The League of Legends betting podcast is brought to you by my Patreons 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 4.20 bleys at p.m. eastern on Thursday, July 11th, 2024. I'm going to be skipping the recap from this morning just because I'm running extremely short on time here. And we have a lot of matches to get to tomorrow because there's five in the east and then two playoff matches for the LEC. You know, Genji 2-0, we missed on Kwongdong, doubles, I have issues, like I was just stupid again guys. I was just really dumb again. I talked to myself in double staking against an elite team, arguably I think the world number one still. So turns down, I'm still an idiot and that was almost entirely the losses on the day. We won a bunch of the other bets. We ended up down -1.259 units almost entirely. Would have had a green day if I just didn't doubles, no, we would have been basically zero down to third quarter unit if I didn't double stake against Genji like a fucking moron. So anyway, LPL week two, day five, three matches. Our first three match slate of the summer, we're getting back into that swing of those on the weekends. We have LGD gaming plus 378 on the money line, plus one and a half massive plus 115, minus one and a half and plus 989 against JD gaming, minus 501 on the money line, minus one and a half is at minus 137. Shears getting the start for JDG. This is a banger of a DFS slate. I hope everyone gets involved and plays the Draft Kings slate for this tomorrow because there are some really, really interesting pricing and there's some really, really interesting matchups on the slate tomorrow. Some really, really cool coin flip like matches. We got a couple matches where the competitive, like the elite teams are playing against each other. It's a banger, banger slate tomorrow. If I get a chance to, I might actually co-stream tonight, do like a sweat a long stream. I've actually got a lot of action on tomorrow's slate. So, you know, if you guys would like that, hit me up on Twitter, be like, "Hey, it would be awesome to see a co-stream and just kind of hang out and do like a sweat a long stream kind of deal, listen to tunes, just hang out and shoot the shit as we're breaking the games down." Let me know if that's something that would interest you. I've done that a few times in the past, but anyway, let's get into these handicaps here. I'm not only this pretty close to market, you give a slight bump to LGD for a side choice here. LGD haven't been a terrible team over the duration of 2024. They've been really good at keeping games close, but if you look at their more recent performances, that's starting to kind of fall off. They have, you know, over the last eight games, they've had the LPL's worst early game rating from an economic standpoint. And, you know, as much as they've been grinding out wins and they kind of got to this upper bracket, I think it's pretty clear and obvious that they're probably the worst team in this upper bracket for now, depending on what waybo do, but they're, it's pretty clear one of these things is not like the other. LGD, you know, they have some talent, but they're pretty clearly behind a lot of these other teams. That said, they're competent enough to take games, so you have to put some respect on their name. It's just a matter of how much I don't think they're really have much. I think this price is pretty close to right. I didn't play anything on the side here. If you forced me to play something, I'd probably play the JDG sweep just because LGD's early game has been so bad. And if you spot JDG a lead, they're just so nails with a lead that it's tough to really get involved with a dog that's not going to blow the game open early. Someone like a rare atom, for instance. I am going to play the under four and a half dragons here. You can pick map one or two. I'm going to play map two because it's the map JDG off side choice on thesis here being that only a third of JDG games go to at least a fifth dragon and only 37 and a half percent of LGD games go to one and we're getting essentially a 53 and a half percent implied. Big enough edge for me. I'd normally played on both maps, but I'm going to, you know, be a little bit more selective here and just play it on map two. Map two under four and a half dragons minus one sixteen for one unit and I would lean to the JDG sweep. JDG minus one eighty three Edward gaming minus one and a half maps at plus one sixty seven plus one and a half that minus five forty three against OMG plus one fifty two on the money line plus one and a half maps that minus two oh one minus one half is that plus four oh five. Same lineups for these two is the last time out. OMG you're doing the T ends and angel lineup again model me this minus two oh one plus one eighty three slight value on EDG here. If you look at like the balance of the twenty twenty four summer split. This is a relatively cheap price for EDG, but as I've been talking about the last week or so, it's like it's really really tough to get a read on like what this team is. They started off the split as like it looked looking like they were going to be kind of kind of like an SK gaming style of team where they are okay with a slow early game. They're not trying to blow games open early, but they're so methodical and good in the in the mid game and make good fundamental decisions that it looks like that was the cut like they were going to play like grind it out, you know, defense in ball control kind of League of Legends. And that's kind of going out the window because they've made some really really shitty decisions of late. And I don't and against bad teams to not even against good teams. It's tough to like get a vibleness. The