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'll also get to support your creators more directly. patreon.com/jilladell. That's G-E-L-A-T-I-L-O-L. Good evening, everybody. It's currently about 4 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, July 9th, 2024. A quick recap from this morning. JDG, Fun Plus Phoenix. The only position I had this morning was JDG, Sweet Bismatch. I kind of knew I was overpaying for it, thought the situational spot was right with ZDZ, stepping in, maybe it not being a particularly great fit. All three of these games were extremely lopsided. Unfortunately for us, Fun Plus snowballed early in game 2 and got game 2 home. Care got extremely, extremely fed on Corky very early in this game, and it kind of just got out of hand from there. Yeah, that was the end of that one. Unfortunately, it ended up losing that, but JDG came out and stomped game 3 and had pretty thoroughly woped them in game 1 as well. So still think JDG are there. I think they just had kind of a weird, it was kind of a weird, I don't want to say flukey play, but it was just a skirmish going bad pretty early on in this game 2. And unfortunately, like, Brand Jungle. Brand Jungle is kind of weird because it can look really, really bad. You basically don't do anything if it gets behind. I mean, you bring damage to the table, but he's basically a sitting duck. He has like no mobility whatsoever. So they tried the Brand vs. Karthus thing, and the no-mobility angle ended up hurting a lot against like the, you know, we got a pike from life here. And they had all this dive with, you know, Renekton and quirky, Kaisa and Pike and bottom lane. Brand was just going to die no matter what. And, you know, ruler kind of got buried in this one. Really, it wasn't even a ruler, ruler was fine, but, you know, missing got picked off a couple times, was trying to force roams that didn't happen. And this kind of, I think JDG correctly identified that this was only going to go south. So they just started full sending it and trying to randomly win skirmishes. But, you know, this went south. And they correctly identified that this game wasn't going to get better for them. I guess the Karthus and just kind of like tried to flip the coin a couple times. And it didn't, you know, came up tails and they lost. So RNG vs. OMG, I didn't have a position. I leaned RNG. Thank goodness I didn't get involved with that because holy shit. This team looks terrible. Man, oh man. Game one, they got absolutely whooped. This is like a 26-minute win for OMG. Decided decisive. No competition from RNG whatsoever. Game two, they were up like a moderate amount. It wasn't like, I mean, they should have won this game. It wasn't like a massive, massive throw. But they were probably, I don't like, 65, 70% to win this game and bungled it. Yeah, I don't know. But they just look at a source, this team. Like, I don't really know, like, they were getting smashed in game one, juices building a clips on Renekton still even from a deficit when really all they needed was a stun bot to pair with Sejuani. And then, I don't, they had that, um, a couple of rare misplays from my Wandying game two. Uh, I don't know, not even misplays, like, it's, none of this, none of this is kind of a weird champ sometimes, but, um, they ended up losing game two because he exhausted, he didn't exhaust the cannon, like, in, in a fight, which is like something that he should know. And like, he's been an incredible player over the last four years, I, I talked yesterday about this, how I think, really, not yesterday, but last week about how I think he's probably one of the more underrated players globally in the last like three or four years. And he really, really stood out when I was doing more player level individual player modeling for this, for, for League of Legends, uh, I've kind of gotten away from that and I don't think he's quite where he used to be, but like, you know, and, you know, this is a bad situation so it can make anybody look bad. This RNG team is a complete dumpster fire, but, I don't know, I, the other thing I mentioned yesterday, I talked a lot about is like, when you have, when you have all these bad teams going against each other, you can't put too much weight on any result. So yeah, I thought ONG were pretty decisively the worst team in the LPL. I still think they're probably the worst team in the LPL. But when all the other teams are bad, every dog is going to have their day once in a while. And I think they just had their day today and RNG didn't. And it just goes to show you like, when everyone sucks, there's no consistency anywhere and you truly can't be shocked or surprised at any result because what, you know, what you have a wide, wide range of outcomes with these bad teams. Like they can just have a good week of practice or they can have a good game or two and it looks like, oh man, they've turned it around, they got it. The thing to keep in mind, I always talked, I was, I was talking to somebody in person about this the other day, how, you know, we see this isn't quite like traditional sports. It's a different model, it's a different practice