Monday, October 5th Recap
G2 Esports vs Machi Esports (Net: +0.54 units)
This was a very “on-brand” performance from G2. Constant skirmishing, torrid pace, but constantly trading up across the map. Machi actually kept up pretty well with the pace in this one but with just Pantheon and Syndra E as your only real engage tools and a Tahm Kench on the other side this was never going to be easy. This was the same exact look that we got from Team Liquid yesterday. If you’re not ahead and on the objectives first with this type of composition you’re going to struggle to get anything done and that’s ultimately what happened once G2 accrued enough of an edge.
G2 are by no means flawless but they do look like they’ve got a decent handle on things at the moment and their intelligent application of pressure and reading the overall “big picture” of the game is still second to none. This team wins a brains over brawn contest any day of the week but I also think Machi made this pretty easy for them from a team composition perspective so I wouldn’t exactly be praising G2 to the moon for this one. Win is a win though, good on them. Machi kept up with the pace but still looked outclassed individually and made a lot of weird errors. Gemini has been playing very well in this tournament but the rest of this team is leaving a lot to be desired still. I think people are going to get cute and say that Machi looked competitive in this game, they weren’t ever really close despite matching G2’s tempo early. Notably, this is another weird draft from Machi who might be thinking too much about lane matchups and not the big picture.
Suning Gaming vs Team Liquid (Net: +1.0 units)
I’m still not a huge fan of NOT taking Nidalee on blue first pick if it’s up right now. Broxah might not be comfortable on it. Graves was banned here too. I don’t mind a team admitting who they are but this could be problematic for Liquid moving forward in this tournament.
Suning indexed fairly heavily into magic damage considering Jax does a fair amount of that in the top lane as well but still have three lanes that should have the shove and have CC to assist a Nidalee gank. Weird look but still checks all the boxes. Right off the bat, Impact got bodied top and Bin soaked the gank, in bottom lane stacked a wave and denied the entire double wave to Liquid’s bottom lane. Suning have a huge leg up to start this game without SofM even losing any pace due to the Lee Sin gank top lane from Broxah. This game just got out of hand from this point. SofM just made this game extremely difficult for Broxah and without his play-making early Liquid had a difficult time getting anything started that wasn’t reactive. That initial bottom lane pressure point just gave Huanfeng and SwordArt such a huge advantage that Liquid’s bottom lane had absolutely no chance to get back into this game.
Suning are a lot like G2. They’re insanely intelligent about the game it just manifests in a different way with them . SofM is such a cerebral player. Every game he knows exactly where to pressure and is highly efficient with his time. It reminds me a lot of Dandy years ago. It just never feels like he’s wasting any time.
This was less about Liquid being poor and more to do with just a great performance from Suning although Impact managed to claw back after a rough start, he continues to show pretty well. They’re going to need elevated performances and to think more big picture about what’s happening to them in draft. That or just ban Nidalee if you’re not going to play it. You can’t just give up these insurmountable leads every game like you did domestically.
DAMWON Gaming vs PSG Talon (Net: +0.8 units)
Talon tried the solo lane Lulu with an Ashe/Kindred duo ADC setup in this one. They also had the Azir to knock enemies off of the Kindred ult. Neat composition, Ashe+Naut for engage. Neat composition.
Couple sloppy errors early, Unified getting caught while Kaiwing was roaming for first blood, Canyon getting caught exiting river. Talon really sold out to get the action started early in this game. Kaiwing was essentially roaming the entire time not trying to play a “fair” game. He ganked top at level 2 around the 5:10 mark in this game. It honestly looked like Talon were trying intentionally to do things that didn’t make sense and it was working for while as they picked up a few early kills that DAMWON clearly didn’t see coming early in this one. Eventually the individual differences just caught up. ShowMaker got a massive lead in mid, Canyon outpaced River’s Kindred, and Nuguri kept within a decent distance top on his Kennen to keep pace. It felt like the longer this game went the better it was for DAMWON even though you could argue they weren’t quite as good in the scaling aspect of the game.
It feels like these mid tier teams just struggle to play a complete game against the elite squads and that’s something we see pretty often when playing different levels. Teams that are a tier up seemingly always know the right way to force an error. DAMWON weren’t as dominant in this game as they’ve been in others but Talon did have a solid draft and did some weird things to throw a curveball in this one and DAMWON made the proper adjustments.