other thing is our general thesis on this bottom conference like none of these teams in the bottom eight are reliable enough to be trusted as big favorites. And I don't think any of them are that much better than any of their counterparts. I think my just like for the record, my models love EDG. They love Thunder Talk and they love. They don't love WWE, but they like WWE and they kind of put those three a cut above the rest of this bottom eight. But even if I pair like the best of those against the worst of those and for the record, the model has OMG is the worst team in the league. Even if I pair the rest of them against OMG like that, like this is the biggest, most expensive price you get, which shows you that there really is just a ton of parity here and none of these teams are reliable as big favorites. I would actually lean to the OMG side of this. It's kind of nauseating, but I would lean to the OMG side of this like maybe to take a map, but like I'm not going to play it, I'm going to respect the numbers enough. EDG, the favorite do have side choice for this, so that's another dynamic to consider. Maybe give them a slight bump and all of a sudden we're kind of more or less at price. I don't think there's a big edge on either side here. I could see the Kate, like if you forced me to play this, I'd play OMG, like OMG Moneyline, you just hold my nose. What I do like is the underkill totals in this. Both these teams are, so EDG are averaging well under, like well under the league average combined kills per minute. OMG are over it, but just in general have not had like crazy high combined kills per game either. Combined, if you look at the total spread for this, you have like 27 1/2, 28 1/2, 29 1/2. Combined these two teams have only gone over, have gone to like 30 kills in, I'll just do the lowest, I'll do, they've only gone to 28 or more kills in a combined 32.64% of their games, and you're getting even money on the under 27 1/2. I think kills are volatile, the margins are smaller, but I think this is a big enough edge that I'm going to play. I'm going to play a couple of derivatives today. A lot of them showed edges, there haven't been a ton of edges to be had in this so far this summer that I've seen anyway, or that I've wanted to put action in on, but as I'm starting to collect more data, I think there's some angles we can play here. Under 27 1/2 kills plus 101 units. Again, just to clarify, I'm not saying that there haven't been edges, it's just that I tend to wait on these to collect a lot enough data, and we're getting to the point now where I think we have enough to leap on these. Last but not least, a doozy and a potential finals preview here, we have toppy sports and underdog minus 102 on the money line plus 1/2, minus 3 or 5, minus 1/2, plus 273 against Billy Billy Gaming minus 116 on the money line, minus 1/2, plus 245, plus 1/2, minus 345. Same line as for these two. There's been some speculation, there's literal photo evidence of it, but it just depends on what he's doing there, but there's some speculation that Easyhoon's going to join the coaching staff for BLG. There's a picture floating around of him standing behind, I think it was June, on a stream the team was doing, and Easyhoon's a great coach, he was a great player. I don't know if that's going to really fundamentally change anything about BLG, he could just be adding, they could just be adding into the staff, I don't think it's necessarily going to mean a coaching change, but you can just add staff members, it never hurts to add, you know, good minds, so interesting there. The model made this wrong team favored, makes top minus 135 against BLG, plus 124 top also have side choice for this, I figured the model would like top esports. Just for the record, data that it's using here is not including the esports world cup, I kept everything domestic, but I think you need to keep in mind that top looked really, really good at that tournament. Billy Billy did not, but, and if you just go back over the summer, top has been a better team this summer, Billy Billy have had a couple hiccups, I don't think it knocks them out of Elite here, this is still an Elite team, they're still incredibly good, but they've had a few hiccups this summer, top basically haven't, they've been nails, pretty much the entire way. I think they've dropped, they've only dropped like one game domestically, which is crazy, but yeah, it makes sense to me that top are, it makes sense to me that the model likes top here, they've been the better team in summer, but they've had trouble with Billy Billy, and I think there's a case to be made that this is pretty close to a coin flip. I think once you factor in top's recent form and Billy Billy's recent form, and the fact that top have side choice for this, they get a slight bump from a percentage perspective there, I think 102 is enough value that you should play it, like it's, it meets, it meets my threshold personally, because I think this should probably be closer to like a 55, 45, right now. And this isn't like fading an elite team, because you're backing an elite team as well, so I think top esports, they're not without their warts, but I think they have been better this summer, and I think they're better than a coin flip once you factor inside choice for this so it's not a huge edge, but it's enough to cross my threshold for a player so I play top esports money line minus 102 for 1.02 units, mostly going to play the under 400 hit dragons up pulse 111 for one unit. These two teams tend to play really lopsided games, they're two of the best early game teams in the world in any league, I think they might actually be like, they're two of the top three, I think