Betting: August 8th (LCK, LPL)

LOL Champions Korea 8/8 Schedule:

Afreeca Freecs (-323, -1.5 @ -115)
@ Over/Under 36:00, Total Kills 17.5
Jin Air GW (+237, +1.5 @ -116)


Griffin (-909, -1.5 @ -256)
@ Over/Under 33:00, Total Kills 17.5
BBQ Olivers (+541, +1.5 @ +184)

(images compliments of lol.gamepedia.com) 

After this morning's matches let's take a look at how things stand. First of all I should have played to my gut on the sextuple 2-0 sweep parlay I wanted to do for LCK but instead added on RNG like an IDIOT to it. Anyway we'll be parlaying the sweeps for the rest of the LCK week because, spoiler alert, I think it's just going to be 2-0's all week. I'll be doing different iterations from 2-4 on this. I think it's a sweet opportunity to make a HUGE payday by Thursday morning. Secondly, KT completed step one on their journey to the #1 seed AND locking in a Worlds berth. Now all they need to do is not party too hard tonight and come out and smash MVP in the final match of the regular season on Thursday. Thirdly, in losing to KT without a single win this morning, HLE now no longer control their own fate and need a Jin Air upset. If they were able to take a single game this morning against KT they would have had the tiebreaker in game score if Jin Air were to take a game and lose but now Jin Air needs to win outright for them to hold the #5 seed. Fourthly, Jin Air are very likely to avoid relegation now unless MVP were to, by some miracle, beat KT Rolster 2-0 on Thursday morning. This means a few things, either they won't really care about tomorrow's match any longer or they'll want to really avoid relegations by taking a single game win. This is kind of a grey area and pretty weak logically so we're just going to assume something in the middle. Jin Air aren't really playing for much and frankly I think Jin Air or MVP would beat the #2 Challenger team Winners (formerly Ever8) pretty handedly anyway. The most important thing for the bottom table teams was to avoid DAMWON Gaming who look like they could be the next Griffin and are currently 20-1 in game score (+19) in the Challenger League which both MVP and Jin Air have already done. Good Luck BBQ!

And now the picks....

Handicapped: Afreeca -1.5 maps @ -108 (7 units)

PROP: Map 1 UNDER 36:00 @ -101 (1 unit)

PROP: Map 2 UNDER 36:00 @ -101 (1 unit)


THIS IS A HEAVILY FEELING/MOMENTUM BASED PICK. TAIL WITH CAUTION!!

I think you all saw this one coming. I know a lot of people are skeptical. Afreeca looked absolutely dreadful against HLE the other day but it's not like HLE are a bad team and to be honest with you I think maybe some nerves kicked in. So what's to stop the nerves from kicking in here? In my experience in both esports and traditional sports, teams that get a second chance or a new lease on life, or in this case a playoff opportunity, get a boost of energy and hope and that's an extremely powerful thing. Afreeca get a mulligan with HLE punting 2-0 this morning. Jin Air have nothing to really play for as the chances MVP 2-0 Thursday are slim to none especially with KT needing the 2-0 for #1 seed (and locking a World spot). It's not like Jin Air won't be trying here, they are professionals after all, but they won't exactly be particularly motivated either. They could have the "let's play spoiler" mentality but I'm confident that Afreeca 2-0 this even considering that. Let's rewind to last week before the HLE loss. Afreeca take a close series against a relatively weak but desparate SKT team. Teams in "must win" situations are tough but they got the job done. They did drop a game to MVP, an 0-2 against a hungry Kingzone and the heartbreaker loss to Gen.G. Before that they lost to BBQ 1-2. This has ben a really rough second half and I think Afreeca got a bit figured out. They also were toying with their roster, lost some power to the meta slightly shifting, and perhaps were resting on their laurels too much. I expect this second chance to be a jolt for them.. They aren't going to experiment or try new things they're going to do whatever it takes to win this series and lock up a playoff spot.

The logical wager would be for Afreeca to choke just like they did n Sunday against HLE but HLE are also a much better team than Jin Air are and a much more versatile one as well. Jin Air are really one dimensional and Afreeca are capable of playing both uptempo and scaling compositions. They are the jack of all trades but masters of none. Their average game time is deceptive to look at. This is a team that is very capable of playing faster games and I'm expecting that to happen here. Jin Air concede the early game in just about every draft because even when they try to play that way they're bad at it. They play to their win condition which is scaling for and protecting Teddy. Whether that's with snowbally mages or Yasuo bottom as Aiming has shown proficiency with, or with the variety of strong early game champions Kuro has shown this season like Leblanc, Galio, Lissandra, Rumble, Talon, and more I think the well coached Afreeca will have a solid game plan in place to take care of this and swiftly 2-0 this series. 