model than traditional sports are. And traditional sports, teams practice, practice, practice, and then they play the games and that's that, right? We usually get a pretty big sample size of the games. In esports, the practice regimen that these teams go through is the players have like split time between solo queue and then 5v5 scrimmaging and then VOD review. That's how the practice regimen goes for esports or specifically for League of Legends. So a lot of the main practice that these teams get is they probably play on the ballpark of 20 to 30, between 20 and 40 hours a week worth of scrimmages, depending on the region that you're in. So they get, you know, 30 to 50 games a week. Sometimes they, you know, it's just the real opening sequences and they'll flip and they'll restart and play them over and over again. But these teams get, like we're only seeing on stage like 5% of their games for the week. Less than that, really. So like it's actually, maybe not less than that, maybe a little more than that. But between 5, we're seeing like 5 to 10% of their games for the week. It's really easy to draw conclusions from what you see on stage because ultimately that's all we have. We don't have scrim data, right? We don't have the, not the team's data analyst here. We don't have the scrim data. We don't know why they're doing certain things in draft, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But the reason I bring this up is because like sometimes you have teams that just are running bad on stage and they're pretty good. And usually you can tell from the fundamentals and the underlines, it's part of why I've developed a lot of these underlying looks and it's the main reason why I model from a performance grade standpoint instead of just from like Elo ratings, because I think like what you see on stage can juke you 100%. So that, anyway, I digress, I'm kind of just rambling at this point. But the reason I bring this up is because these bad teams, just like with a good team, how they can be a good team and show bad on stage, like in their, in their tent, they can roll, they can roll poorly or perform poorly in the 5% of games that we see them. Just like with the, you know, bad teams, they can be performing terribly in scrims and roll well in a couple of stage games one day, you know, one day every couple of weeks or something. And I think, I don't, OG looked really, really good. Tansan looked really, really good. He got player of the game in both of these games. He looked solid, but again, it was like, I don't know, we got to see his Rengar in game one. That was really, really fun. He's known as a Rengar one trick for those that don't know, but RNG looked like they just had no idea what to do, which is, so like RNG kind of got cheesed and then maybe you just got a little bit rattled, but they came back, they looked pretty good for the first like 15, 20 minutes in game two and just fucked it up, so I, I don't know, man, this is, this bottom conference has been a really rough hang. There's some really, really low quality League of Legends happening in this bottom conference. And like I said yesterday, up your threshold for what's worthy of a play, DFS players, I know you got to hold your nose and just play some of these, but man, oh man, if you're, if you're just betting this stuff, like I am, just be careful, like only play big edges unless you have a thesis, a strong thesis that you want to exercise your opinion on. That's the, that's all I'll say about that. All right, let's move on to the Wednesday, my dudes, Slate, week two, day three in the LPL, summer, actual season, thunder talk, gaming minus one, 38, and winning line minus one, I have maps at plus 200 against Invictus gaming plus one 16 on the money line, plus one has a nice two 45. And the minus one, I have is a plus two 95, Hoya, Beshuan, Yukal, one X and feather for TT. Invictus are running out, you should know me, GLFS, nanny on and vampire. Model made this thunder talk slight favored, but basically a pick them. Yeah, I don't know, like Invictus have looked better with you, you should know me back in the lineup, but though teams they're picking up wins against have also been pretty bad teams. So it's tough to really tell if this is like legitimate improvement or just a coincidence and good timing. I think qualitatively that they do look a little bit better, still not a very good team, but they do look a little bit better and he is a game breaker. So, you know, I think it does matter and I do think they've improved, but it's just really, really tough to, to tell. You know, it's like I just mentioned with this conference, like I'm going to need an outrageous price to get involved in any of these like near coin flip matches. You know, I had my, my thesis thinking that thunder talk might be one of the few that I did trust a little bit because they were actually pretty consistent in the group stage and they had a pretty tough group to play against. But you know, they weren't picking up the results, but their performance and metrics were actually remarkably consistent. So I kind of had a little faith thinking maybe they'd be the