Betting: February 28th (LCK / LPL)

Personal Early Line Projections:
These are what I believe the line should be not what I think the books will put it at. I will write this down before looking at the lines the books set for the day as a gauge of whether or not my expectations are in or out of line on the game. I typically weigh my own expectations a lot more because unlike in traditional sports I don't think the books know what they're doing or they just let an algorithm set their lines. 

Jin Air Green Wings -200 (66.6%) @ BBQ Olivers
Kingzone DragonX -567 (85%) @ MVP

BBQ Olivers took a series off of Kingzone following the break and then immediately got trounced by MVP. This isn't a good team and I think 

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LCK February 28th Schedule:

Jin Air (-222, -1.5 @ +146, M1 -175, M2 -175, M3 -152)
@ (Over/Under 37:00, Total Kills 18.5)
BBQ Olivers (+171, +1.5 @ -192, M1 +133, M2 +134, M3 +117)


Kingzone DragonX (-909, -1.5 @ -204, M1 -455, M2 -400, M3 -400)
@ (Over/Under 36:00, Total Kills 18.5)
MVP (+538, +1.5 @ +153, M1 +306, M2 +263, M3 +263)


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Moneyline: Jin Air Green Wings -222 (4 units) 

Handicapped: Jin Air Green Wings -1.5 maps @ +146 (1.5 units)

Prop: Map 1 - Jin Air First Blood @ -116 (0.5 units)
Prop: Map 2 - Jin Air First Blood @ -116 (0.5 units)

Over/Under: Map 1 UNDER 37:00 @ -116 (1 unit)
Over/Under: Map 2 UNDER 36:00 @ +107 (1 unit) 

So BBQ beat Kingzone and then immediately lost to MVP later in the week. That should tell you everything you need to know about this team. They're inconsistent. Competitive and aggressive, but wildly inconsistent. They play a very risk inclined style of League of Legends and sometimes it pays off and others it doesn't. Jin Air, on the other hand have been steady and are, for the most part, beating everyone they should be beating and losing to everyone they should be losing to like any middle of the table team tends to do. To me this boils down to a handful of points:

• Jin Air are significantly more consistent.
• BBQ's wins, while impressive, have had a lot of variance baked in (Rascal got the start in games 2 and 3 of the Kingzone series and a few of these early fights easily could have gone the other way). 
• Jin Air are light years better in almost every metric besides first blood %.
• Jin Air seem to have settled on their roster and have been performing excellently in this brutal part of the schedule that includes the Top 3 teams in a row in which they got a decisive 2-0 over Afreeca, a competitive 1-2 loss to KT Rolster, and an 0-2 against Kingzone through two long, very close slugfest games.
• Jin Air seem to have a really strong grasp on Patch 8.3 and have been giving stronger teams than themselves a lot of trouble with their excellent tempo play from Grace and UmTi on picks like Skarner, Taliyah, and Camille.

Coming off of the bye week it's not unreasonable to suspect BBQ had very specific plans cooked up for Kingzone and while Jin Air likely had the same for Afreeca, I buy Jin Air's wins more, if that makes any sense. These are similar teams in that their current forms are very aggressive and look to play the tempo game, I just feel the Jin Air have stronger players, are more consistent, have better quality wins against, better quality wins against good opponents, and have the three best players in this specific match in Teddy, Grace, and SoHwan. Jin Air and BBQ both have high first blood rates due to early aggression at 57% and 54% respectively.  I expect fast games in one direction or the other from these two heavily tempo-reliant squads. They'll be fast, decisive wins in one direction or the other and I'm betting on Jin Air.

Result: LOSS 0-8. Lost every single bet. This season is something else. I'm going to rewatch this tonight but essentially this boiled down to Jin Air getting stomped and then not showing up in game two. I can't tell if teams are just totally disrespecting each other, if the records are severely inaccurate, if teams are just up for certain matchups, or if the league is just more competitive overall (which I didn't think was possible in the LCK). There is no consistency, rhyme, or reason to almost anything that's going on in the LCK this season and as someone that's watched literally every single game of this league since it's inception back in 2012 I can honestly say that I've never seen anything like it.

Anyway now that the emotions ran out let me talk about this series. First of all I think the Leona pick really threw Jin Air off in game one but they recovered nicely and were in control at one point up 5 kills to 3 and proceeded to have two of the worst team fights I've seen all season. Teddy and Grace put themselves in a places where their front line couldn't protect them multiple times and they got picked off. In game two Jin Air tried the Illaoi counterpick to Ornn but did absolutely nothing to protect the Illaoi from inevitable jungle pressure. Even still they had chances in this game and early on actually looked to be in control after a successful bot tower dive and two infernal drakes. 

In summary I think BBQ played a good series. They didn't do anything too whacky (Leona pops up from time to time) and played the macro game, particularly in game two the way they should by just camping the Illaoi. If Jin Air did anything to support the Illaoi, and SoHwan didn't overextend on one occassion I think this could have worked but after an 0-2 start they essentially quit on their strategy, tried to team fight with Illaoi, and lost because of it.  This patch is extremely unforgiving to teams that get behind early and I think it will only get more severe in Patch 8.4.

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Handicapped: Kingzone DragonX -1.5 maps @ -204 (3 units)

Prop: Map 1 - Kingzone First Blood @ -175 (0.5 units)

Prop: Map 2 - Kingzone First Blood @ -175 (0.5 units)

Over/Under: Map 1 UNDER 36:00 @ -125 (1 unit)

Over/Under: Map 2 UNDER 36:00 @ -125 (1 unit) 


MVP don't have a single game win against a team I'd call a "quality" team. Their game wins were as follows: 

• 2 against the slumping, confused SK Telecom that was making roster swaps
• 4 against the inconsistent and wild BBQ Olivers
• ... that's it.

