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.

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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)

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LCK (Korea)

Futures Positions (post in link and on sidebar):

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)

I did a detailed writeup on this one over at The Action Network with my positions and why. 

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)

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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)

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Other Leagues

none yet

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Parlays:

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

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!"



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

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



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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Other Leagues

none yet

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

Parlays:

April 23rd: LPL Playoffs

April 22nd Recap:

LPL: 1 - 4 (-4.89 units)

LCK: 0 - 3 (-3.9 units)

Live: 1 - 1 (-2.77 units)


Total: 2 - 8 (-11.56 units)

Yikes... I got baited by a bad market after DragonX went down 0-2 and bet into the T1 exact 3-0 instead of waiting for a -1.5 or just hitting the moneyline at whatever absurd number it was. Lesson learned. I was an idiot. More on this ....

DragonX / T1 (Net: -6.67)
(-2.77 live)

I'm going to talk about this one on the podcast tonight for sure but I think a lot of people are going to be really salty about the drafts from DragonX. A few thoughts:
1) You shouldn't be surprised, they've been drafting for early game all season and it's served them well
2) Ziggs and Viktor are ridiculously good bottom especially in the right matchup. So are Syndra, Swain, Zilean, Yasuo, and a number of other picks. "Stick with what got you here" is a dangerous mindset that we often fault teams for. I absolutely loved the picks and I don't think DRX lost this series in draft in fact I thought they had a few edges. They also have the luxury (although it shouldn't be... which I'll discuss tonight) of a bottom lane player that's actually good at mages. (By the way... I know people like Uzi but Deft is the best to ever play that position. Nobody has been as good for as long and as versatile as he's been. Even late in his career he's adapting.)
3) Doran just got bodied in this series by Canna who was honestly a man on a mission today. 
4) DragonX made a few boneheaded calls from ahead (particularly that baron). Perhaps it was nerves or something but that had nothing to do with drafts...
5) T1 were absurdly good today. Sometimes when you have two elite teams, one just has it that day or has the right solution to the equation. We sort of saw this in the World Finals last year. FPX were just on fire that day. It doesn't make G2 a bad team.

I'm not really changing my thoughts on DragonX. I would do this bet again without hesitation. This team is good. 

A lot of us in the community were on DragonX today. It sucks losing but sometimes a team just balls out on a day. We always want to find justification for shit, especially when we're frustrated. It helps us feel better. Blaming a draft or a team "no-showing" or whatever is something I've done and I see a lot of people doing when the fact is, sometimes it has nothing to do with that. T1 were just a beast of a team today. Consider this series from T1's shoes and suddenly you become a lot more impressed. "Wow they managed to beat the Ziggs curveball"  "Whoa they stablized AND THEN SOME" or "Canna is straight dicking down Doran right now" etc because, to me, that's what this series should be about. T1 look incredible. They can do everything and that's terrifying. They are now 5-0 against the other elite teams and after that performance it honestly wouldn't surprise me ot see them as underdogs (just checked, they are +108 / -143). 

Team WE / eStar (Net: -4.89)

This series, on the other hand, I'm having my doubts about my handicap on. 

Typically when two teams play a similar way it's closer than you think. Ok, makes sense right?

Typically when two teams that play the slightly higher variance, get shit started style that these two play the matchup has a BOATLOAD of variance. Ok, sure I follow you.

Then why the hell was I so bullish eStar in this spot and so against just taking the value and calling it a day? I was bearish on eStar for two-thirds of the season before turning the other cheek after seeing some adaptation and improvement even in losses. There was actually reason to be optimistic. Combine that with the gruesome schedule Team WE had coming into the playoffs and the supposed preparation advantage I'd assume eStar would have. It made at least some sense but I should have read this as "two variance inducing teams" instead of one of these teams is better than the other. 

(I'm not calling their style random, just that it's higher variance than other approaches to the game. They're not coin flipping over and over, it's more calculated than that, it's just the easiest way to phrase it without getting more wordy)

For things I didn't see... How could I anticipate Team WE showing that different scaling look? That was cool. That was about it... Generally Team WE were just a better team today. They look really really good. Do I have my doubts about Teacherma? Absolutely but you know what? If this team catches some "lane kingdom" teams I actually think there is a good chance for them to upset. Oh... look who's next on the schedule... more on that on Thursday's post.


