We missed on a handful of our small parlays and ended up hitting a few others yesterday to end up more or less even there. We missed on the under for EDG/MAD but MAD showed a little better than I think EDG expected and EDG surprisingly went for more of a late game look. We hit on our Vitality upset at +358 even though it didn't quite happen the way we expected it to. Like I said, teams that don't try to pretend they're something else can be potent in best of one group stage format like this.
A much more interesting slate today let's take a look...
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Afreeca Freecs -139 vs Flash Wolves +109
Phong Vu +188 vs G2 eSports -250
Fnatic -263 vs 100 Thieves +199
Invictus Gaming -400 vs G-Rex +287
Team Vitality -139 vs Cloud 9 +110
Royal Never Give Up -189 vs Gen.G eSports +143
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Afreeca vs Flash Wolves
Flash Wolves looked ridiculously clean today but we also don't particularly know how good Phong Vu are so what are the things we can learn from this win. First of all this metagame is great for Flash Wolves and by that I mean tanks are viable top and engage supports are the top picks in that role right now enabling SwordArt. Second, with how well MAD showed we need to decide whether or not that was a one time thing or if they're actually more competitive than we thought. I'm more on that one time thing train as they weren't particularly good most of the year in the LMS despite their finish in the Summer. Third, do we think teams will adjust and try to corner SwordArt's champion pool or keep letting him have Alistar, Rakan, and the like. I think it'd be worth trying to ban him out just to see what they go to next but other teams might not do so. If anybody is going to come up with the solution to this problem it will be Afreeca as they typically have excellent game plans. So how good is Flash Wolves? We don't really know entirely. I think they looked really good and smashed a team that we don't know much about. Maybe Phong Vu are good but Flash Wolves are great? Maybe Phong Vu are terrible and Flash Wolves are just good. That's the point I'm trying to make, we just don't know.
It's a damn shame this line is actually reasonable to bet either side but I don't have a particularly strong feeling on it. Afreeca I could see struggling with non-Korean teams and that's something I discussed going into this tournament and historically Flash Wolves have been one of the best teams against Korean teams in international play. All the evidence points to slamming Flash Wolves here. They're an uptempo team which Afreeca has had trouble with domestically, they looked great this morning, they have a history of beating Korean teams, Afreeca looked off against G2 (perhaps because of Heimerdinger). All these factors point me to Flash Wolves here but I have a really weird feeling Afreeca will challenge in this game. I think it's the most intriguing match tomorrow. I'm going to place a light, one unit wager on Flash Wolves because I think getting them at plus odds in this specific spot is a value but I don't feel particularly good about it and wouldn't fault you for avoiding this or going the other way. This feels like such a sucker bet to me. I don't want to overreact to one day but when a team shows you the exact problems you thought they might have it's tough to convince yourself otherwise.
Moneyline: Flash Wolves +109 (1 unit)
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Phong Vu Buffalo vs G2 eSports
So are Phong Vu bad or is Flash Wolves just that good? I bring this question up again becaues that's the flag you need to plant if you want to touch this game. If you feel strongly that Flash Wolves are just exceptional then this is potentially worth a shot a Phong Vu righting the course. If you think Flash Wolves rolled over a truly bad team then -250 isn't outside of some peoples betting range (although it is for me most times). I think with teams feeling each other out that nobody is going to let G2 get Heimerdinger again. It's clearly a pick they've mastered and it's weird enough that teams haven't practiced a lot against it, at least recently. So was it just the Heimer pick? G2 did some things well in that match outside of the pick but I looked at it more as a poorly played game by Afreeca than a really well-played game by G2. Nonetheless I'll give credit where it's due.
I'm staying away from this game. I just don't know what either of these teams are and didn't get a lot of information besides what I expected of them prior to the tournament beginning. -250 is a tad rich for me to slam the moneyline here and I'm still holding out that Phong Vu might be better than we saw yesterday but who knows.
No Action.
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Fnatic vs 100 Thieves
I'll be honest. I dont really think 100 Thieves have a real shot in this game unless they come out with something completely whacky or new. They've had plenty of time to prepare so it's entirely possible that they do but I think Caps is just going to create such a problem in this game for 100 Thieves. If you look at this top to bottom 100 Thieves aren't as behind Fnatic as this line suggests individually but I'm expecting a lot of focus on Aphromoo's champion pool to get him off of picks he can easily shot call or carry a game with from the support position. 100 Thieves are a lot like Flash Wolves but like the diet version. Ssumday instead of Maple. Is it impossible for 100 Thieves to win this? Not really and if you think they have remotely close to a 50/50 you should slam this especially since it's the first game both these teams will play but I'm staying away from this one. Fnatic feel like they're a full tier better and the -263 is a bit too rich for me while the plus value isn't enough for me to even want to take a flier on.
