The League of Legends Betting Podcast
Saturday, July 20th Part Two - LCS Summer returns
Recorded on: Saturday, July 20th at 1:45am Eastern
Recap 0:26
LCS Slate
You can find more, exclusive content to go along with this show on My Patreon.
My Twitter/X is @GelatiLOL
P&L Sheet for 2024 can be found here and pinned to the top of my Twitter.
The League of Legends betting podcast is brought to you by my Patrons at patreon.com/jilladellol. 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/jilladell. That's G-E-L-A-T-I-L-O-L. Alright, folks, good evening. It's about 1.45 AM Eastern on Saturday, July 20th. We're about 10 minutes out from this incredible, incredible Eastern slate getting started. I just wanted to do a quick recording. I am going to do a co-stream at least for a little bit. I might not do the entire slate. We'll see how long I can last into this marathon, but maybe I will do the whole thing. We'll see. For the time being, we're going to talk LCS because if I'm going to stay up and watch all these games, I'm not sure if I'm going to get a chance to get to this later on. This is going to be a quick podcast, no recaps or anything like that. I'm just going to touch on the LCS for tomorrow. A couple of dynamics here. First of all, the LCS has had three weeks off. That's a long time. Generally speaking, there is a dynamic that happens during long layoffs where it kind of crunches everything together versus more parity. It evens the playing field a little bit. It's about as well prepared as underdogs are going to be, specifically in the very first match back. Yes, sometimes there's a little rust to shake off, but for the most part, especially an extended time, like a month or something like that, we have three weeks here. That's a pretty extended time period. Both of the heavy favorites tomorrow have did the Esports World Cup. They traveled. There's a lot of travel. They've had a lot more time to get back and get recuperated compared to the Eastern teams and the European teams, but still, travel spot. Meanwhile, all these other teams were back home preparing and scrimming and all this stuff. Yes, there's a case to be made that you got better practice by getting reps against the world's best. I'm never going to disagree with that. However, the volume of the amount of practice that you got is probably in favor of the teams that stayed home. Also, they've had three weeks specifically to prepare just for you, and that is a disadvantage. I don't care how you slice it, and I think as bad as some of these teams have looked, I'm looking thinking mostly about Shopify and Immortals, really. As bad as a lot of these teams have looked, that's a lot of time to prepare for your one match this weekend, and I would imagine they're going to have a damn good plan. That's the dynamic at playing both of these matches here. The handicap is eerily similar with both teams. That's really the entire handicap, is that I'm kind of playing a situational spot, because in both matches here, the model actually made the price pretty damn close to the market for both. I'm going with double dogs, spoiler alert, so let's do the first match here. Dignitas plus 486 on the money line, plus 1 1/2 miles and plus 140 minus 1/2 is that plus 1343 against Team Liquid minus 7 or 3 on the money line. The minus 1 1/2 maps is at minus 171. A model made this plus 587 minus 713, so very, very close. Actually, not enough value on Dignitas to really make a position just on the model's perspective. It also flagged the under 1 1/2 barons as a matter of play, and the over 4 1/2 dragons as a matter of play as well. Here's the way this goes. As I just mentioned, for whatever reason, I don't know what it is. Maybe they just play up to their competition. Maybe they just have T1's number, and it makes them look good. I don't know, but that's two international tournaments in a row that Liquid have looked really, really good. But then you look at their underlines, and it's like, I still don't know if this team is actually good. They're underlying numbers suggest that they actually aren't that good. And I know that sounds insane, and I know that you have to kind of err on the side of your eye test here. But I don't want to call Liquid frauds because they're absolutely not frauds. They're doing everything that they're supposed to do. I just think that right now, this is the absolute ceiling for how good this team can be, in my opinion. And I want nothing to do with buying this team at the high. I just want nothing to do with it. No LCS team