Talon are playing like they’ve got nothing to lose now and while that could be a good thing for their prospects of pulling an upset here, it also feels rather desperate and now that other teams can expect the unexpected from them their prospects of taking multiple games feel like they’re diminishing. On the plus side, give them credit for giving DAMWON a run for their money, not many teams can say that so maybe we should be upgrading them.
Side Note: If I see Tank Q’ing for no reason on Azir I’m going to lose my mind. Caught multiple times with people missing off the map and didn’t have it to aid in his escape with E. You don’t use the Q until you absolutely have to when laning with Azir unless you’re landing poke before a recall and even then it’s risky.
JD Gaming vs Rogue (Net: -3.68 units)
This draft was weird to me. This is a good example of a sub-optimal Nidalee look. You really only have one gankable lane (I guess Volibear is decent in the right matchup but not great) and that was bottom lane. When your mid lane isn’t gankable and doesn’t provide hard CC for 2v2 skirmishes over scuttle or invades then it more or less turns Nidalee into an experience machine. She’s still very potent in that kind of situation but it does bring the ceiling down quite a bit and eliminates a lot of those really explosive performances.
This game had a really slow starting pace despite the two tempo junglers it was mostly just ping-pong’ing lanes and the junglers farming. First dragon wasn’t taken until very late (think it was around 14 minute mark). The action started with a herald contest that JDG won 4v5 getting the herald and first blood in exchange for just two kills to Rogue. Meanwhile Loken was able to get multiple plates solo in the bottom lane on Caitlyn. Good on Rogue to overpursue to trade to make this an even trade when they realized Cait was getting a huge XP and gold advantage but still a net positive for JDG and that’s sort of how this game just ended up.
Hans Sama ended up cleaning up a few kills to get to 4-0 in this game which put Rogue in a position where they could actually threaten straight up but they tried to siege mid and Hans sama overextended which allowed Zoom to pick up a shutdown and JDG to pick up mid tower and then some which gave a huge gold injection to JDG and the second dragon of the game. That fight essentially lost Rogue the game. They did a good job throwing punches to battle back instead of just getting choked out but the damage was already done.
JDG weren’t pristine here and it took an overextension to really put this one away but they also punished the main mistake and clean this one up.
FlyQuest vs Unicorns of Love (Net: no action)
I had a hard time getting a read on this one and sure enough it ended up being a bit of a clown fiesta. FlyQuest really had no business winning this game but they forced multiple errors from Unicorns at back-to-back dragon fights to stave off soul. Solo got absolutely bodied but did find some good flanks at the end of the game to make up for it. PowerOfEvil with a real backpack performance here.
This was an entertaining but honestly terrible game considering the level we’re playing at. I don’t know if it’s nerves or just the quality of these teams or maybe a little of both but this is one of those games that maybe downgrades expectations for both teams.
TOP Esports vs DragonX (Net: -2.0 units)
These two drafts were so bizarre to me with both teams apparently insistent on counterpicking. We saw a B1 Nidalee from TOP answered with Twisted Fate and Lee Sin of all things which was then answered back with Renekton+Senna and a Quinn counter for the Renekton. Second phase Knight locked Nocturne mid, a classic TF counterpick and a good overall answer to the 1-3-1 Quinn+TF game plan that DRX were showing. Then we saw Draven from Deft, not something I thought we’d see and definitely not with Tahm Kench available, a champion that gives him a hard time in lane especially with CC based ADC’s like Senna.
This was weird and it almost felt like both teams were maybe trying some things out. DRX jumped out to a decent gold lead and first drake but Karsa won back -to-back smite fights on the next two dragons to stop the drake snowball win condition. JackeyLove and Yuyanjia unsurprisingly dominated in the bottom lane because the Draven pick couldn’t really do anything. In a vacuum Draven is good against Senna but it’s almost entirely dependent on the support. You can’t soft counter with the support still yet to pick, thought it was a bad idea but maybe they wanted the double gold passive TF+Draven snowball to be a thing.
This was a weird one. I think DragonX could have won it but both teams actually made a bunch of mistakes in this one. Ultimately JackeyLove getting a free lane because of the Tahm Kench and Karsa picking up back-to-back dragons ended up slowing the game down enough that JackeyLove was able to carry this one.