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PARLAY: Afreeca -1.5 + Griffin -1.5 (5 units to win ~13.4 units)

This is an absolutely massive parlay bet and I don't usually bet more than a unit or two on them but these are pretty good odds and I want to take advantage. I feel confidently that even as rookies Griffin can't mess this up and Afreeca should handedly take care of Jin Air as discussed above. However with the juice as high as it is in the Griffin series I'm just not going to touch it as a moneyline wager. If they're going to lose I'm going to limit my exposure to parlaying it not laying a ton of money on a -256 handicap.


I'm also going to parlay the sweeps for the rest of the week in as many iterations as I can. I'm basically betting against even a single upset game. There is just too much of a gap between the top and bottom teams and too much for the top teams to play for and too little for the bottom teams to play for to reasonably expect any game losses in this short week. This is a huge opportunity to make some money as we close out the regular season. It's also our last chance to push to pad our bankroll before Worlds.

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LOL Pro League (China) 8/8 Schedule:

EDward Gaming (-270, -1.5 @ +119)
@ Over/Under 34:00, Total Kills 24.5
TopSports Gaming (+237, +1.5 @ -116)


Team WE (-156, -1.5 @ +189)
@ Over/Under 34:00, Total Kills 24.5

OMG (+122, +1.5 @ -256)

Handicapped: EDG -1.5 maps @ +119 (5 units)

PROP: Map 1 UNDER 34:00 @ -114  (1 unit)

PROP: Map 2 UNDER 34:00 @ -114  (1 unit)

This is going to look strange coming off of an embarassing loss to LGD Sunday morning to increase EDG's losing streak to four series in a row but I have my reasons. EDG have had two really bad losses in this four game streak. Losing 0-2 to BiliBili is pretty bad but was perhaps a bit of overconfidence as they had won seven of their first nine series before then and BiliBili was in must win mode. Losing to LGD, arguably the worst team in the LPL, is perhaps worse. They also took a game off of the best team in China in Invictus as well as a 26 minute win against JD who have proven to be one of the stronger early game teams in the league. This is all a really long-winded way of saying EDG are tough to pin down. We're going with a heavy wager on the EDG 2-0 and here's why.

If you look at a lot of EDG's drafts in the past couple weeks they've been very extremist in nature. They aren't drafting well rounded compositions. They're either all in early or late with no middle ground. In some ways this fits their style but they've also been mixing up their lineup to include ADC sub Hope and swapping ClearLove and Haro quite a bit. I want to see this team go back to their commitment to early game drafting and I think they absolutely will against TopSports. Why? Because TopSports are an early - mid game drafting team and when they lose it's because other teams draft strong early games to make sure they can't just snowball games. Almost every single one of TopSports losses this season has been the result of other teams choosing lanes that can actually fight back. Even the abysmal LGD took a series off TopSports with this strategy and they're an absolutely horrible early game team that almost never plays that style. As a matter of fact in that series LGD picked early game champions, staved off the aggression, faltered to close the game out and game two ended up dragging out to 43 minutes and they still won because of TopSports inability to close without an early lead. There have been a few isolated games where TopSports has shown a willingness to attempt scaling but they've only done it against bad teams like Vici and LGD and it mostly hasn't ended well when they do it. THIS IS EXTREMELY PREDICTABLE.

The last time these two faced EDG utterly smashed game one and then opted to play scaling with Kaisa in game two which ended up becoming a bloody mess of a game with 46 total kills. EDG will learn from their recent mistakes as well as their near game loss in the first series with TopSports. This team is significantly better than their recent performance has been. This is a Top 4 team in the LPL and other than experimenting with their lineup and some different draft strategies to become more well rounded, as elite teams are afforded the luxury to do, there is absolutely no reason they should be tied in the series standings with a team like TopSports. TopSports have been impressive this season, no doubt, but they're simply not this good and their record is the result of an extremely weak West Region. This is a spot where EDG will demonstrate why they're a full tier or more better than TopSports despite their record. EDG aren't the team you've seen the past couple weeks and with their #2 seed under threat I think you'll see the real deal here. EDG have used up their cushion. It's time to turn it up for playoffs.

NOTE: I'm not going with the OVER on kills because I think that game two in the first series was the result of a draft situation that I don't think EDG will put themselves in again. The meta was also much different then and Morgana bottom has fallen out of favor so forced dives and fights that end up in 1 for 1s or 2 for 3s and such don't happen as often as they did at the beginning of the season. I also think this is just going to be two fast games so I'm taking the UNDER on game time and not touching the kill totals despite leaning on the UNDER for those as well.

There is a good chance I'll up this wager if the line doesn't move too heavily so check Twitter.

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Team WE vs OMG

I can't get a feel for this game. Both of these teams are bottom dwellers that are feast or famine. If you go strictly by the metrics then Team WE is the selection here as they've done significantly more team damage with about the same resources but OMG are also the slightly stronger early game team. WE look like they've been fixing a lot of their obviously one dimensional tendencies and are at least picking one winning lane to stave off complete early game losses so that makes me lean slightly toward them but I'm really not sure. -156 is too much to pay for the slight lean. This line should probably be closer to -120/-101 or something. If you want the value OMG is the pick but im not confident enough to even put anything on this game.