February 2nd and 3rd: LCS (North America)

February 1st Recap

EU LEC: 1-3 (-3.81 units)

NA LCS: 0-2 (-6.26 units)

Parlays: 0-1 (-1.25 units)

NET: 1 - 6 (-11.32 units)

When you get into this field you learn pretty quickly that bad days can happen. This was a pretty bad day. All you can do is learn what you can from it and get back on the horse. So what can we take from Saturday's games moving forward? What was just variance and what was actual data we could parse from the weird day yesterday?

The European slate I think I'd play the same exact way no hesitation. Schalke keep finding ways to shoot themselves in the foot. This team is significantly better than their 0-4 (Schalke 04... get it?) record. I don't want to say it's entirely been luck based or anything like that, they clearly need to learn how to close a game or use the advantages they have but for the most part they've been doing most things correctly and just lose one teamfight and consequently the game. This is something I expect to be cleaned up. Excel vs Misfits was much the same thing. Excel were putting on an absolute clinic in early game tempo and rotations. YoungBuck is one of the better, if not the best coach in the West and it's showing. One botched fight around dragon turned it. Rogue did was I expected them to against Vitality although their draft was tremendously disrespectful and I had myself a good sweat thinking their arrogance would punish them. Origen we got great closing line value on as it was closer to +180 by game time vs our +246 but ultimately G2 are just too good. This was a competitive game though and I'm not holding it against Origen.

North America was a bit of a different story. I don't know what's going on with CLG. They look like they're never on the same page. So many sloppy, lazy mistakes. I actually liked the Kayle pick into Sett. If you're just going to put the top lane on an island I absolutely love Kayle if it's not a champion that can solo her. CLG apparently have a different perception of how to play this comp than I do. Smoothie was consistantly trying to find flanks on Leona when I feel he should have just played this by the book and rolled as five and fished for engages. Instead he was caught multiple times and ultimately ended up losing them the game on one of them. Without the Leona CLG had no way of forcing a fight so they just had to absorb and turn which is tougher to do when you're behind. Liquid vs Dignitas was a great game and I thought there were good things to pull from both teams. I'm not going to hold this one against Liquid, Dignitas played and have been playing quite well. I actually thought Liquid played extremely disciplined in a lot of these fights and won a few they had no business winning because of it. Liquid are going to be fine. That said I'm not entirely buying the Dignitas hype after three games but I would upgrade them a tad because they're playing really well right now.

Bigger picture I think what we're seeing is sort of a different version of my pre-season read on the metagame playing out. I thought that improved snowball tools would increase variance quite a bit and while it has it hasn't been exactly in the fashion I thought it would. Teams don't want to make the first mistake. Also when teams handshake to scale up like they've been doing, the game slowly settles back towards a 50/50 unless one team has a severe scaling advantage. One lost fight loses the game very frequently in this meta it's just happening later in the game instead of earlier. Before the seaosn started I said I'd be on dogs until the good teams figured out how to efficiently close without error and that hasn't happened yet. I think I forgot about that yesterday and was blinded by some juicy favorite lines.

Bit of a rough start to the season here, something I'm not used to. Historically I've done well to start the year so this is new to me but we're playing a long term game here. Back to the grindstone.

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LCS Spring 2020

Week 2 - Day 2 and 3

(all lines from Nitrogen but obviously shop around for the best you can find)

Sunday February 2nd - W2D2

Team Solo Mid -167 vs Evil Geniuses +118
FlyQuest +236 vs Team Liquid -350
Cloud 9 -369 vs 100 Thieves +246
Golden Guardians -123 vs Immortals -123

Monday February 3rd - W2D3

Dignitas -193 vs FlyQuest +135
CLG +118 vs TSM -167

I desperately want a piece of Evil Geniuses after that weird base race loss to GG yesterday. They were more or less controlling this game and I loved the Sona carry selection as a new weapon in this scaling war we're seeing. The thing is I simply can't see TSM being as bad as they were last week (rumor has it they were all sick).  I had TSM slightly better in my pre-season rankings but EG have also slightly upgraded themselves to me in spite of their record. This team has the right idea to be proactive on the map and decisive in their playmaking so I want to reward that here. I think this line is fair but I actually like EG a bit.

Moneyline: Evil Geniuses +125 (0.5 units)(5Dimes)

FlyQuest are another team that I think has the right idea but just a lack of talent. This feels like a good underdog spot with Liquid losing yesterday but I also saw quite a bit from Liquid in that game to make me believe that the wheels might not be falling off as hard as people might think. We'll be revisiting this FlyQuest team tomorrow but I'm staying away on this one.

Liquid/FlyQuest No wager

100 Thieves are another team that people are going to want to chase as a dog but I just don't know what to take from their victories against the weaker CLG and Golden Guardians lineups. Cloud 9 also look like the best team in the league right now. If you want to take a stab at this be my gues but I'm staying away.

C9/100T No wager

GG vs Immortals just has too much juice. -123 on both sides? I'll pass as I don't have a strong lean either way on this one.

GG/IMT No wager

The Monday games might change a bit depending on how teams look tonight but likely not enough based on a one game sample size. I absolutely love fading Dignitas right now. Have they looked good? Absolutely but I think FlyQuest have looked like a team that have the right philosophy on the game right now and I love the V1per vs Huni matchup for them. My only reservation is that FlyQuest have a tough schedule facing Liquid and Dig this week.

Moneyline: FlyQuest +135 vs Dignitas (1 unit)
ADD ON: FlyQuest +165 vs Dig (1 unit)(5Dimes)

TSM/CLG will depend a bit on how TSM look coming out of a horrendous week one. If they look a bit back to normal I'll likely be on them for this match and laying the juice. CLG look completely lost right now. I don't normally like to react too much to the first two weeks but they literally look like a team that isn't on the same page with anything and that's not something that's fixed over night. I'm downgrading CLG from my pre-season expectations already. It's not just that they've lost it's the mistakes in the losses. A lot of unforgivable stuff that shows a lack of fundamental understanding, something this team was so good at all of last year. I'm concerned for CLG. The bad part about this is that if TSM look good this line probably climbs out of range I'm comfortable with but keep an eye on this one during the game. If TSM look more like themselves then fire during the game.

TSM/CLG No wager (strong lean TSM, if they look good fire during game before line moves)
Moneyline: TSM ML @ -150 (1.5 units)(5Dimes)

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Parlays:

none for now