Betting: July 25th (LCK, LPL)

LOL Champions Korea 7/25 Schedule:

SK Telecom (-345, -1.5 @ -115)
@ Over/Under ???, Total Kills ???
BBQ Olivers (+248, +1.5 @ -116)


Hanwha Life eSports (-333, -1.5 @ +103)
@ Over/Under ??, Total Kills ??
Jin Air GW (+242, +1.5 @ -133)


Afreeca Freecs (-1111, -1.5 @ -233)
@ Over/Under 33:00, Total Kills 18.5

MVP (+583, +1.5 @ +172)

.

Handicapped: SK Telecom -1.5 maps @ -115 (4 units)

If you look at the last five matches for both of these teams you'd see two teams on the rise but context is important so let's dive into this a bit. 

• SK Telecom: 2-0 win vs HLE (subs in game 2), 1-2 loss to KT Rolster, 2-1 win to MVP, 1-2 loss to HLE, 2-0 win vs BBQ
• BBQ Olivers: 2-1 win vs Afreeca, 2-1 win vs Jin Air, 1-2 loss to MVP, 0-2 loss to Jin Air, 0-2 loss to SKT

Both teams have had one impressive win; SKT defeating the rock solid Hanwha Life 2-0 and BBQ defeating Afreeca 2-1. The devil, as they say, is in the details. First, a reminder that SKT faced the HLE B-Team in game two so considering it a 2-0 stomping isn't appropriate but they did so with Pirean playing instead of Faker. BBQ Olivers are coming off back to back wins, both of which are their only two wins THIS ENTIRE SEASON. I'd also argue that, while impressive, Afreeca was both experimenting and clearly not entirely focused on that matchup. I'll give credit where it's due, when a team gives you a win all you can do is take it but let's be real here folks, BBQ are the worst team in the LCK and I, for one, don't think it's close. If there was going to be any of the "bad" teams that were to take advantage of the bizarre metagame we've seen this season I'd put my money on BBQ but they've been terrible. For most of the season they looked defeated the second something went wrong, they've shown an inability to come back and have botched half the leads they've had despite that not happening very often. I'm not saying SK Telecom are an elite team and prime to stomp this matchup like, for instance, Griffin or KT Rolster for example but BBQ are eliminated while SKT still have chance at a playoff berth. SKT have shown steady improvement and while they're not the legendary squad they once were this is still a team that's miles ahead of BBQ. This is essentially a must win for SKT and with teams finding success on traditional team compositions more and more frequently I think we can expect SKT to go back to their calm and controlled style because that's where they're comfortable and not only that but it could insulate us from "let's try this" types of drafts that have burned us quite a bit this season.

If SKT were a stronger team and more stable lineup I'd double this but considering they're only a mid tier team I'm going to limit this to four units. This is still a MASSIVE gap. Particularly if the game is going to slow down and seesaw back toward traditional play. SKT were one of, if not the best of all time at the slow-paced, controlled style and BBQ haven't even been able to thrive in a meta where they should be able to. Don't overthink BBQ winning their last two matches. Afreeca didn't care and MVP are not much better than BBQ are. 

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


Handicapped: Hanwha Life -1.5 maps @ +103 (3 units)

Jin Air have showed some signs of life but they've also struggled with other bad teams. HLE just lost to SKT subbing out Faker and then started all five subs for game two against SKT. Before that they had losses to Griffin and Gen.G, two of Korea's top teams this season. Unless you want to count this most recent loss to SKT, Hanwha haven't dropped a single game to a bottom three team yet this season. As a matter of fact they've convincingly 2-0'd with only one game going longer than 35 minutes against ANY of the bottom teams. 