best team in this conference. That might end up still being the case. But after that first match, they got absolutely smoked. And yeah, I don't know, it's kind of been thrown out the window, but maybe it shouldn't be. I don't know. I think most of these matches are going to be coin flips and I'm going to need like a good, good number on it. But you know, once you account for a side choice for thunder talk in this one, it makes it about this price. Like they were slight favorites before I get a bump for a side choice and, you know, it's whatever. I don't want to get involved in the side here. I looked into the derivatives for this model like the kill total overs. These two teams are averaging 0.9 to 1 and 0.931 can might kills per minute, respectively, while the league's averaging just 0.84. But the totals are also set at like 29 and a half. So model still liked overs very slightly, but it didn't cross the threshold for being worthy of a play here. So I'm passing on that front. The next match is LNG sports minus one 84 on the money line, minus one and a half set plus one 50 70. It's a way by gaming plus one 53 on the money line, plus one has a minus one 89 in the underdog sweep is at plus three 85 as a go away scout Galan Hong, brief Tarzan Sha who would like to increase no surprise in the lineups here. Model made LNG minus 200 favorite way, but plus one 82. Not too far off market from a percentage standpoint here. Yeah, I think like almost all of this handicapped is whether you think way about or back or not. And by back, I mean, not back like to what they were in spring, but back in terms of like expectations. They've picked they've now picked up wins against Invictus, which I'm not sure means all that much. And then they mostly dominated JDJ in their last outing, which was a shocker to a lot of people, myself included. But this is a team that everybody thought was going to be like the third or fourth or fifth best team, like, you know, they upgraded at two positions. They still had questions about Jauhu, but everybody else looked okay. This roster on paper looks incredible. But as we know, on paper rosters don't always pan out. I think if you think that they've suddenly figured something out, then this is actually probably a waybo bet because you're kind of buying, you know, the first bounce off the bottom here off the lows. But I think this team has been nothing, if not consistently inconsistent over the course of the twenty twenty four season. We saw them to owe anyone's legend a few weeks ago and then immediately turn around and lose in decisive fashion to ultra prime. So yeah, I'm I have no appetite to get involved with this team, but I could see a case for it. I think this is close enough to market that I don't want to get involved. But if you think that if you think waybo have actually figured it out and that this is the turning moment, then this is a cheap price because LNG are good, but not great. And this is a pretty big number on a team that probably has a talent advantage. So you know what, I don't think they have a talent advantage. I think Shauhu is still kind of a gaping hole here, but there this should be if you think waybo have turned the corner, this should be a coin flip and you're getting plus one fifty or better. So I'm not getting involved. I don't believe that. I don't trust the team whatsoever, but you know, you kind of you want. Same thing with derivatives in this match. My model flagged under four and head dragons as the biggest edge here, but I think that's mostly because like in most of the games, the season waybo have looked completely disinterested in playing the game if they get behind early. So I don't want to get involved with it. But again, if you think that they've turned a corner and that they're they're back, so to speak, then I could see that being, you know, if you think that then don't play any of these. But if you think that it's just going to be the same old waybo that we've been seeing and that last week was just kind of a flop or a fluke or not last week. It was earlier this week, I guess. I forget. Anyway, if you think that was a fluke, then you could probably bet this because they only go over this total. They only go to a fifth dragon in a third of their games and you're getting minus one twenty on it. So that's a pretty big edge on market, but I didn't end up playing anything in the LPL tomorrow. Today, week four, day one, Patreon subscribers, I put the summer power ratings after three weeks up for both models. Only real surprise here is that both models actually add Kwang Dong as the third rated team ahead of T1, which is a little bit of a surprise to some people. But anyway, take a look at that. You can kind of get a feel for, you know, where the models think teams are. And I don't know what I just looked at it just now, but the ranks for this are messed up. I'll fix that before I leave maybe anyway, um, T1 minus twenty seven hundred on the money line. Minus one to have maps is that minus three seventy eight against okay, we own savings bank plus thirteen thirty six on the money line, plus one to have is that plus two eighty nine minus one