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

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

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

Royal Never Give Up -119 (+1.5 @ -260)
vs
EDward Gaming -119 (-1.5 @ +172)

Lineups:
RNG: Langx, XLB, Xiaohu, Betty, Ming
EDG: Aodi, Junjia, Scout, Hope, Meiko

Trends:


It's a little bit odd that we're seeing the Aodi/Junjia version of EDG in game one but it could prove to be potent if they have multiple strategies prepared. Aodi and Junjia were actually outstanding relative to expectations and were excellent most of the season. For that reason I don't think it's totally outlandish to start them over the original starters of Jinoo and Jiejie even if I think they're better. It's not like they're starting bad players or anything.

I'll just be straight up about this series because frankly, the numbers don't really mean much because, to me, this boils down to one thing:

Does RNG draft even halfway decently? 

They certainly haven't given us a lot of reason to hope so. I've talked about it ad nauseum at this point but RNG are remarkably similar to TSM. They have the players, they have the chops, when they're set up to utilize that then they look like one of the best teams in the league they're just not set up often. It'd be one thing for a team to go on a long losing streak or have a few weeks with weird, experimental drafts but that hasn't been the case. 

It took me awhile to realize because they had a good read early in the season but it honestly appears like this coaching staff has absolutely no idea what's what. I factor in a lot about a teams approach in my process. I'm evaluating a team's process during my personal evaluation process. There are certain things, maybe a bad habit, a predictable trend, maybe a nuance that they frequently do that's recognizable to me in much the same way that a musician can identify a technique that another musician is using from using it himself. The challenge becomes whether or not it's player error, lack of preparation (coaching), or a lack of fundamental understanding for whatever it is I'm looking at in the first place. Let's take a look at an example from an RNG game.

This is game two against Dominus on April 15th. I realize this was a particularly egregious example but I wanted to have something that's easy to point out.

Let's play the coaching game. What's wrong and right with this picture/draft? 

Go ahead and write it down
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Here's what I see from the perspective of RNG

The Good:
Varus + Elise sets up an immediately gankable bottom lane, also likely a lane that should have priority with Varus being such a strong and versatile blind pick. Pair it with a CC support and you have a lane you can camp while also forcing your opponent to draft with this in mind. Elise, for all the bad things people say about her, is a great selection against Trundle. You're not a target he can steal meaningful stats from with his ult, and you win the 1v1. Elise also enables CC top and mid lanes to have gank pressure completely warping how the opponent drafts. This is, in my opinion, an outstanding opening that's only real weakness is lack of mobility and need for another form of engage or secondary engage somewhere

The Bad: 
Everything else... You banned away the best top lane for Elise to gank yourself (before you picked her btw). You have to select your top laner blind knowing that you're probably not taking Ornn because they havea Trundle (can still do it, just not favorable) meaning you're sort of showing that you're going Aatrox before you even do it. Then the big one... you take Kassadin. 

So what's the big deal with Kassadin. "Hey Gelati, I thought it's a "counter" to Leblanc?" It is but this bring up a really important and complex concept that I'll shorten to a single sentence. There are lane counters, big picture counters, and 1v1 counters. Kassadin isn't a lane counter to Leblanc. In fact you're one of the easiest lanes to gank in the game for her and you'll never have priority until you have a few items. 

Bringing this back to the last pick... Taking Kassadin here doesn't make a lot of sense in the complexion of your composition. Are you a 1-3-1 comp? Sorta yea, that's your best mode. By the time a 1-3-1 comes online Elise is negligable. Are you a scrapping or team fighting comp? Kassadin can be good in these if he's able to bat cleanup but you're looking to spike mid game not late and it's riskier. Ok so... like what are we then? With a counterpicked top, a passive/shoved into own tower mid lane, you're more or less forced to camp bottom as Elise in this situation in order to get ahead. It's the only gankable lane. 

How did this game play out? First of all, XLB didn't path toward a gank bottom, he pathed toward top side. Second, DMO's jungler Xiaopeng understood that ganking bottom was the only win condition. Along with Xiye stacking waves against a Kassadin that couldn't do anything, they disrupted XLB repeatedly forcing him to stay away from their strong lane which was bottom. 