That said, there is a shift beginning to occur in the LCK metagame. More teams are finding success with traditional ADC's again and slowing the game down. It's like Korea is going back to playing Korean League of Legends again. That sort of situation should favor ADC superstar Teddy so you'd think "boy Gelati, shouldn't we bet the sneaky Jin Air +1.5 here because of that?" That's level two logic and it's not unreasonable to expect that Jin Air could find success playing around Teddy again but HLE are a well-coached and well-prepared team that will have a plan for this so I'm not buying the whole "meta shifting in Jin Air's favor" argument here however I'm also not completely ignoring it.  


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

Afreeca vs MVP: No action

If Afreeca didn't just come off of a "wake up call" loss to the BBQ Olivers I'd consider a light play on MVP here to catch Afreeca sleeping but as it stand's we'll be taking no action. This MVP squad has struggled more and more as the season has gone on and if it weren't for a 2-1 victory against the bottom dwelling BBQ they'd be at 8 match losses in a row with only two game wins outside of that series (against Jin Air and SKT). This line is just a tad too rich for me to feel good about "free money." If this was closer to -200 I'd maybe take the gamble with that kinda juice but -233 is too rich for me and I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility for MVP to randomly spike a game here. This is fairly close to a "free win" so if you're following the Gelati of last season you could smack 10 units on this thing and call it a day but I'm gonna let this ship sail and not feel bad about it.

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

LOL Pro League (China) 7/25 Schedule:

Invictus Gaming (-556, -1.5 @ -132)
@ Over/Under 34:00, Total Kills 26.5
Snake eSports (+366, +1.5 @ -102)


Rogue Warriors (-556, -1.5 @ -154)
@ Over/Under 34:00, Total Kills 26.5

BiliBili Gaming +368, +1.5 @ +118)

Handicapped: Invictus Gaming -1.5 maps @-132 (5 units)

I'm not going to look too much into Invictus dropping a game to TopSports and a game to Team WE. This is the best team in China and you could argue the best team in the world with Uzi sitting out the remainder of the season for RNG. Even with Snake showing signs of a return to form recently (and immediately ruining that as well) the numbers tell the story here. Invictus are doing an absolutely absurd 1956 damage per minute with 1943 gold per minute as a squad while Snake are averaging merely 1666 damage per minute with 1812 gold per minute. In other words Invictus are not only accruing the resources given to them, but also taking a lot away AND doing more per gold than almost every other team in the world. Flandre is the only player that could make this a real series and it'd be disrespectful to say that's not possible but Snake have only recently been getting into form and even then have dropped games to BiliBili and a series to TopSports before the RR break, granted they looked pretty poor before the break. Outside of a win against EDG in late June this team has no worthwhile wins to their name. You could argue that's a reason to like the upset here but I'm going to go with the other side. 

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

Handicapped: Rogue Warriors -1.5 maps @ -154 (4 units)

It's kind of hilarious to me that BiliBili FINALLY appear to have figured out how to play the non-ADC metagame just as it appears to be ever so slowly dropping in power level. They were late to the party but that's not to say they can't rally to catch up to everyone. To me, that was BiliBili's only worthwhile win this season. In these situations it's difficult to parse whether or not this is the beginning of a new trajectory upwards or simply an outlier. EDG is no joke and they don't take games off. BBG squarely beat them in those two games, it wasn't a poor draft or any real fluke plays or a roster swap. I'd say the win over Snake meant something but they haven't really been theirselves either until recently and even that's debateable as they immediately went back to losing so this BiliBili team is definitely tough to figure in this spot. The metagame should be shifting back toward their style again but often times when a team "finally figures it out" they want to stay there, as if proud, and I could maybe see that happening here but I digress.

All of this said I still think Rogue Warriors utterly roflstomp this game. This team has dropped 5 games TOTAL this season. Two to JD Gaming, two to EDG, and one to Suning. The "worrying trend" is that three of those five losses are to other "mid tier" teams and you could argue that BiliBili were a mid tier team but that was also last season. This just looks to me like an all you can eat buffet for DoinB. Mole has been the starter this season but has been fairly underwhelming in the replacement of Athena who was arguable this teams best player last season. I'm not sure they can draft around it either.