Betting: August 2nd (LCK, LPL)

LOL Champions Korea 8/2 Schedule:

Hanwha Life eSports (-370, -1.5 @ -115)
@ Over/Under 35:00, Total Kills 18.5
MVP (+266, +1.5 @ -112)


KT Rolster (-500, -1.5 @ -149)
@ Over/Under 36:00, Total Kills 17.5
Jin Air GW (+340, +1.5 @ +109)

Handicapped: Hanwha Life -1.5 maps @ -115 (5 units)

With a win here against MVP Hanwha Life can pull a full match ahead of SK Telecom and once again tie Afreeca for the 5th playoff spot. This is a crucial game for Hanwha who played an extremely competitive and entertaining series against Kingzone yesterday. Hanwha are a good team, maybe not a great team but a good team and in an important spot like this I expect them to crush MVP. Be warned that this isn't a case of MVP "mailing it in" for the season. They could actually avoid relegations by pulling ahead of Jin Air with whom they are tied in match score and down a game in game score. Expect MVP to be fighting to avoid relegations and potentially the "baby Griffin" in Damwon.

Even considering both teams playing a hard fought match and MVP to not mail it in here I still think Hanwha spike the 2-0. Hanwha won the first meeting in 57 total minutes, they looked really good against Kingzone yesterday and appear to be out of this weird funk they were in last week with the substitutions and all that going on. Hanwha Life are at least a tier better than MVP, perhaps two and I just can't see the extremely one dimensional MVP taking games off of a team like Hanwha who are always well-prepared by an excellent coaching staff (minus that weird thing last week...).

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Handicapped: KT Rolster -1.5 maps @ -149 (5 units)

PROP: Map 1 UNDER 36:00 @ -114 (1 unit)

PROP: Map 2 UNDER 36:00 @ -114 (1 unit)

The beautiful part about the Top 4 spots STILL being within a game of each other is that every team is going to be fighting for better playoff seeding which means these poor bottom of the table teams just get obliterated. There's no "coasting" because of a clinched position or anything in the LCK so expect KT Rolster to be prepared for this one. I know, I know, the "KT ROLLERCOASTER" Effect could be in full effect but I'm betting against it. This is crunch time and KT have been traumatized by a past riddled with "choke" performances. They'll take this seriously.

On the other side, Jin Air have looked at least a little better recently as the meta is shaping into something more up their alley. They're also battling MVP to avoid relegation so I don't think they'll be just rolling over here but if they are going to run out Justice and KaKao, who were horrible the other day, then perhaps this will be easier than we thought. Man is it sad to say KaKao is horrible .... :-(. 

Anyway the under number is all the way up at 36:00 minutes under the assumption that "both of these teams play slow and steady" which is true but I don't think Jin Air have the potential to win a game early while KT could still just steamroll these games. I also think KT WILL steamroll these games. The under for kills isn't out of the question here but I'm going to think on that some more. I expect 11-4 clean win type games from KT Rolster here especially since they've really settled into who they want to be as a calculated, scaling team with the ability to still spike early games.


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LOL Pro League (China) 8/2 Schedule:


EDward Gaming (-105, +1.5 @ -333)
@ Over/Under 35:00, Total Kills 24.5
Rogue Warriors (-120, -1.5 @ +235)


I've been getting destroyed in the LPL recently. Since 7/22 I'm 8 - 14 in selections. Admittedly a lot of these were smaller wagers attempting to attack line values and the majority of them were attempting to do so via handicaps. I perhaps underrated how competitive some of the bottom tier teams could be against non-elite squads but we also had a few matches last week where good teams messed around for a game and punted. Anyway I don't want to dwell on it too much, I still feel I'm significantly better than numbers suggest in this region and until today when we dipped to close to +0 we have been profitable despite the sub.500 record.

Moneyline: Rogue Warriors -120 (5 units)

I still have to rewatch game three of this series as I was distracted while doing so earlier but if EDG struggled with JDG then Rogue Warriors will be an even harder test and on back to back days like this they're going to have their work cut out for them. Game One of EDG/JD was a really REALLY weird 50+ minute back and forth throws by both teams. Game Two ended decidedly in EDG's favor but again a lot of dumb mistakes by both teams. Beautiful team fighting and decisive play but a lot of mistakes by both sides. It's also notable that Hope started at ADC.

There's a chance RW are looking forward to their match against Invictus later this week but one of the interesting effects of conference play is that there's a much higher chance they aren't focusing as much on that matchup. You could say the same for EDG who just lost to out of conference opponent JD. Rogue Warriors could all but lock up the #1 seed in the West with a win here. RW are 10-2 and EDG, in 2nd place, are 7-5. EDG won the first meeting 2-0 in Week 3 which will give them even more incentive to do so to avoid any sort of tiebreaker situation should it come up. Rogue Warriors have looked significantly cleaner in their games against both good and bad teams. My only concern here is that RW haven't faced a good team since RNG on 7/22 so perhaps an easy past three matches could have them sleeping a bit. I'm not going to put that much weight on that. Rogue Warriors also get side selection in this match.

If RW had been coming off of a good win against a good team I'd probably play the handicap here too but we're going to stick to the moneyline on this one. I think EDG have a likely chance of taking a game but we're going to keep this one simple and not take the over 2.5 maps either although I wouldn't fault you for that. 


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