should be minus 700 to any other LCS team. That's my opinion. None of these teams are that good. I think maybe Liquid proved me wrong, and they are actually this good, and they continue to get better. But I think the patches have been perfect for them. Teams have not really pushed them out of their comfort zone at all. No one's even tried to. They're letting Team Liquid do everything that they want to do. No one has tested them. No one has pushed them on anything. If Dignitas don't use this opportunity with all this prep time, specifically for the one match this weekend, to come up with a draft, to put APA on something uncomfortable, I'm going to lose my shit. I'm going to lose my shit. Don't let the guy have his eggs with Tristana. Don't do it. Just don't. I know he plays other stuff. Make him beat you with something else. Don't let Liquid play the game on easy mode because then they are good. I'm putting a little bit of faith in Dignitas' coaching staff to not let that happen. Maybe that's terrible advice. Maybe that's a bad assumption to make. I don't know. But between the travel situation, the specific prep time for this team, the fact that Liquid might be smelling themselves a little bit, and just the general fatigue of the schedule kind of getting to them, and the downtime. I want a piece of both underdogs here. Unfortunately, I don't like either of these teams. I like Dignitas a little bit more than I like Immortals, but I think you just need to hold your nose and play the kill spreads here, because these are huge kill spreads, huge prices for teams that are coming back off of an extended break, essentially. And that's a tough ask. So I played Dignitas' Pulse 8 and you have Kill... This is kind of breaking a rule because you could make a case that Liquid and Flyquest are elite teams, quote unquote, but I think I'm more willing to fade the elite teams in the LCS than I am in the other leagues, because I just don't think the LCS is on the same level as all these other leagues. So, yeah, I'm playing the... I'm going to not play the stake on both maps. I'm going to split-stake this. I'm going to play to win a half unit each on Dignitas' maps 1 and 2 plus 8 and a half kills. Map 1 was minus 104 for 0.52 units, and map 2 was at even money for half a unit. I'm also going to sprinkle the series money line at 5 to 1, Dignitas plus 500 for 0.2 units. Next match, basically the same handicap, similar price here. Immortals plus 414 on the money line, plus 113 minus 1/2 is at plus 1,090 against Flyquest minus 579 on the money line, minus 1/2 maps to minus 137. I forgot to mention the previous match. If you do like Liquid to just steamroll and completely stomp this game, I think the best way to play it would be the under 1.5 barons. Not only is it an edge on the macro trend for the league as a whole, but we've kind of seen the dynamic globally, where even though the baron difficulty patch happened like five patches ago, it's kind of just now manifesting. So, if you kind of want to buy into that, then I guess that's how I would play it if I was going to play something. If you like the Liquid side of this, I would play the under 1.5 barons, rather than paying for the money line or the sweep. Just read the price off for Immortals Flyquest. In Immortals plus 440 to Flyquest minus 518, so very close to the model price here. Made the over 4.5 dragons a very strong play, and the under 1.5 barons are 12.5 towers. Moderate plays. Yeah, this is the same situation. Immortals are grosser. I don't like Immortals as much as I think this is. I think those have a pulse Immortals have kind of yet to show us that, but if there's ever going to be a time to do that, I want to sell Flyquest now. I think we've maybe seen the top for them as well. And if there's ever going to be a dead cat bounce for Immortals, or ever going to be a time where they're going to be prepared and at least jump out to a lead, even if they don't close the games, I want a piece of the kill spread for the dogs here. So I played Immortals plus 8.5 kills for minus 120 for 0.6 units. And plus 8.5 kills at minus 120 on map 2 as well for 0.6 units. I also played 0.1 unit on the series Moneyline at plus 414. That's going to be it for me. Check the stream. I'm going to be doing a sort of long stream starting up shortly after I release this. It's almost 2 o'clock, so we're going to get that going for the LCK game. And hopefully enjoy an awesome slate of games on Saturday morning. I hope everyone enjoys, and best of luck, I'll be back tomorrow.