T1's the other one. As good as GenDR, they are not as much an explosive early game teams these two are, or T1, so I think that's interesting. It's weird, normally you see two teams, it's an even money price, two competitive teams, two elite teams, you're like, why are we betting on games going short? It's because these two teams are so dominant in the early game that the games explode and they're just done in the first 10 minutes, regardless of the opponent they're against, so that's why we're playing that angle, plus we're getting a better price because of the money line price. The model also flagged BLG first blood, rarely flags first blood plays, but BLG have a 78.6% first blood rate to the 46.2% for top and you're getting a 53.5% implied, so if you want to take a stab on that go for it, I didn't play that, I prefer the under dragons in this one. Moving on to the LCK, week four, day three, fear X plus 242 on the money line plus 1/2 that minus 124 minus 1/2 that plus 578, and it's KT Rolster minus 309 on the money line minus 1/2 maps that plus 1/2 plus 1/2 that minus 874. The model made this plus 158 minus 176, much, much closer. What's our rule with KT Rolster? We fade them as big favorites and we back them as big underdogs. It's been a weird summer split for KT because we knew they were a volatile asset, we knew their game grade volatility was extremely high. They don't play a lot of median games, they play on the margins, it's either very good or very bad for them, but for the first, really, until like, right before the break, we just hadn't seen any ceiling games from KT Rolster at all. And all of a sudden, when you have a team that's super volatile and you take away the upside games, they are very, very bad. They got T1 before the EWC break, they beat up on Nong Shim right after the break here in their first match this week. I don't think they've magically turned it around, that said, if you look at their last six individual games, they've gotten five of their one, two, three, four, and fifth. Like, their top five individual game grades for the entire summer have been in five of their last six games, so that's worth keeping in mind. So, you know, it's possible that maybe they have turned the corner in some sense, or they figured something out. I'm still skeptical, but keep that in mind, I just figured I'd mention it, making the case against myself here. Furex, it's been a bit of a struggle for them. They look a little bit worse to me than they did in the spring. They're getting completely destroyed in a lot of their games. That said, they did break up that eight-game losing streak with a win before the break against Breon. Yeah, it's Breon, I know, but they, you know, getting off the shnide can be a good psychological factor for a team, so it's good. You got that, and you have, like, two weeks off to kind of get the reset here for them. There's enough talent on this team that they should be able to, like, be good, but they're just not putting it all together. They're not a very good macro team. They have bad hands. They have talent. They have good players. They're just not a very good macro team. They kind of get ahead of themselves. They play, like, a little kid. Like, they don't play mature League of Legends, but they are talented. This is a weird spot. I'm going to go to war with fear axe just accepting that this could turn into a complete sh*t show at the f*ck factory, you know? I mostly, this is mostly a fate of KT than an endorsement of fear axe. Fear axe have not been good this season, but I just don't ever trust KT as big favorites. That's kind of the rule here. Like, nothing KT have done has given me any kind of fate. Like, even if you give them a bump for having turned the corner in their last, like, two matches, if you want to give them a bump, does that? Like, for what it's worth, like, the model puts more weight on that, and it's still made this, like, a 63% implied win for them. The market price is 75%. So, like, if you think their recent turnaround is worth 12% equity, then, by all means, go ahead and back them, but I'm the other way. One, I never trust them, and two, I think that's just, like, too big a delta. Another thing for this match, I kind of want to take a stab on ult kill total overs. You know, fear axe might not have the highest combined kills per minute or per game, but they have some wildly high scoring games, which makes sense given, you know, the fact that they're really fighty and kind of solo QE and immature at times, and they get distracted trying to close out games. K.T. have had some pretty wild games this season, too, like, super bloody ones. So, I'm not going to play it personally from a betting angle, but for DFS purposes, I would absolutely want to be involved in this series on this slate, also because I think there's just going to be super low ownership on these teams, and they both have upside bloodiness. So, I would keep that in mind for DFS purposes. I didn't play an ult kill total over. I think you can get, like, two to one on the over 30 and a half kills, but that's something that really, you know, intrigued me, and I thought about it. I just didn't want to take two stabs at it and whiff on both, if it lands, like, 28 and 29 or something. So, I might end up changing my mind on that and coming back later, check the Patreon later for updates, but I played fear axe, plus one and a half maps at minus 124 for one unit, and a lean to ult kill total overs. Second match, another banger. T1 minus 149 on the money line, minus one and a half maps at plus 195, plus one and a half is at minus 445. Because homo life esports plus 123 on the money line, plus one and a half maps at minus 244, the minus one and a