to have is that plus twenty seven twenty one so twenty seven to one on the underdog sweep model made this minus five forty seven plus four sixty one. This is a really, really interesting spot. T1 did not look very good in the week before the esports world cup and they didn't really look all that good at the esports world cup until the actual finals against top esports. They had four significant deficits in the six games they played before the finals and turned it around and clutched it out and showed up and you know, I got to give credit to T1. I know like people people like to hate on this team because they're kind of the patriots of League of Legends, I guess, but like, man, this team is just resilient, dude. They just are like, you think they're, you think they're dead and buried or you think that there's a downturn happening and you think that, you know, finally, you know, there's cracks in the armor that are starting to show cold, you know, ready to collapse or something and they just have this clutch factor to them. It's remarkable and you can call it leadership, you can call it luck if you want. It's probably a mixture of a bunch of different things, but like, they just have that clutch chain and I mentioned that going into that match, which is why like, I wouldn't want to be paying, you know, like, I wouldn't want to be laying a big number against this team ever. Like, they can just show up on any given day and completely erase everything that you've seen in the last few weeks from them and that's what elite, that's what real champions do in any competitive activity is that they deal with adversity. They don't really make excuses. They just, whatever happens happens, they put it all, put the bad stuff behind them and on any given day they show up and perform and, you know, not that T1 needs any more accolades or any more atta boys from anybody, but like, it just goes to show you like the team's just, they're just tough, they're resilient man. Anyway, did not look good before this, did not look good really for two, you know, before the finals in that match, they played that final on Sunday, had to do all the post match press and stuff like that and then had to fly from Saudi Arabia back to Seoul. So you know, and I'd assume, you know, with that, I think that's like a five or six hour time change if I'm remembering correctly, I could be wrong about that. But I'd assume they probably took the next day off to reactlimate their body clocks to the time zone change. This is not something that we really have, have to deal with as much in eSports as we do in traditional sports, at least not with a short turnaround. This is a very, very strange circumstance, a very, very rare situation because most of the time with our international tournaments in League of Legends, there's ample time before and after to kind of get back home and get reactlimated, even for MSI, which is like our shortest turnaround in League of Legends, they're still like a week afterwards. This is, they played Sunday and now they're playing Wednesday. So they're really, they really only had today to prep, I'm assuming they took Monday off. And then that's a weird, that's a big body clock shift, right? Like they're going backwards now, they're going to lose six hours essentially. And I think it might only be four hours, I forget, but they're going to lose time. The body clock thing affects your brain a lot. We see this in traditional sports all the time where teams have a wicked travel spot. What's the London NFL game? We see this be a thing every year where there's just a wicked, wicked, you know, trend, you know, losing all those hours and everything. So it's just, I would be extremely skeptical. This is a really, really terrible spot for T1. They could, you know, take their feet, you know, they can, they can relax the shoulders a little bit. They have a really easy opponent here in Breon, really wicked travel spot. Maybe their brains are a little bit scrambled or they're exhausted. They probably took, they're only going to have a day of prep here. I would absolutely not get involved with T1 in this match. Like there's too many random situational factors working against them. The thing is it's Breon and Breon absolutely fucking sucks. I wish, dude, I wish so hard it was any other team in the, literally any other team, even Nongshim. I would take Nongshim in this situation. I wish it was any other team in the LCK besides Breon that T1 had to face coming back off of this situation because I would have been, I would have went, stepped up to the plate and went to bat for whatever team. Nongshim, Furex, anybody. I would have played anybody against T1 here just because of the situational spot. But Breon are so, so bad that I just, I can't do it. I can't do it. I mean, the price is right. If you want to take a shot, go for it. I would probably take kill spreads. The reason I'm not is like Breon are, they're sickeningly bad. You know, they have a minus 71, 70 kill like not say gold differential per minute, which is the worst number in the five majors. They lead at 20 minutes in just 26.3 percent of their gains, which is like the