No action.
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Invictus Gaming vs G-Rex
G-Rex looked excellent in the play-in and if MAD team showed as well as they did yesterday you could argue that the LMS looks good but I'm not too high on MAD after one good game. G-Rex showed us a lot in play-ins and looked well-rounded and intelligent but also willing to run and gun and wing it a bit. The thing is that if they try that against Invictus they're just going to get run over. As you've read in my futures and pre-touranment rankings I actually think Invictus are the 3rd best team in this entire tournament and are criminally underrated because of RNG's success this year. IG are a force and I could see them using what G-Rex showed them in play-ins to their advantage to smash them in this first game. It's not because G-Rex showed any particular weakness in draft or style, as a matter of fact it's quite the contrary but I think Invictus are just miles better than G-Rex both as a team and individually. I like the under here as I expect Invictus to utterly smash and send a message to the rest of this group.
PROP: UNDER 31:00 (1 unit)
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Team Vitality vs Cloud 9
Vitality looked confident and very much like themselves after their win against Gen.G yesterday while Cloud 9 was destroyed by RNG. So where do we settle on this? Well if you consider RNG to be one of the top two teams in this tournament then perhap we shouldn't look too much into Cloud 9's loss other than a momentum swing. We called the Vitality upset against Gen.G who, historically, are always slow starters in tournaments so how much credit can we give them for that win? I think the answers lie somewhere in the middle for both. In my pre-tournament rankings I had both of these teams in Tier 3, the outside looking in on a Top 8. Do I still think that after seeing an entire play-in and one game from Cloud 9? It's a little shaky but I trust that they can perform closer to their ceiling which is that Tier 3 or slightly better. Vitality I think are currently at their ceiling. I also think this is a stylistic mismatch for Cloud 9 who have shown a lack of early game presence even as early as the play-in tournament. So even if you exclude their RNG loss yesterday they haven't been particularly great early. Vitality didn't win against Gen.G with an early game strategy even though that's historically their strength. Vitality have shown the ability to go long against strong macro teams like Gen.G already and Cloud 9 aren't quite on that level. Vitality could also completely run this game over early.
My heart is telling me Cloud 9 bounce back but I think this is some really bad timing. I'd look for Cloud 9 to win the second matchup between these two but I'm just not seeing it right now. I'm not ruling out the "get right" situation though. Heading into the tournament I thought Cloud 9 was a slightly better team so I wouldn't be surprised at all to see them win this but Vitality feel like a buzzsaw that Cloud 9 is about to run into at the wrong time. Limiting wager on this because of these factors but I wouldn't fault you for slamming Vitality. This is a good number.
Moneyline: Team Vitality -139 (1 unit)
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Royal Never Give Up vs Gen.G eSports
You might think this looks like free money with Gen.G losing to Vitality and RNG smashing Cloud 9 but I try not to overreact to one game. Stylistically this is a complete nightmare for Gen.G. RNG can play both early and late, routinely close games out in under 30 minutes, and have their strongest players having to play against RNG's strongest. To me this game is won or lost through CuVee. If Gen.G can engineer a top lane matchup that he can take advantage of LetMe in then I could see the upset happening but I don't think it's likely. Even with all the bad blood between these teams I think RNG are just a better squad. Not by much but pretty clearly better. They don't have the inconsistencies Gen.G does. With a bit of a rivalry between these two I could see Gen.G maybe looking past Vitality towards this game but I think that concept is a bit overstated in a short group stage tournament like this. This feels very heavily in RNG's favor. I'd consider taking Gen.G in the second meeting next week but not here. RNG are rolling and Gen.G are still warming up.
Moneyline: RNG -189 (1.5 units)
PROP: UNDER 33:00 (1 unit)
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Parlays:
RNG ML + IG ML + FNC ML + Vitality ML @ +357 total (0.5 units)
I'll be running 0.25-0.5 unit parlays on these four matches in different 2-4 pick combinations that will also include the IG and RNG UNDER's mixed in. This is just one example.
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