half is at plus 332, I am talking too fast and stumbling over my words. Model made T1 plus 121, homo minus 134, so wrong team favored. This is a really, really strange handicap. So, T1 are obviously coming off a win at EWC. A lot of world class competition at this tournament got there, but they did not look good for the first two series of that event, and I would argue you probably should have lost two to one team. They got tested by Breone on Wednesday morning, which says all sorts of things. We talked about the jet lag and all that, and Breone showed up to play relative to Breone, but T1 didn't look great, and they didn't look great prior to EWC, and they didn't look particularly great at EWC, but this team just keeps winning. Like, they're not in good form right now, and they keep winning. The resilient is all hell despite all the mishaps here. That said, they keep winning. And if they're not in good form, and they keep winning, there's like two ways this goes. If they're not in good form, and they keep winning, and they can play themselves into good form, then this team's just a wagon, which wouldn't shock me at all. At the same time, if they keep playing this way, they're going to get hit eventually. They're going to start losing some of these games. They're not always going to be able to play their way out of a paperback. They've been doing that a lot recently. They've been getting themselves in holes and having to play themselves out of a hole. Hanwa dropped a couple series this summer. Dropped the opener to D+ who were absolutely remarkable that day, and they lost 2.0 to Genji, but I would argue they were like 60-40 to win that second game. Other than that, they've kind of taken care of business kind of beating up on everybody else. They've even tried to get outside their comfort zone a bit, which I think is a good thing, even though they looked pretty terrible in the games in which they did that. Hanwa always show value against the elite teams, but as we know from a qualitative standpoint, they almost never get there over the last year and a half since we put this iteration of Hanwa together. They are the ultimate gatekeeper team. They really, really struggle to beat T1 and Genji. I think they've gotten T1 once or twice over the last two years. They haven't gotten Genji yet. This is by design. I've talked about this a lot. They're a pure counter punching team, and elite teams don't make very many mistakes, so it doesn't really work very well for them. That said, I think right now with how rough T1's early games have been, if T1's spot Hanwa lead, Hanwa will punish it and beat them. That's how they beat them in that playoff series last year, or not playoff series, the end of summer series last year, is T1 were kind of in sketch... They were fine, but they were kind of in sketchy form. They were kind of making a lot of mistakes early. This sets up very similarly. They're in sketchy form right now, even though they're getting the results. If T1's spot Hanwa lead, Hanwa is like a boa constrictor with the lead, man. They'll choke you out. Their entire playstyle is predicated on punishing a mistake, and if you give them a mistake, they're just so good at punishing it. I really, really hate going against the elite teams ever, but when you're getting another elite team... I really, I don't like backing Hanwa against the elite teams, but I think you're getting a good enough price here that's probably worth it, and given T1's form... If T1 were in good form, I wouldn't play this, but they're not right now, and I think this is kind of similar. If T1's grew up early, I think Hanwa will win the game. I think they're going to have a tough way playing themselves out of a bad situation. If T1's team roll, then so be it. I'm going to play Hanwa life on the money line, plus 123 for 1 unit, and again, because of the punishment/early game explosiveness, either T1's going to roll early and team roll, or they're going to screw up early, and Hanwa are going to team roll. Very similar handicap to BLG, and top esports, except those are two explosive early game teams. A little bit different here, but similar idea. I'm also going to play the under 1.5 barons at +120 for 1 unit in this one. Moving on to the LEC, summer playoffs, week 1 day 1, just a quick reminder. We've had two weeks of downtime. It's a lot of time for teams to prep. This is the absolute last stand for the year for a lot of these teams, especially the ones that have had pretty brutal summers. We've got two of those coming up today. You need to accept the... I call it the wounded animal back into a corner, or less legs kind of narrative as part of the handicap with these matches. Just understand that teams are going to throw the kitchen sink at this, and you have to give a slight bump to the underdogs for that reason, especially big underdogs, because volatility is working in your favor in these situations, especially with the extra time off, extra time to prep. It forces a little bit more parity, makes an interesting idea for the two matches we're going to see today, because we see that we have two teams that have been utterly dominant this summer in SK Gaming and BDS against two teams that have looked like pure dog shit all summer. And we've got some big prices here, so let's see where we go on this. SK Gaming - 373 on the Money Land - 1.5 is at +101. It's against Team Heretics, +285 on the Money Land, +122 in the underdogs sweep, that +718. Model made this SK 526, Heretics +444, a little bit of artificial vig there. That's a value on SK Gaming, folks. Not by a huge amount, you've got to remember percentage-wise, it's not that big of a difference. I think it's a 5 or 6% delta there, which is enough