1) You have one out, it's predictable and the game is more or less already over against a smart team (DMO haven't exactly been that either just for comparison...)
2) XLB not understand that that was the only win condition at all.

To me this is just one of a number of different examples of a fundamental lack of understanding. In the music industry (particularly marching band and other judged music competition) there is a concept called "clarity of intent." If a judge can identify what you're trying to do then it's easier to appreciate the things that you are doing well. In LOL, if you don't have the baseline understanding of what your team composition is supposed to do and your players don't understand what they're supposed to do I have serious questions about how trustworthy you actually are. RNG aren't the only team guilty of this, they're just one of the posterchildren this season. 

If you know what you want to be and just suck at it then we can idenfity that you at least have an idea and it's just execution. IF you don't have the conceptual framework or foundation then you're doomed before it even starts. What good is execution if you don't know what you're trying to achieve.

Hopefully you learned something from all of this babble, I'll have to do a stream about it.

Anyway, that was an extremely long-winded way of saying
I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT TRUST RNG

They have the players, they have the chops, but as we've learned time and time again this season more than in any other, if you don't have the foundation, it almost doesn't matter how good your players are (unless you're Invictus apparently... but that's for another time).

EDG have had their issues as well. They have a bad habit of being on the wrong side of the map with crucial objectives up. This has lost them a few games. Other than that they're a fairly solid team. If you consider the language barriers, all the stuff they've gone through this season, and that they have a slightly less gifted roster than the top tier LPL teams, it's rather impressive that EDG have looked as good as they have. EDG's core of Meiko and Scout is rock solid from game-to-game. Their drafts have been solid and sensible and they're able to play a number of styles and strategies well even if none of them are at a particularly elite level. EDG are very good even if they aren't great.

 I was hoping we'd have an overrated RNG based on name brand but I still handicap EDG as a small favorite in this series. They have more good on their film than bad and they don't handicap themselves before the game begins nearly as often as RNG does. 

RNG could come out and actually make sense in this series but I'm betting against it. Assuming RNG draft at an average, even level for this series I still think EDG would only be small underdogs (+100 or +110). I'm not banking entirely on RNG punting games before the start. EDG are a good team regardless of who is in the lineup. In a best-of-five you need to be versatile and able to adapt both on the rift and in the draft and I simply do not trust RNG to do that based on all the red flags I've seen in their film this season. 

I'm expecting each team to punt a game or two in this series due to error or poor draft (especially RNG on the draft note). I think EDG end up on top but I doubt either team 3-0's this series.

Notes on kill total:
D+K per g both avg 24.7

RNG trending: 26.4 
(4 matches 10 games had SN and RW but also two duds)
RNG trending KPW: 16.125
RNG trendng KPL: 11.375 (huge variance)

EDG trending: 27.0
EDG trending KPW 19.25
EDG trending KPL: 8.125

The kill data suggests that this number is pretty close to right on the money based on season totals and KPW/L. I added one match to the trending numbers to offset the meaningless final match these two each played. Without it isn't too much different anyway but just to be thorough. I'm going with the over in this spot I'd expect this series to be a competitive bloodbath or an EDG stomping. EDG tend to score a lot on their own when winning and if you assume RNG wins it should be right near the total on average. I think at least two or three of these games get over the total assuming we get a four game series.

EDG have the second highest first blood rate in the LPL and are a full 14%+ more often than RNG. Again, high variance prop but at 57.1% implied vs their number I'll go to win half a unit per first three maps. 

Map Total: OVER 3.5 maps @ -400 (4 units)
Moneyline: EDG -109 (0.545 units)
Prop: Exact EDG 3-1 @ +372 (0.25 units)
Prop: Exact EDG 3-2 @ +383 (0.25 units)

Map 1:
Kill Total: OVER 24.5 @ -125 (1.25 units)
Prop: EDG first blood @ -133 (0.665 units)

Map 2:
Kill Total: OVER 24.5 @ -120 (1.2 units)
Prop: EDG first blood @ -133 (0.665 units)

Map 3:
Kill Total: OVER 24.5 @ -122 (1.22 units)
Prop: EDG first blood @ -133 (0.665 units)


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

Other Leagues

none yet

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

Parlays: