The League of Legends betting podcast is brought to you by my Patrons at patreon.com/jalatiLOL. There you can find bonus content like in-depth articles on macro trend analysis and league previews, as well as thoughts on breaking news and the podcast picks before the show is released to platforms. You also get to support your creators more directly. patreon.com/jalatiLOL. That's G-E-L-A-T-I-L-O-L. Good evening everybody, it's currently about 5pm eastern on Sunday July 21st. I'll be doing a recap of the LEC and LCS, which we're kind of in the middle of, we're in between here, LEC ended and we're in the middle of the LCS match currently. I'm not gonna have time this afternoon to do the LEC for tomorrow, but I'll be doing later on tonight, I'll be recapping the LEC and LCS and doing an LEC podcast as well as updating the Patreon post for the LEC. Figure that'll be probably around 3 or 4am eastern, I get home shortly before that, and give me some time to get settled and eat and all that, and I'll get that done. Anyway, quick recap from this morning, we had a really, really good day in the east this morning, and the LEC I guess. With the LPL LEC and LEC, we were up +3.254 units, 3.254 units. LCS is still pending, we have a few positions on the LCS as well. Team WE Ultra Prime, WE's lack of aggression and just opting into coin flip games continues to punish them. When you don't engineer your own advantages and you're not a lock down, nails reliable closing team, you're gonna lose games sometimes. And Ultra Prime, I don't think are good or particularly reliable, but they were able to get the right people ahead enough in this series to take over both games. Chingtian had a ridiculous series, and especially in that game too, on Cassantai the Year, like 9 kills in that game, just completely took over the game. I don't want to say these roster moves haven't worked out for Team WE, but like I mentioned when they made them, they picked up some really strange pieces for the style that they play. It'd be like picking up, I don't know, there's real sports equivalence you can compare this to, but the people they picked up didn't fit the style that they wanted to play, so when they made these moves I was like, "Oh, WE are gonna completely change up, they wanna do a different identity." And they just haven't, like they're the same team, but with like different pieces that don't fit as well for playing that style. Like they should just go, like I'm not saying they should go back to the old lineup, if they're gonna play the same way, they should go back to the old lineup because those players are more suited for what they were doing. WE are kind of in freefall, man, they're 2 and 3 now, it's not over yet, but they're basically in must win mode, it's pretty bad for them right now. Anyway, LNG FPX, this was kind of a rough day at the office from LNG, a lot of just small, like they didn't have like major mistakes, they just made a lot of small mistakes and FPX were in really really good form today, so FPX didn't completely dominate these games or anything like that, which is maybe telling of upside there, but they didn't completely dominate these games, but they did, you know, they were in good form today and LNG were just a little bit off, and you know, maybe this is just a one off, good day, bad day, combination parlay there, but like, I don't know, I think FPX was just better today, that's all it was, I don't think this was like super terrible, like reason to be concerned for LNG, but couple small mistakes, and then the combination of that and FPX being in good form cost them the match here, map 1 went over, map 2 did not, but I bet map 2, so that was our only loss on the entire Eastern slate today, and LAC included. FPX was KT Rolter, FPX been drafting their own players and style, not just trying to do the same things everyone else is doing, and it's working for them, like, the thing is with this kind of situation, this is a big thing that LS and a lot of those guys end up talking about a lot, and I partially agree with them and I partially disagree with them. You have to do, especially when you're like a middle of the table team, or like a bottom of the table team like VRX are, you kind of just have to do what works for your players sometimes, even if it's not like game theory optimal. Like, not everyone is a cyborg that plays everything in the meta perfectly well, and you know, a lot of these professional players these days are, you know, go back 10 years, you know, 12 years, something like that, we saw a lot more like unique flavor, but the game was a lot less homogenized and a lot less optimized back then. It was a very loosey, goosey Wild West, so you could kind of get away with that. Everyone is so good now that you have to do everything pretty well, but there's room for customization there, and I think VRX, a lot of their struggles over the course of 2024 have been just trying to do stuff that they're not good at, and I said this a lot about them in Spring Split. The last few matches for them, they've been doing like what works for them, put closer on a playmaker, something with agency, other stuff like, you know, taking their, like Hannah off of Ezreal, like he's not a good Ezreal player, put him on something he's comfortable on. They're just putting Raptor on an enabling jungler instead of all these carries and everything. He's been, like, they're, they should just be playing dive