worst in all majors. I think OMG might be worse, I forget. Probably not now. And they have just a single game with a significant lead at 20 minutes in this entire season so far. I believe that was against KT if I remember right. I could be misremembering that T1 have an 85.7 percent closing rate with lead at 20. I'm one of the most explosive early games on earth, despite it looking a little bit suspect in the week before and the week of the sports world cup. I wish this was any other team besides Breon just because of the situational angle and the price that you were going to get like T1 are going to come in way, way over hyped off after winning the sports world cup. But keep in mind like despite winning it and admiring the resiliency, they did not look, they did not look great for most two thirds of that tournament until the finals. So keep that in mind. Also the fact that they didn't look particularly great, maybe an indicator of the travel situation. Short term travel situation. This is dog or pass, but I think Breon are bad enough that I'm just going to pass and if they end up winning tomorrow, then I'm going to be kicking myself or having the right thesis. But we'll see. Last but not least, no action red force plus two ninety nine low money line plus one a half maps at minus one oh three, minus one a half is that plus eight oh nine against K. T. Rolster, minus three ninety three on the money line, minus one a maps is that minus one seventeen model made this plus two twenty one minus two forty eight K. T. coming off back to back match wins, but one was winning against Breon where they dropped a map to them. Yeah, they dropped a match of Breon guys, don't forget that that was last week. The other was the win against T1 and I just talked about pretty extensively T1 kind of looked at a sorts last week and at beginning of these sports world cup before they got together. Oh, and that they had a single map win this summer and they've looked like a raging dumpster fire. I'm just because they won two matches last week. I'm not buying the fact that they're back. I don't I'm I don't think this team is suddenly fixed things and they look good all of a sudden. What I will give K. T. credit for is that as bad as they've looked, they are still getting leads at twenty minutes and two thirds of their games and they're getting significant leads in about a quarter of their games, which is a good thing. Their problem has been closing games, they're only they only win half the games that they've had a lead at twenty minutes this season, which is in a visible closing rate. It's not not sub 50% is a real problem, but 50% is basically, you know, bottom tier, not dumpster fire tier, but it's it's bad terrible agnostic economy, terrible agnostic differential. This team is not very good still. I'm not buying it. I know that we've gotten to see mostly low rolling from them, but I mentioned earlier this year that like, you know, this is a team that was very feast or famine had the highest game grade volatility of the of the five majors I track for this. And they're not a team that I like to get involved with as a big favorite. Again, let's remember our rule here. We we back K. T. as big underdogs. We fade them as big favorites because they're a volatile team, right? With that in mind, they are a big favorite here and this is coming off of an extra week of prep. Typically, when you have extra time to prepare for things, it forces, you know, the game toward parity, the result toward parity. You you tend to see, you know, closer to a coin flip matches. You see a lot more coin flip matches and a lot more competition off of breaks at the beginning of seasons, et cetera, because in theory, that is when the underdogs are going to be best before the rigors of the season start to grind down and they start losing losing steam from the good teams adjusting to patches and just having overall better player quality. Nongshim have a couple of baller players here, Sylvie and Jiwu is the real baller on this team. They they can hang. K. T. Rolster obviously have a bunch of players that I think are overrated but are still pretty good. I think this is it's it's kind of gross. It's sickening because Nongshim have been kind of a struggle bus this season, but situational spot yet the extra week K. T. R not to be trusted as a big favorite ever. I think it's kind of gross. That's a hold your nose special, but I think the price you're getting is good enough to back Nongshim here. My motto made the plus one and a half maps on them around minus one fifty three. You can get around even money. I think I got minus one of three was the best price I got on the plus one and a half map. So all the situations, I think even if you give a bumped K. T. Rolster, this is still a pretty nice price on the plus one and a half maps. So I like Nongshim plus one and a half maps at minus one oh three for one point oh three units. I wouldn't blame you for sprinkling on the money line, but as I've mentioned before, I'm trying not to punt equity as much. I did show an edge on the money line price though. So that's going to be it for me. I will see you all tomorrow.