I wasn’t particularly impressed with TOP or DragonX here. This was just a weird game. I’m not looking into it too much. Will probably be on DragonX again for the next round robin on blue side. Still think it was the right side here the number was too big but can’t win em all.
Total Net: -3.34 units
Multiple times today teams passed on taking Nidalee with the first pick on blue side (B1) even with Graves and/or Lillia banned out. I’m not sure this is about the champion as much as it is about wanting to see what the other team is preferring to blind pick to craft your composition around it. Either way, interesting development. I’ll be doing a prop bet check-in after tomorrow’s matches.
—–
World Championship
Main Event – Group Stage
Day Four
G2 Esports -435 vs Team Liquid +311
Kill Total: 27.5 (over -104 / under -125)
Kill Spread: -8.5 @ -119 / +8.5 @ -110
Team Kill Totals: 18.5 / 9.5
Time Total: OTB
Liquid have had back-to-back weird drafts. The one they used against Suning was better to me but it’s looking to me like teams now understand that Broxah/Liquid aren’t willing to take Nidalee so you don’t need to waste a ban on it from red side and don’t need to first pick it on blue side against them either. This is a massive draft disadvantage for Liquid. If teams don’t need to prioritize taking it they can focus on takeaway picks or other generic strong blinds like Syndra or Orianna and just take it on the second rotation of the draft. They also don’t need to worry about banning it meaning they can not only take use an extra ban on a generic blind but then take the remaining best available (for example banning Syndra and taking Orianna, etc). This kind of fundamental disadvantage is going to put everything on Liquid to outplay and any handicap you have of them for this tournament moving forward depends largely on that.
G2 have made the adjustments and can play the relevant picks in most roles although ADC remains to really be seen (not ruling out that Perkz has them all we just don’t know for sure yet). I think G2 are deserving favorites here. Before this tournament I would have said this was a more even matchup than it looked like but given the massive disadvantage Liquid are entering with I think G2 are the right side here. 8.5 is a pretty big kill spread that falls within that higher variance zone but G2 are the play here.
Other markets:
Assuming Liquid have to ban Nidalee and that G2 will either take Graves or Lillia or ban both there’s a good chance that we see a slower paced game in this one just be the nature of the champions involved. Slow-paced and G2 aren’t really words we use in the same sentence but I’m talking from a relative standpoint here. The reason I mention this is because I think there’s a good chance we see a less skirmish and tempo-based game and more teamfights. Typically you think more teamfights more kills but if there is a lot of dancing or fights where only one or two people die we end up with unders more often than overs most of the time. I like the under here. G2 games are almost always very bloody but I think given how Liquid prefer to play and the jungle pool in this spot I think the under is in play. I also like the over 4.5 dragons since this could be a longer game.
My Picks:
Kill Spread: G2 -8.5 kills @ -119 (1.19 units)
Kill Total: UNDER 27.5 @ -120 (1.2 units)(Bet365)
Prop: OVER 4.5 dragons taken @ -125 (1.25 units)
Suning Gaming -357 vs Machi Esports +280
Kill Total: 25.5 (over -122 / under -106)
Kill Spread: -8.5 @ -105 / +8.5 @ -123
Team Kill Totals: 16.5 / 8.5
Time Total: 33:00 (over -114 / under -114)
Machi were able to match G2’s pace but that was about all they could do. I mentioned above that I think Machi might come into this match slightly overrated because they hung in there against G2. The reality is that that game wasn’t ever really close despite their matching of pace. I’d bet against lightning striking twice and I think Suning have a very strong chance of completely running this game over.
It feels bad laying the same kill spread despite a cheaper moneyline and this is on the expensive side for an 8.5 relative to the moneyline but I do think it’s the correct side here enough so to bet into it.
Other markets:
The total is intriguing here. I’d lean toward the over as Suning tend to fight their way to wins but I could just as easily see them running this over in a clinical victory so I’m going to stay away from this one.
I do think this is a fairly cheap under on the time total and I’ll be taking a position there.
