem to force every game, I think this is yet another recipe for an eStar loss. While I think they should have been figured out a bit sooner, the LPL finally seems to be catching up. 


(Unrelated note: I actually think Cryin played an incredible series against Vici, maybe his best of the year, showed me a lot of things that I had questions about that I wasn't seeing during their run)


JDG can beat you in so many different ways. They've been an excellent 1-3-1 split push team in in the past, a strategy that I don't think has been utilized enough against eStar. They no longer have the liability in the bottom lane so they can play any which way around that lane, and with Zoom back in the lineup they can play any number of ways around his lane as well. They also love mixing it up and scrapping against teams like Invictus. 


The long and short of it is that JDG have carte blanche for how they want to attack this matchup and it's all deadly. 


We're going with an underdog special here but weighting it like we did OMG this morning, heavier on the outright win. JDG are a better team through and through and have way more tools in their box while eStar only have a sledgehammer.


While eStar have had a few ridiculous outlier kill totals in losses, the vast majority of their losses have them at 5 or fewer kills. eStar are obviously a super bloody team when they win with a KPW over 21:58 which is second only to... strangely enough, Team WE.  JDG have one of the lowest KPW totals in the LPL at 16.5 and a KPL that's well below league average as well. Assuming JDG win this series, like I do, then this will be a juicy under spot especially given the inflated kill totals from eStar's first half of the season. 


I'm anticipating this will look a lot like the RNG/eStar series more than others.


Moneyline: JDG +114 (1 unit)

Spread: JDG -1.5 maps @ +277 (0.5 units)

Map 1:

Kill Total: UNDER 26.5 @ -110 (0.55 units)
Kill Total: UNDER 25.5 @ +111 (0.25 units)
Kill Total: UNDER 24.5 @ +136 (0.25 units)
Kill Spread: JDG +0.5 kills @ +107 (0.2 units)
Kill Spread: JDG -0.5 kills @ +113 (0.2 units)
Kill Spread: JDG -1.5 kills @ +129 (0.2 units)

Map 2: 

Kill Total: UNDER 26.5 @ -114 (0.57 units)
Kill Total: UNDER 25.5 @ +107 (0.25 units)
Kill Total: UNDER 24.5 @ +132 (0.25 units)
Kill Spread: JDG +0.5 kills @ +107 (0.2 units)
Kill Spread: JDG -0.5 kills @ +113 (0.2 units)
Kill Spread: JDG -1.5 kills @ +128 (0.2 units)

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FunPlus Phoenix -1136 (-1.5 @ -207)
vs
LNG eSports +543 (+1.5 @ +147)

Lineups:

FPX: Khan, Tian, Doinb, Lwx, Crisp
LNG: Flandre, Xx, Maple, Light, Duan

LNG have been crashing down of late. Admittedly it's been a tough schedule having to face JDG, Vici, and eStar in tthree of their past four. They managed to take games off of Vici and eStar in that time but then lost 0-2 to Dominus. I've got a lot of issues with LNG. They're going to try Light again in this match, they've ceased being proactive at all, and they're about to face yet another daunting task in FunPlus fresh off of a good performance with Khan. 

FunPlus have 7 more series while IG have 6 and eStar have 5. It's totally within the realm of possibility for FunPlus to lock up the #1 seed still especially given their remaining schedule of this match, Vici, EDG, LGD, Rogue Warriors. I entirely expect them to be going for that. This team is rolling with Khan or GimGoon and appear back to form. FPX are also not a team the clowns around like Invictus, G2, etc. They're going to completely smash this LNG team.


LNG have been giving up a lot of the early game and you simply can't do that against a team like FPX. We saw what happened when Victory Five tried this...



FPX have won by 11 or more kills in 12 out of 18 wins this season including their past six wins in a row. LNG have lost by 10 or more deaths in their past 5 losses. LNG have also put up 6 or fewer kills in 7 of their past 8 losses. With Khan in the lineup, Fiora, Jayce, and other split pushers are in the cards which could lead to even fewer kills. 