comps every single game. They're good at it. They don't lack in confidence. VRX never ever lack in confidence. They're just a very, they're a very solo QE. I have better hands than you team, so you should be giving them champions that let them do that. And, you know, the last couple of matches, their coaches have been letting them do that. They've looked confident. They're really steamrolling over people. They've now beaten T1 and KT back-to-back. That's impressive. And, you know, I don't think this was necessarily like a bad day, a bad showing from KT Rolcer as much as it was just a really, really good day from VRX. And, you know, the upside with this team when they're comfortable is, you know, it's good. They're a good team when you can get them comfortable. Yeah, they're a little sloppy here there, but, you know, because of who they are, you shouldn't be making them try to play, you know, to take a card game term here. This is not a player that you should be playing control decks with. This is an aggro team. Let them play their thing. Let them do their thing. That's what they're good at. They're going to feel more comfortable. They're going to be more confident and it's just going to work. You have to remember that these are people, too. And this is a big thing that gets overdone in real sports, you know, armchair analysts and same thing with, like, actual coaches, too. Like, these are people. You've got to read your people, too. I'm not saying you've got to go full-on the other way, but at the same time, it's like, you know, you have to do a little bit of both. The best coaches are good at balancing both. Good win for VRX. They're in good form right now. Nongxian vs. VRX. This was an awful series. This was one of the lowest level series we've seen in a little while. This looked like a bottom of the LPL series or bottom of the LCS series. Not a good look for either of these teams. They both looked really, a lot of weird goofy situations. This was a funny series, like, comically funny series to watch, but it was bad. This looked like kind of like LCK challengers. Like, a lot of solo queue decisions, just constant fighting. Both teams looked really, really awkward and bad and uncomfortable in this match. You know, Nongxian picked up the win, but I'd honestly argue VRX probably should have won this match. I'm not sure it really matters in the grand scheme of things, but, like, Nongxian were kind of doing the opposite thing I would VRX are doing, where I wish they would play to their outs and play to what they're good at more. You know, Gebo and Sylvie are very clearly and obviously the best players on this team. And they continue to not give them stuff with agency or not put them on things that they're particularly good at. They're trying to be a very vanilla team when I think they could kind of take some notes from VRX and probably lean into the things that they're good at and probably have a little bit more success against the good teams. Didn't end up mattering all that much, but, you know, whatever. Like I said, I'll be doing the LAC and LCS tomorrow morning. Just wanted to do a quick shout out. I know Standish tuned into the stream the other night, and I know he reads my stuff and listens to this podcast and everything. Shout out. He took down the main Draft King slate this morning, so just wanted to give props to him. I know a lot of people that read and listen to this being, but he's kind of old guard. He's been doing this since the very beginning. Him and I, you know, we don't have, like, a personal relationship, but we've shot the shit a few times, and we were actually coincidentally on, like, Friday night or Saturday night, or Saturday night, we were just shooting the shit on the swed along stream and had a good time with it. So, congrats to him on that. Anyway, let's get on to the slate. New games in the LPL tomorrow. We'll never give up, plus two 77 on the winning line, plus one half, minus one 12, minus one half, plus seven 27. It's rare out of minus 391 on the winning line, minus one half, minus one 15, plus one half, minus 1603. Juice XBY is getting the start for RNG. Tang Wan, Huang Hwang and I, Wandi, and then the same line up, RA's been running with Xiaoxu Xiaohao, Vekla Asim and Jui. Model made this plus 163, minus 186. I don't have the Just Group filtered model. I'm having some issues with that specific thing. I'm going to try to fix that when I get home tonight, and I'll probably update the Patreon post. Model like to RNG sides a lot, obviously, based on the price I just told you. Also like Kill Total Unders and Baron over one and a half. Look, the handicap for this match is really, really simple. I'm not saying you should just fade every single roster swap over reaction, but every single time. It's been enough years now that you would think that the League of Legends market would stop being irrational about all these roster moves and everything, but it just doesn't. None of these teams, none of these players on any of these teams are so good that it's just a game breaker if they're out. Like, who's the best individual player in the bottom conference right now? It's probably like, I don't know, it's probably like, it might be like Vekla or Xiaoshu maybe? I don't know. That's the point I'm making. None of these players are that much better than anybody else. Why the fuck is the market making RA of 80% win rate in this contest? This is stupid. Like, I