My Picks:
Kill Spread: Suning -8.5 kills @ -116 (1.16 units)
Time Total: UNDER 33:00 @ -114 (1.14 units)
DragonX -357 vs FlyQuest +278
Kill Total: 24.5 (over -114 / under -114)
Kill Spread: -8.5 @ -116 / +8.5 @ -112
Team Kill Totals: 15.5 / 7.5
Time Total: 32:00 (over +124 / under -161)
FlyQuest pulled a miracle out of a hat this morning but that was far from a good game against Unicorns of Love. Despite their loss to TOP, DragonX are a different echelon of team and more importantly a completely different echelon on an individual level. PowerOfEvil is going to have to put in an absolute hero performance again and doing so might be tough against Chovy who just outclassed Knight (in the 1v1, not the game, didn’t get enough done). I think you see my point.
DragonX are going to roll this like they rolled Unicorns on day one. Feels bad buying into an over-priced spread but that’s the play here along with a parlay leg later.
Other markets:
The juiced time total under feels bad but based on my projections is the play here. The FlyQuest props are interesting given their prices relative to moneyline but I’d still want more in this spot.
My Picks:
Kill Spread: DragonX -8.5 kills @ -116 (1.16 units)
Time Total: UNDER 32:00 @ -161 (1.61 units)
TOP Esports -833 vs Unicorns of Love +548
Kill Total: 26.5 (over -120 / under -109)
Kill Spread: -11.5 @ -111 / +11.5 @ -118
Team Kill Totals: 18.5 / 7.5
Time Total: 33:00 (over -115 / under -114)
The only real question here is whether or not you think Unicorns can keep this competitive enough to cover the kill spread. 11.5 is a big spread. TOP Esports had no 11.5 kill spreads this season but in their two matches with 10.5 kill spreads against Dominus and OMG they failed to cover in all five games. They had an average margin of victory of 9.33 kills for the Summer split. They won 19-7 against FlyQuest on day one which was their only cover of the season.
If you think they’re going to play with their food a little then I could see laying the points here. As I mentioned, TOP have failed to cover any double digit spread this season until they did so against FlyQuest on day one. This feels like a 16-6 kind of game, clear victory, never in doubt or even lower scoring than that. It’s just a pass for me. There’s too many clean, dominant win situations that don’t cover a massive 11.5 kill spread.
Other markets:
I like the under here quite a bit. Unicorns are a team that will fight into you for sure but this should be a clinical TOP victory. I’ll lay the fat juice on the under tower total too.
My Picks:
Kill Total: UNDER 26.5 @ -111 (1.11 units)
Prop: UNDER 12.5 towers taken @ -238 (2.38 units)
Gen.G -200 vs Fnatic +163
Kill Total: 25.5 (over -114 / under -115)
Kill Spread: -5.5 @ -112 / +5.5 @ -116
Team Kill Totals: 15.5 / 10.5
Time Total: 33:00 (over -130 / under +100)
Gen.G haven’t looked very good so far this tournament despite picking up two victories. I’d argue this is the worst they’ve looked this year. You could digest that one of two ways. Either they’re getting their feet under them and they’ll regress to the mean or that they’re just not in good form for this tournament. I tend to think the former is true. This team was so ridiculously consistent all year long and their individual players are so gifted that it’s difficult for me to imagine them continuing to perform as poorly (relatively speaking) as they have.
Fnatic had a draft spoon fed to them by TSM and managed to lose to LGD despite taking first blood and first tower, something LGD almost never recover from regardless of the team but in this case LGD had such an insane compositional advantage that it almost didn’t matter. I still have a lot of questions for Fnatic and not many things have been answered so far. It’s obviously only two games and we might not even get the answers in this tournament but to me they’re more or less the same team we saw in playoffs despite their individual players performing well on the super server in solo queue. This team still has draft problems. They’re extremely predictable and easy to abuse. That was never a problem for this team in years past but they’ve tended to retreat back to the same old stand-by’s over and over again this Summer.
To me, Gen.G have individual advantages of varying severity at every single position. Selfmade is maybe the closest to his counterpart. Gen.G are also, despite a weird performance at this tournament so far, a ridiculously strong fundamental team and very consistent. I have to think they’ll see the draft advantages that can be gained against Fnatic here and take control. If they don’t then I’ll probably buy back some Fnatic live.
Other markets:
When I first looked at the markets for this match that under 33 at plus money stuck out to me. Gen.G have played two longer games because they’ve been close, competitive games but I’m not sure we’ll see another one here. I like the under quite a bit.