Combined these teams average 25.85 kills+deaths per game but both have a lot of outliers in their numbers. If you look at recent performances and medians it's substantially lower. I have this handicapped at 19.0. There's a chance FPX run the score up but I'd expect them to just completely run over LNG before that even has a chance to happen. Given the lower KPW that FPX has, I'm not going to mess with the large kill spreads but I like the lower ones as well as the kill total unders and time total unders even with the juice.


Map 1: 

Time Total: UNDER 32:00 @ -154 (0.77 units)
Kill Total: UNDER 23.5 @ +113 (0.25 units)
Kill Total: UNDER 22.5 @ +143 (0.25 units)
Kill Spread: FPX -7.5 kills @ -161 (1.61 units)

Map 2: 

Time Total: UNDER 32:00 @ -132 (0.66 units)
Kill Total: UNDER 23.5 @ +118 (0.25 units)
Kill Total: UNDER 22.5 @ +147 (0.25 units)
Kill Spread: FPX -7.5 kills @ -161 (1.61 units)


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LCS (North America)


Playoffs
Losers Bracket Round 1


FlyQuest -234 (-1.5 @ -102, -2.5 @ +296)
vs
Golden Guardians +160 (+1.5 @ -141, +2.5 @ -478)

Trends:
FlyQuest are 6-4 as favorites this split
Golden Guardians are 7-10 as underdogs this split
These teams split the regular season series 1-1 with GG winning in week nine

After rewatching this FlyQuest vs Evil Geniuses series again I've somewhat reversed course on FlyQuest's overall performance. They played this pretty damn well at least in the first three games. I really can't understand the Viper substitution other than he was tilted and they saw/heard that in the facility. So many of these fights were very close to the point where it could have gone either way. Evil Geniuses executed slightly better in the first two games. This easily could have gone the other way. 

One of the more interesting angles with this playoff format is that the losers bracket teams in round one get to see what their opponent did in winners bracket which is a fairly big edge that I don't want to ignore especially if they broke out some unique picks. In FlyQuest's case they played very generically good drafts, as we've come to expect from them this season.

Something I've noticed based on the last series and with regular season results is that it doesn't appear that PowerofEvil is comfortable playing Zoe. He lost his only game on it in the regular season and it was banned in all four games against Evil Geniuses and that was against Jiizuke who has not shown a particularly good mastery for the champion either. This could be a big draft advantage for Golden Guardians since Goldenglue went 7/2/15 in the last two matches on her including a win against FlyQuest. Personally I think the champion is broken in North America because of the slow speed at which the LCS teams tend to set up objectives. When you play slower it allows her more opportunities to make picks. She only has a 51.52% win rate in NA but was also banned 21 different times as well. Keep an eye on this.

My gut is telling me that FlyQuest make the proper adjustments smash this series, particularly with Viper in the lineup but the combination of extra film, possible tilt, and the question mark of whether or not Solo will start leave me a bit uncertain. FlyQuest have been remarkably steady all year long and Golden Guardians have been the exact opposite. 

If Golden Guardians take game one, especially with a weird pick or strategy that catches FlyQuest off-guard, I could see this getting ugly quick. The question now becomes how much do I trust FlyQuest coming off of this loss and top lane debacle.

I'm going to trust FlyQuest here. Even with Solo in the lineup I think they would take care of business. Having side selection is also a pretty big edge in a best of five. The matter in which they win this series is another question. I'm going to be fairly light on everything that isn't the moneyline since I'm not entirely confident exactly how this series will play out in terms of pacing and other angles.

Moneyline: FlyQuest -208 (2.08 units)
Spread: FlyQuest -1.5 maps @ +104 (0.25 units)


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Other Leagues



none yet



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Parlays:

Parlay (2): 
Map 1 FPX -7.5 kills + Map 1 DAMWON -7.5 kills (Wednesday) @ +213 (0.25 units)

Parlay (2): 

Map 1 FPX -7.5 kills + Map 2 DAMWON -7.5 kills (Wednesday) @ +220 (0.25 units)

Parlay (2): 

Map 2 FPX -7.5 kills + Map 2 DAMWON -7.5 kills (Wednesday) @ +224 (0.25 units)

Loving the DAMWON spreads on Wednesday and was looking for something to package it with from today's slate.

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