Tuesday, February 4, 2020

February 5th: LCK Spring 2020 Opening Day

February 2nd and 3rd Recap

NA LCS: 3 - 1 (+3.5 units)
Parlays: 0 - 0 (0 units)
NET:3 - 1 (+3.5 units)

We missed on EG against TSM in what I saw as an even matchup but other than that won the rest of out selections on Sunday and Monday in the LCS. TSM look to be shaking off a rough week one and are playing quite well (and notably, actually closing leads decisively). FlyQuest were a selection I liked as both the double swing of the buy low on FlyQuest and sell high on Dignitas against an inflated line of +135. I liked the angle so much so that upon seeing a +165 on Monday evening I just had to fire an additional wager. FlyQuest utterly dominated. FeelsGoodMan!

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(all lines are from Nitrogen unless noted otherwise)

LCK Spring 2020 - Opening Day
Week 1 - Day 1

DAMWON -111 (+1.5 @ -272)
vs
T1  -124 (-1.5 @ +258)

This should be an outstanding opening match but unfortunately for us we didn't find a plus odds side. Too much juice for a close to 50/50. I'm going to do what I like to call the Bottom Tier LPL Special (borrowed from my good friend John @TheESportsPlug) and actually take both 2-0's for half a unit each here. While I think this should be a good match between two good teams, we're going to see a lot of that this year and all it takes is for one team to come out flat or one team to come out looking quite a bit better on the day for there to be a sweep either way. It's not to say these two teams aren't evenly matched just that sometimes weird stuff happens early in the season. 

 It's a bit strange looking but I think it's a more likely outcome than a full three game series especially on day one and with a minimum net of +0.78 units on a cash (+0.79 if SKT 2-0) the odds are slightly better splitting this than they are at taking the under 2.5 maps @  -141 for one unit which would only net us +0.71 units). 

Spread: DAMWON -1.5 maps @ +256 (0.5 units)

Spread: SK Telecom -1.5 maps @ +258 (0.5 units)

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Gen.G -775 (-1.5 @ -151)
vs
KT Rolster +429 (+1.5 @ +144)

I absolutely love this spot for KT Rolster. One of my favorite things to do is fade the public favorite on day one. The line is often tremendously inflated. Now in this case, Gen.G are a team that I'm considering elite and I ranked KT Rolster #9 in my pre-season tier list writeup but one thing I mentioned is that, somewhat similar to Dignitas in the LCS, KT Rolster might come out to a fast start and surprise some people. Why? People see the #9 ranked team against a top three team and just assume it will be a stomp and that the #9 team is bad. KT Rolster is far from a bad team. This region is going to be highly competitive, more so than maybe any other LCK season ever. There are seven teams that I think could reasonably win the entire split. SEVEN! KT aren't one of those but that doesn't mean they're a bad team. Kuro, Aiming, and TusiN are all world class players. Perhaps not truly elite, best of the best level but they're all in that next "great, not ridiculously great" tier and they're all experienced veterans. What's more? They used to all play together and Kuro and TusiN specifically for multiple splits! 

Gen.G are, understandably, the favorite to win the Spring Split and while their level of talent is absolutely absurd I do have my questions about a coaching staff that has, time and time again, failed to effectively utilize the talent they have. In fact, Gen.G have "ruined" a lot of great players with their insistance on overly passive play. When I say passive I don't mean risk averse I mean passive. They just let the game play out. Now the current meta might not punish that as hard as it should and maybe that's a reason to back Gen.G here but I'm going the other way. They are rarely proactive. Coach Hirai for KT was with DragonX last year, one of the more well-coached teams in the world and should provide a significant advantage over Gen.G's historically suspect coaching staff. 

For the first time ever the LCK is starting significantly later than every single other region and I think that might affect things as well. The LCK won't be responsible for inventing the wheel like they have in the past they can emulate. I'll also remind everyone about the typical opening week talking point of favoring underdogs for a number of reason, the most potent of which is that this is the match they will be more prepared for than any other match this entire season. I've gone into it in other opening day posts so feel free to check those out but generally once the season gets rolling the truly good teams are able to adapt quicker while weaker teams tend to struggle to keep up once the season is in full swing. Those weaker teams tend to look pretty even early when they have a month or two to prepare for their first matches before having to adapt. We're also getting some price memory here. Gen.G is a team people thought was good last year, they were mediocre (and frustrating). KT is being priced as the bad team they were last year. This is a significantly better roster overall.

1) Mispriced odds
2) Week one variance
3) Extra Extra Extra time to prepare
4) Coaching advantage to KT Rolster
5) Significantly improved KT Rolster lineup than public perceives
6) Veteran KT Rolster lineup (veterans tend to be comfortable and settled right away)
7) Three KT players have a lot of experience playing together in the past

Add it all up and we've got a spicy,spicy underdog on day one of the LCK! Gen.G should definitely be favored here that's obvious but this price is outrageous to me for opening day. Nobody should be favored by this much and definitely not against a team that isn't a bad lineup and especially on day one of the entire year.

Spread: KT Rolster +1.5 maps @ +152 (1 unit)

Moneyline: KT Rolster @ +429 (0.5 units)

Spread: KT Rolster -1.5 maps @ +856 (0.25 units)

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