It has been the year of the upset but with Kingzone just losing a competitive series against Afreeca and being upset by the BBQ Oliver in a really bizarre series coming out of the break, I don't think they'll be taking this game lightly and unlike KSV (we're divorced now by the way...), I think this team has too much pride to be embarassed a second, or third, or fourth time. It's only been two weeks since we watched this team rattle off 14 games in a row in completely dominant fashion. Surely the other teams were going to figure something out but now that Kingzone has had a couple series to see the rest of the leagues counterpunches they can begin to start striking back. They're going to want to secure a #1 seed in the most competitive region in the world and they can do that with a couple more wins but they have to put away bad teams like this first. I got burned for saying it but this is another series that I think Kingzone win even with Rascal or Cuzz in the picture but with first place on the line I'd be surprised to see either outside of starting them after a crushing game one victory. 

Result: 3 wins - 2 losses. Kingzone almost lost game one of this series which would have completely put me in the red on every bet today in the LCK but they showed up like themselves for game two. I'm really hoping all these upsets and good performances by bad teams start to motivate the stronger teams to quit messing around. It's not a pushover to "experiment" or try new things against these weaker teams anymore and with playoff seeding on the line I think you'll start to see less of it in the coming weeks.

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LOL Pro League February 28th Schedule:


Vici Gaming (+400, +1.5 @ +144, M1 +275, M2 +276, M3 +276)
@ (Over/Under 34:00, Total Kills 18.5)
Royal Never Give-Up (-667, -1.5 @ -200, M1 -400, M2 -400, M3 -400)


Rogue Warriors (+151, +1.5 @ -208, M1 +120, M2 +123, M3 +123)
@ (Over/Under 34:00, Total Kills 19.5)
EDward Gaming (-196, -1.5 @ +158, M1 -167, M2 -161, M3 -161)


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Handicapped: RNG -1.5 maps @ -200 (3 units)

Prop: Map 1 - RNG First Blood @ -175 (0.5 units)

Prop: Map 2 - RNG First Blood @ -169 (0.5 units)

Over/Under: Map 1 UNDER 34:00 @ -137 (1 unit)

Over/Under: Map 2 UNDER 34:00 @ -133 (1 unit) 

Vici got just their second game win of the season yesterday against fellow bottom dwellers TopSports and their fresh new solo laners MaRin and Corn. RNG finally got Uzi back last match and took a 2-1 victory over long time rivals Team WE. With or without Uzi in the lineup RNG has pretty convincingly destroyed lower level teams. This roster is stacked with individual talent and in China that matters a lot more than in other regions. Karsa AND Mlxg, Zztai AND LetMe, Xiaohu, Uzi, Ming... like jeez. Anyway Vici is the worst team in the LPL and it's not close. Even Easyhoon and Swift can't save this team and in this specific matchup I just don't see it happening. I do think Vici is due for a win however I think it will be against one of these other middle of the pack teams without as much starpower.

Result: 2 wins - 3 losses for us, 2 - 1 win for RNG. Mlxg went absolutely bonkers in game one on Camille and that was that. Game two was one that RNG is going to want back. Both teams were trading kills, Vici camping top and RNG camping bottom both with success. After lane, RNG was in full control of pacing this game and methodically went around destroying towers until baron. Then they just hard lost the 5v5 at baron by ignoring Kogmaw and getting 4 man Camille ulted. Vici won the game off the ace. Just single real big mistake and that was all she wrote. I think Vici played well trading top pressure for bot pressure but ultimately this boiled down to one really good team fight in which Vici got the optimal setup and that was it. RNG is still good, Vici might be slightly better than they were but didn't exactly show me anything exciting from this series. RNG just threw a game. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------


Moneyline: EDward Gaming -196  (3 units)

I'm fairly confident EDG are the better team and take this series but I'm not entirely sure if it will be a clean 2-0 or a slugfest. Rogue Warriors have been impressive so far this season but similarly to the points I was talking about before the EDG vs Suning series, it's about time EDG starts turning it on for their playoff push. This roster is very strong and while Rogue Warriors have impressed with superstar ADC SmLz and mid laner DoinB, I think EDG have the more complete roster and Rogue Warriors have been a bit reliant on "protect the carry" style comps. I think EDG can play that style around iBoy or find some way around it with Scout's versatility. 

Result: LOSS BUT WE GOT SOME INFO! Game 1 was 7-0 for RW and Game 2 was 7-0 for RW... wow... I actually don't think I've ever seen a complete series shutout before and against a strong EDG team. Steak (RW coach and former LMS player, multi-time World Championship Top 8) really has these guys playing super disciplined, Korean-esque League of Legends and it's incredibly impressive. The takeaway from this isn't that EDG laid and egg. They had good team compositions but RW just had the answer at all points and closed nearly perfectly in both games. I think this Rogue Warriors team isn't just one of those "early season tryhards" we were discussing earlier this week in a long LPL season. The Rogue Warriors are the LPL's version of the NHL's Golden Knights. "Are they going to crash and burn yet? Nope, still going." That seems to be the reality we're living in so maybe this team is the real deal and a Top 2 or 3 team in China. Now we just need to be burned next week :)


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