Hasn't been a whole lot of action with LCK, the Asian Games being too lopsided and keeping the LPL quiet, and other regions in playoffs. I've also been nursing a core injury, some kind of weird abdominal strain that we still haven't quite figured out so I've been unable to sit up for extended time to type besides on my phone. Because of this I've been sticking mostly to Twitter. Anyway here's hoping that gets figured out and I can get back on my ... ass? soon enough.
EU LCS Playoff Schedule 8/30:
FC Schalke 04 (+156, +1.5 @ -135)
@ Over/Under 35:00, Total Kills 21.5
Team Vitality (-204, -1.5 @ +104)
Moneyline: Team Vitality -204 (3 units)
Handicapped: Team Vitality -1.5 maps @ +125 (1 unit)
PROP: Map 1 UNDER 35:00 @ -114 (1 unit)
PROP: Map 2 UNDER 35:00 @ -114 (1 unit)
You all know how much it pains me to do this. I'm the Vitality hater and the Schalke truther. All last season that was my storyline and for most of this season it was too but to me Vitality have shown the ability to do two things extraordinarily well; smash early games and have excellent draft preparation. There I said it. I actually gave Yamato some credit because this is the first squad of his that hasn't self destructed by split two with him. Usually his teams trend downward after the first split, they get figured out easily.
Anyway I like Vitality here mostly because this is a stylistic nightmare for Schalke. Schalke have turned into the EU verson of last splits Clutch Gaming. They're very good at 2-core, scaling team compositions when they're allowed to get there but haven't exactly shown the best defensive ability and will often get run over.
These two teams met three times in the regular split because of an extra tiebreaker match. The regular season series was split 1-1 with Vitality stomping in a 30 minute game in which Schalke didn't even take a tower in the first game, a long 43 minute slugfest in the second game that S04 won, and Vitality winning a long 43 minute game in the tiebreaker. If we look to last weeks playoff series S04 had a comeback 3-2 victory over Splyce. Both teams played traditional 2-core compositions and tried to scale. The only short game in the series was the 32:33 victory for Splyce in a game three that really got away from S04.
So to me Schalke have shown themselves to be a good team when able to play 2-core compositions but I just don't think Vitality are going to let that happen. They're simply too good at playing uptempo. Splyce are the other slowplaying team in the EU LCS and Schalke didn't even try to abuse that in their drafts against them opting instead for close, scaling games. Splyce even jumped out and ran them over in game three. I don't want to put too much stock into one game but I just look at this series at Vitality completely running over Schalke every game and maybe in one of those games they botch their lead and can't close the game. As an added bonus Vitality also have side selection for the series. This series looks like a 3-1 Vitality win to me and I'd lean closer to the 3-0 than the 3-2. Taking the UNDER 35:00 in the first two games as well. I think Game three Schalke might put up a fight.
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