Prop markets are somewhere that Gen.G absolutely dominated with 60+% in ALL neutral firsts over the course of all of 2020 (this is ridiculous). I’ll take the best price on the board for those which is first herald at -120.
My Picks:
Moneyline: Gen.G @ -200 (2.0 units)
Kill Spread: Gen.G -5.5 kills @ -112 (1.12 units)
Time Total: UNDER 33:00 @ +100 (1 unit)
Prop: Gen.G first herald @ -120 (1.2 units)
LGD Gaming -175 vs Team Solo Mid +145
Kill Total: 25.5 (over -123 / under -105)
Kill Spread: -6.5 @ -103 / +6.5 @ -127
Team Kill Totals: 15.5 / 10.5
Time Total: 33:00 (over -154 / under +118)
These two have had a few slugfest games already in this tournament.
TSM looked significantly better when they don’t spoon-feed their opponents the exact composition they wanted and have had success with like they did in the Fnatic match. While Gen.G haven’t looked sharp so far, it’s saying something that TSM were able to hang in with them. People are severely overreacting to TSM’s “poor” performance. There are things to criticize for sure, the biggest of which to me is that their individuals seems to have different evaluations of the game state. BrokenBlade screws up level one, gets a gank to help even up the matchup again and he just allows himself to be shoved for whatever reason despite having knowledge of the opposing jungler. Fear? Nerves? Thinking he’s further behind than he is? Bjergsen had a few “tilt-y” overplays in that match too. They scaled fine, game wasn’t as over as it apparently felt to them. The first game was just a draft loss.
LGD are playing their best League of Legends of the year. They’ve been surprisingly disciplined, something they’ve struggled a lot with this season. They’re correctly identifying win conditions, their opponents win conditions, and the ways their opponents can get back into the game (this one was their biggest issue).
If you think TSM’s confidence is shot then LGD are the play here for sure. Even still I think the price we’re getting on LGD is just too good to pass up given their current form. This is more of an endorsement of LGD than a criticism of TSM. I could see them getting their act together, settling down after some review, and having a good game here. They’re able to play all of the relevant champions so it’s not like a FlyQuest or Liquid situation where they’re handicapped by that it’s just an execution barrier they need to meet.
Other markets:
Getting plus money on the under feels good here despite the longer games these two have played. Peanut is capable of blowing a game out of the water and if TSM get behind again I could definitely see things unraveling for them yet again. Mostly just because it’s plus money but I think there are more situations where this goes under than over as it is.
LGD first blood any time you get the opportunity at a reasonable number….
My Picks:
Moneyline: LGD -175 (1.75 units)
Kill Spread (alt): LGD -7.5 kills @ +123 (1 unit)
Time Total: UNDER 33:00 @ +118 (1 unit)
Prop: LGD first blood @ -130 (1.3 units)
—-
Parlays:
Only two underdogs have won in this entire tournament and that was within the window of the first two days where we typically see higher variance. To me, tomorrow’s slate is extremely chalky and I don’t really like any of the underdogs chances whatsoever. If you have access to a book that let’s you do round robin style parlays this is as good a chance as you’ll get for them. Couple times a year these kinds of slates pop up and I think this is one of them.
Parlay (6): All favorite MLs @ +405 (0.25 units)
Parlay (5): All favorites except LGD @ +223 (0.5 units)
Exposure 0.75 units to net 2.1275 units
Four team Round-Robin “Yankee”
Parlay (4): All favorites except LGD and Gen.G @ +119 (0.25 unit)
Parlay (3): G2 + DragonX + TOP @ -141 (0.705 units)
Parlay (3): G2 + Suning + Top @ -136 (0.68 units)
Parlay (3): G2 + Suning + DragonX @ -105 (0.525 units)
Parlay (3): Suning + DragonX + TOP @ -124 (0.62 units)
Parlay (2): G2 + Suning @ -182 (0.91 units)
Parlay (2): G2 + DragonX @ -191 (0.955 units)
Parlay (2): G2 + TOP @ -282 (1.41 units)
Parlay (2): Suning + DragonX @ -163 (0.815 units)
Parlay (2): Suning + TOP @ -231 (1.155 units)
Parlay (2): DragonX + TOP @ -243 (1.215 units)
Total Exposure on “Yankee” : 9.49 units to net +10.595 on sweep
(all lines from Nitrogen unless noted otherwise)
