Betting: August 18th (LCK Playoffs Rd 3, LPL, EU LCS, NA LCS)

LCK Summer Playoffs Rd 3 8/18 Schedule:

Afreeca Freecs (-114, -1.5 @ +184)
@ (Total Time 36:00, Total Kills 18.5)
Griffin (-109, +1.5 @ -250)

DISCLAIMER: I'm doubling my unit count for the rest of the LCK season both as a statement of confidence and, to be honest, some more fun having a bigger stake in the games. I'd caution against tailing at these numbers. Cut them in half unless you're as confident as I am. So 5u = 2.5u normal bet etc

Moneyline: Griffin -109  (4 units)

PROP: Exact Griffin 3-2 @ +393 (0.25 units)

PROP: Exact Griffin 3-0 @ +493 (0.25 units)

Talked a lot about this matchup with the /r/sportsbook crowd on the Discord server. To me this is an actual pick 'em. There are plenty of reasons to like both sides of this game so what I'll do here is go over the "pro's" of each side to allow people to make their own decision on this and then I'll explain mine.


Pro Afreeca Side:

• Experience, momentum - Afreeca are "coming in hot" after demolishing two of the top four teams in the LCK and have players with big game experience unlike the rookies on Griffin.
• Kiin is a monster - Pretty hard to disagree with this. He's definitely the person to break ties in favor of right now (a la Faker). He's going to create havoc in the draft for Griffin and earn Afreeca a lot of advantages there. His Ryze and how Griffin choose to handle it will be the most impactful pre-game champion in the series.
• The meta has shifted to one that favors Afreeca - They've shown a mastery of 1-3-1 and vision exploitation (always in the meta). Kuro and Kiin have close to optimal champion pools for the current patch.
• Even Kramer is playing really well - What can I say, he has been excellent and taking advantage of every mistake his opponents have made

Pro Griffin Side:

• Hungry, motivated - Similar to the "coming in hot" and experienced narrative except sort of the opposite
• They've seen two series of mistakes from enemy teams and ideas from Afreeca - With Afreeca showing two very different ideas against two very different attempts to beat them Griffin have more information to work with about how Afreeca might handle certain situations both in and out of game.
• Poise, "wise beyond their years" - This is a different kind of rookie team, not just because they're actually doing well in the LCK but because they don't play afraid of more experienced and "better" teams.
• Side selection + information from Afreeca's previous games - This is a potent combination.

So I'm going with a light wager (again remember I'm doubling playoff wagers) on Griffin here. I'm not going to go through the cons of each team because they both have them but what this series ultimately boils down to is preference of the known versus the unknown. Afreeca are a known quantity. They're always well-prepared, versatile, and have enough gamebreaking players like Kiin and Kuro to mise victories out of nowhere but they're really just a team that takes what's given to them both in game and in the draft. This isn't a bad thing, as a matter of fact it's a lot like what the very best teams in the NFL do. Don't get an ego about "we're a running team" or "we're the best split pushing team" they just do what's best for the given situation and this is very effective. It also can only go so far to me. Over the years in the LCK we've had a ton of teams like this have success and even go far in the World Championships but they've NEVER won LCK. The teams that win LCK are the ones that can take what's given to them but also go cook the damn meal themselves! I'm talking about the KT Arrows, Samsung White, SK Telecom (who always played on another level in playoffs), and even Samsung last year at Worlds. Am I saying Afreeca can't be that team? No I'm not I just don't think they are. Afreeca are the VERY GOOD team that isn't quite on the great level. Griffin haven't proven to use they're on the great level either but I'm willing to bet the unknown and I think Griffin haven't even shown us everything they can do and they still almost took down the #1 seed in the LCK in their first season. 

Throughout their time in the Challenger scene they excelled at "protect the Viper" comps and those kind of traditional 2-core compositions are back in. So is 1-3-1, the counter to that, I'm not fogetting that. I repeat, Griffin almost had the #1 seed in LCK Summer in their first season and that was playing an uptempo, odd meta advantaged style that was so far removed from how they preferred to play and they STILL were housing people. Griffin are also a team that can take what they're given, they'll play whatever they need to, I just think we haven't even seen their best yet and I'm willing to put a couple units on the "allure of the unknown" here. 

I don't want to take anything away from Afreeca making it this far but the truth is they abused a very one-dimensional Gen.G team and Kingzone appeared to have an abysmal read on both the current metagame and Afreeca for the first two games and essentially handed them on a silver platter to Afreeca as we discussed in our stream analysis the other day. In other words I think the Kingzone win was more on Kingzone being terrible than it was on Afreeca being excellent. Now beating Kingzone in any fashion isn't a small feat. You still need to take what's given to you and Afreeca are great at that. My bet isn't on Afreeca to "come back down to earth." They're a good team and they're playing perhaps a little better than their own average but well within reasonable expectations so I'm not going to call them "playing way above their level" or anything like that. I simply think the combination of Griffin having information, Afreeca having very little information on Griffin, and the fact that we just don't know how good (or how bad) Griffin are make me lean towards them in this scenario.

As I stated above, this really is a pick 'em and you need to find your reasons for your pick but I'm siding with Griffin here although I wouldn't fault anybody for taking either side with so much justification for either.


-----------------------------------------------------------EU LCS 8/18 Schedule:

(picks pending)

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NA LCS 8/18 Schedule:

(picks pending)