Betting: June 26th (LCK, LPL)

LCK Summer 2019 - Week 4 Day 1

Sandbox look like one of the best teams in the LCK. They aren't perfect by any stretch but if you look at their schedule and how their only loss is to the excellent Kingzone DragonX it's rather impressive. I still think Griffin is a stronger team at the style Sandbox seem to be emulating. I also think Kingzone and Afreeca are playing a more optimized way of playing the game right now despite their recent hiccups. That said Sandbox's solo lanes and jungle are absolutely ridiculous and playing at an otherworldly level right now. It's really tough to match them in those areas. 

Gen.G are a very weird team this season, as usual. I think their results don't accurately describe the quality of this team. First, their overall schedule has been relatively weak, they've faced Hanwha, Jin Air, KT Rolster, and DAMWON, four of the bottom five teams (in which I'd include Gen.G but that's a different topic). Second, their most recent series against Afreeca, and allow my to digress a bit here, they were on the good end of some luck in a game two level one that could have gone either way and went 5-0 for them. It was the kind of flukey situation that warrants a "go next" in scrimmages. Game one in that series, while impressive, also hinged on one massive play by Life at the herald fight landing a Rakan ult on four people. You could argue Afreeca shouldn't have bother contesting but if that ult doesn't hit exactly the way it did this probably ends up something like a one for one and herald for Gen.G instead of the absolute stomp of a fight that allowed Gen.G to blow open the game. I'm not making excuses for Afreeca, before that herald fight in game one Aiming and Senan were up WAY WAY too far against a Reksai and were rightfully punished for it. 

I know I spent a good bit of time there on the Afreeca series but I think it was an important one because I think a lot of people are going to be ready to hop on the Gen.G bandwagon and I'm here to tell you to stay off. I won't say that Gen.G are a bad team. Clearly they aren't. This team is extremely linear and extremely lucky. The one thing they're good at (late game) has been spoon fed to them in four of their last five games. Against HLE in game one Tempt not only takes heal for no particular reason but gets shoved out and instead of recalling sits under his tower allowing Gen.G to roam as five to bot side for a post dragon dive. After that HLE full tilt force this garbage fight top and feed Cuvee and Kuzan and another tower. Against AF... well we talked about that. In that same Hanwha series this team got completely outplayed in the mid game by the pretty clear cut 9th place team in the league. This is a team that lost 1-2 to a mediocre at best KT Rolster team. I'll give them credit for the DAMWON win, it was a slugfest of a series but really how good is DAMWON either?

The point I'm making is this team is DEFINITELY NOT AS GOOD AS THEIR RECORD. I might be signing myself to get blown out here because I don't think Sandbox are perfect or anything I'm all over the Sandbox sweep here and it's my early pick of the week. Gen.G are a classic case of ignoring the score sheets and records and watching the film. This team simply can't keep getting way with picking Gangplank and Azir. Then again maybe they can, this is the LCK after all. It's a risk I'm willing to take and I think Sandbox are a smart enough team to know that even though they want to also play the scaling game, they shouldn't in this case. I also think Sandbox's solo lanes should have a field day here and that's no disrespect to Cuvee and Kuzan. Combine these factors with the fact that I think we're getting a lot of value because Gen.G are coming off back to back wins and I feel confident in firing for a mixed five units here.

EARLY WEEK PICK OF THE WEEK!

Spread: Sandbox -1.5 @ +117 (2.5 units Book Max)

Prop: Exact Sandbox 2-0 @ -102 (2.5 units Book Max)

Simply put this is unbettable outside of props and over/unders. I think you could make an argument for the OVER 19.5 kills. Griffin have been extremely disciplined this season against both good and bad teams until last series where they seemingly cracked open a couple cold ones and opened up a can of whoopass on KT Rolster.

As much as I love seeing this team loosen up and style on people the truth is that they don't want to and don't have to. It's pretty crazy to me that I'm passing on such a low number but Griffin are that good. They're simply going to choke Jin Air out of this game. I don't hate the under 31:00. Griffin have won five of their last six games in under 28:05 and those were matches against the similarly poor (at least right now) SK Telecom, Hanwha Life, and KT Rolster. Jin Air struggled to even give us a competitive game against Hanwha. I'm going to take the under 31:00 for a unit both maps one and two. 

O/U: Map 1 UNDER 31:00 @ -130 (1.5 units)

O/U: Map 2 UNDER 31:00 @ -130 (1.5 units)

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LPL Summer 2019 - Week 5 Day 3

I've been doing a lot of research into underdogs, how many series goes to a third game, and stuff like that for the LPL and unfortunately haven't found too much outside of specific teams that are exceptions. Before the season started I would have told you this was free money on the Dominus -1.5 but, as it turns out, the LPL is a strange and mysterious creature. Dominus haven't looked themselves and Vici could be just the medicine the doctor ordered but quite frankly I'm skeptical. I'm just going to pass this game and likely regret it when Dominus smash VG. I might fire on this later tonight though who knows.

No wager (STRONG lean Dominus -1.5)

Victory Five have quietly gone 3-2 with a 7-5 game score. They beat Invictus 2-1 and lost to BiliBili 0-2 but their other series have been against OMG, Vici, and LGD. OMG look decent sometimes but really not a bunch of killers here. It's hard to tell how good V5 are but they've won three in a row now. FunPlus have lost a single game this season and it was to the similarly rated LGD. If we look at Spring split, FunPlus went to a game three in eight out of fifteen series however of those eight, only three were to "weaker" teams (Snake, LGD, and SinoDragon) the rest were to other top six squads. FunPlus take care of business against bad teams and while laying -278 against a team that's won three matches in a row looks dumb I'd say it's a fairly safe play to take FunPlus tomorrow. If you don't like that then I don't hate the V5 +1.5 at these odds but I'll likely be abstaining from this match outside of parlays.

No wager (STRONG lean FPX -1.5 @ -278)