for a play for me. The thing you need to consider here - this team has been an absolute machine. It's rare to see teams that have - they only have a lead at 20 minutes and 44% of their games, but they have a tripped-digit agnostic economy. SK also have a 100% closing rate, they're reminding me a lot of LNG last year, HOM1, 2023. Heretics - I don't really have a whole lot of optimistic things to say other than they kind of got off the snide and had a good week last week, I guess, could be a turn of form. But has this team really shown us anything all summer? Not really. Here's the thing with this, right? Model shows a value on SK, but we've had two weeks downtime and a lot of weird shit can happen in that timeframe. As I mentioned above, you just have to accept that it's a possibility that we've seen the worst from Heretics can only be better from here. Also the extra downtime, also the weird dynamic of that scenario. The thing is, I think you just need to kind of like hold your nose and accept that if Heretics find something and have a good plan or something, then, you know, that's - and they get SK, then like that's fine. I think you just need to accept that, but absolutely nothing Heretics has shown us has given me any faith in them to get across the finish line here, and really, SK have just been better and better and better and better as the summer has gone on. So, I think you just have to back SK here and accept that if Heretics show up with the extra prep time and surprise, then, you know, so be it. But SK have been an absolute machine this summer. They've been a fun team to watch. The other interesting thing is, like, if you're gonna get SK gaming, the best way to beat them is to snowball early on them. That's how they've lost a lot of their games. Like, not a lot of their games. They haven't really lost a lot of games, but, you know, the way to get them is to jump on them early, and Heretics have had one of the worst early games, not just in the LEC, but in the five major regions. So, I don't exactly trust them to do it, but it could happen in any given game. I actually - I'm playing the chalk on this one. I played SK gaming - 1.5 maps at +101 for one unit. I could see like a double stake play on the money line being a play, but I think you just need to - I'm playing the sweep, and if they end up getting got, that's fine. The other way you could play this, kind of, I'm kind of spoiling, you know, the plot on the next one. The other way you could play this instead of playing the double sweep, like I'm playing is you could just do, instead of individually staking both, you could just play both money lines. Like the BDSSK money line parlay, I think is probably going to be what like -150 or something like that, off top of my head, I forget, but that's another way to play this. Let's touch on that real fast. BDS - 595 on the money line, minus 1/8, minus 1/30 against made lines, coy +423 on the money line, plus 1/8, plus 1/8, plus 1/8, plus 1/80, model made that one, minus 814, and plus 653. So, basically similar premise here, you never really know what can happen in two weeks time. It's been a real fall from Grace from Ed Lyons. This is a team that looks like the new young promising thing, and they've completely turned into a pumpkin as the 2024 calendar year has drawn on. Um, BDS, similar to SK Gaming, have just been an absolute unit, except BDS are not spotting teams in early game lead. In fact, BDS have a lead at 20 minutes in, you know, 88.9% of their games, they have an 87% closing rate, they have a significant lead in the third of their games. You know, they actually have right now the best agnostic gold differential per minute in the world. They have a, they have a better agnostic differential than, than all the Eastern teams, which is wild. That's absolutely bananas. Um, alright, I'm sorry, they don't have a better agnostic differential than top esports right now, but they are ahead of Billy Billy, they're ahead of top esports, they're ahead of, er, they're ahead of, Billy Billy, they're at a JDG, they're ahead of T1. I believe they're ahead of Gen G as well. Let me take a look real fast. No, yeah, they're ahead of Gen G as well in agnostic gold differential per minute. Obviously a much smaller sample, so to give the grain of salt, but speaks to the overall quality that BDS have been playing with, and they've been an absolute unit this season. So, I'm playing, I'm playing, it's the same thing, like nothing would shock me. Met or a weird team, they have weird strategies prepared, I normally don't like fading them in a series like this, but they haven't really given me any reason to show any faith in them. So, I played BDS -1 to hit, maps at -130 for one unit as well. If you don't want to play these two individually, again, I think the Moneyline Parlay is actually a reasonable, you know, spot you could play. I'm just going to quick, you know, do the math for that real fast. Moneyline Parlay is like -208, I think that's reasonable as well, instead of playing these, I wouldn't do both, but yeah, that's where I'm at. That's going to be it for me, I know this is a lot of show, sorry for the lack of recap, but I was running really, really short on time. We had a lot of matches to get through. I'll be back again tomorrow, and let me know. First of all, share this, get the word out there. We've been getting an increase in downloads, you know, it's nice, a little out of boys that are really, really cool. If you guys want to see your stream, Swett Along Stream tonight, too, let me know about that, hit me up on Twitter at July to yellowwell. If not, that's cool, too. I will see you all tomorrow, I'll be back again with another show, and best of luck.