think RA are pretty good. They've looked pretty good. I think RNG are pretty bad. They've looked pretty bad, but we just saw RNG with an emergency subs and swapping positions in a game take down a series. I'm not saying that that should happen often, but it's definitely going to happen more often than the odds imply. This is a dumb price. Even if you give a bump to rare atom for... If you give a bump to rare atom for RNG having to deal with this new player coming in and everything, give them a few percentage points to make it more like a 70/30. Like, 70/30 is still a value on RNG at these prices. This is a dumb price. Nobody in this division is good enough or reliable enough to be this big a favorite over anyone. I do think RA is a better team. I do think they should be favored in this situation, but you have the lower conference dynamic where nobody's this much better than anybody else. You also have RNG with side choice in this contest, so give me RNG. I think you can play the +1.5 maps, the series money line, but I'm going to play map 1 in this one. I'm going to play RNG + 7.5 kills at -104 for 0.8 units, and then I'm going to play the other 0.2 units to make it a 1 unit stake on the map 1 RNG money line at +200. Just realized I wrote +7.5 maps in the Patreon post. I'm going to have to fix that. The second match, Thunderdrough Gaming -195 on the money line, -1/2 maps at +164, +1/2 is at -614 against EDG. We're gaming +149 on the money line, +1/2 maps at -216, -1/2 is at +396. No lineup changes for these two. Hoya Beishwanyukal, 1/X Ana Feather solo kill, JJ Crying, leaving wink for EDG. Model makes this -140 +123, so shorter than market price. Like CDG Sides, obviously it likes over 12 and 1/2 towers and over 1/2 barons moderately. Again, like I said, this lower conference, I sincerely think because nobody's that much better that you have to kind of just ignore the records here. Ignore the results because they're basically all close to coin flips and if you just have one team that flips heads a few times then they're going to have a good record and if that's the difference here at this level. So I really think you just need to stop looking at the records on these and just like understand what you're looking at. I think TT might be the best team in this lower conference. I thought it was going to be TT and WE. I think EDG have a case as well. Just because they have the best underlines but they're also not reliable and you kind of just have to introduce - you have to add a lot of like variance to this and increase your threshold for what's worthy of a play because everyone's unreliable, right? I think like the most lopsided matchup you can come up with this in the slower division should be priced like 1/50 fair, like 60/40. And this is really testing me because I do think - I don't always like the way they play but I think TT might be the best team in this lower conference. But this is too heavy handed even for them and EDG are not a bad team so I think you need to be on the EDG side here as well. These two are more or less identical in their approach to the game. Neither of them are in any kind of rush to get anything done. They rarely - both of them have significant deficit. They don't have leads at 20 minutes. Very often they have significant deficit to 20 in a lot of their games. Both of these teams are more than willing to take a deficit into the mid game. Neither of them are in a rush to get a lead. They don't have very good explosive early games or anything like that. They don't have reliable early games. They are totally cool just playing coin flip league of legends and therefore, you know, when you have two teams that match up this way unless one of them is dramatically better at the late game macro angle of the game, then they're just coin flip games. So, TTF side choice, they're going to be easier access to Baron. I think they should be slight favorites in this contest but this is way too heavy handed. I think they should be closer to what the model is saying, like maybe -140, -130, something along those lines. I'm going to play EDG map two when they have side choice. I'm going to play EDG map two money line plus 127. I think you could play the series money line or the plus one and half maps as a proxy. I'd probably play the plus one and a half maps instead of the series money line just because side choice but I'm also going to play map one over one and a half barons at minus 126 for one unit. The idea here being that neither of these teams are going to be in any particular rush and they're actually both pretty good at stabilizing with a deficit and not getting blown out after the first Baron. That's something that's gone back even during the group stage or the placement stage rather. I like the Baron overs. It was only a moderate suggestion from the model here but I like the Baron overs just because I think the game scripts with these two, you're not going to see particularly big leads in either and I don't think they're going to be able to make massive dramatic Baron parables with the first one. So I think it's going to take two or three barons to end these games. I think it's going to be sloppy. I think you could also play time total overs but they're priced at 33 and a half so I don't know if you want to get involved there. That's going to be it for me. I'll be back later on tonight with a recap of the LEC and LCS and the LEC for Monday morning.
