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 4.15 p.m. Eastern on Monday, July 8th, 2024. Quick recap of the LPL from this morning. Anyone's legend versus LGD. This was one-way traffic in game one for anyone's legend. Game two, it was looking like it was going to be like a blowout, maybe like a 21 minute win. They kind of overstayed, bonkoted a little bit, they threw a huge chunk of this lead back. They ended up throwing like, they were up like 7K, maybe I think it was like 7K or 7500, something like that. They ended up throwing most of it back, like this almost got to even before they had to turn it again, but they did eventually win the game. Not the cleanest 2-0, but you know, pretty decent, good enough. First series, WV versus EDG man, what a just a no-show from EDG. This team might be bad. You know, I backed them because I'm really not sure how much better or worse than each other, any of these bottom tier teams are. The bottom conference is just going to be a weird thing to witness because I think we're going to end up in a lot of situations where it's going to be really easy to like look at a recent performance and be like, oh my God, this team is so bad. And then you realize that like, when everyone's bad, there's no consistency to anything whatsoever. So there's a lot of like, I talked about it in the Patreon post a little bit, but like I'm already increasing my threshold for World War and to play in the LPL Summer, specifically like already one, because I've just been running bad and two because like I just do that in LPL Summer anyway, because it's been kind of a bugaboo for me in the past. But I think for this bottom conference, I'm going to increase that threshold even more or so just because like there's no consistency whatsoever. Even if you like, let's hypothetically say like maybe we hear the best of this bunch, like we rare Adam Thunder talk or like if you made me pick who's going to advance like the top two teams, I think it's going to be two of those three in some order. If you made me pick, but like I don't think any of these teams are really any good at all. We are probably the one with the fewest weak points, I guess like that's why I say like that we in TT probably have the fewest weak points in their game. The problem is like they're not exactly stable, reliable, like winners either. Nobody in this division is creating advantages consistently. Nobody in this division is doing like in other words, what I'm saying is you can't like you're not going to be able to like none of these teams are reliable for anything. So you have to take every single result that you see with a grain of salt. You can't you can't really make decisive calls or decisions or plant your flag on a thing based on a result with these teams because they're so inconsistent that the results almost don't mean anything. So so yeah, like EDG got too owed by W.E. today. They looked like dog shit in both these games, they they were probably like 55 45 to win this game one. They had a small lead, but it wasn't anything significant. They just look really, really messy and leave had some really, really sketchy positioning errors. But nobody in this nobody in this bottom conference is reliable for anything. None of these teams are to be trusted with anything. So just you have to take results with a grain of salt. So like like that was like today that match today, absolutely nothing. You have to nothing would have surprised me. And that's how you have to treat this bottom conference. This bottom conference, the match ups in this bottom comments, you literally have to just not you you have to treat everything as if anything could happen. So if you go in because if you go in with super strong biases with teams that are super unreliable, you're going to end up getting confirmation bias on things that don't actually matter. Like any of these teams can look terrible on a given day. Any of these teams can look good on a given day. They're all so unreliable that like it's tough to tell like what's there's no consistency whatsoever. You have to tell like who's actually good. You're going to have to like you're going to have to take a lot of detailed notes. You're going to have to apply a lot of context if you're going to really have a strong stance on any of these teams in this bottom tier. I think there's like the only really strong, confident take that I have is that OMG is the worst team in the league pretty clearly. But that might change too with the lineup change that they're making. So we'll talk about that in that match. I guess we'll just go right into that. But before I go into that, I just want to caution people because when you have a situation like this, this is kind of new ground. Usually there's opportunities to be had there. But I just want to, this is just general gambling advice in general. The higher frequency you play into high vague without an edge, the more likely it is that the house wins. It's just in any kind of casino game, right? They say, statistically speaking, the best thing that you can do in a casino if you have no skill whatsoever and don't know anything is to play odds or evens or red or black in roulette. One spin, win and leave, lose and leave, that's it. The idea is you're creating the most volatility for yourself with like, if the house has whatever it is, I think in roulette, I think it's like a 2.4 or 2.3% house edge on those specific markets. I forget because of the 00, but the more spins you take, similar to what we were talking about with the results in close to coin flip situations at EWC. But the more times you spin the wheel in roulette, the more likely it is that it's going to land closer to that 47.5% or whatever house like implied win percentage. So yeah, it's close to a coin flip, but it's not, but the more times you flip the coin, the closer it's going to be to a coin flip, right? Like the data set. So when, you know, if you don't know, you want to have the, you want to put, you know, the most volatility in it by having one spin and one, you know, that's it. That's why a casino is never going to let someone walk in and put, you know, $100,000 on red or black and then, and one spin, they're going to make you play 10,000 for 10 spins because they like their odds better in that situation, that kind of thing, right? So the reason I bring this up is because with this lower conference, I think that there's just not that big a gap between any of these teams. Maybe OMG is the worst. We'll see how that goes with the lineup change, but like, I'll talk about that in a minute. But because there's not a huge edge on any of these teams, unless you, you can cultivate something that's a true edge on something, just don't be forcing bets into these kind of situations with really volatile assets and all these teams, really inconsistent teams in all, like, really this entire bottom conference, like, if it, if there's nothing there, don't force it. DFS players, this is maybe a different thing for you because you're playing a different game. You're playing an ownership game. If you're strictly betting on this stuff, like I am for the most part, I'm playing a little DFS here and there, but like, you're strictly betting on this stuff, just do, just don't punt into these matches unless, like, unless you find something that's just a bad price, don't force it. If it's not there, don't force it, and I'm saying this mostly to reinforce myself, too, because I've gotten caught up in this time and time again. I have a thesis on, like, two of these teams that is, you know, directional. But in general, I'm mostly just gonna, like, monitor price for this and just try to hit price extremes because I really don't think any of these teams are that much better or worse than anyone except maybe OMG. So just be cautious. The other thing to remember is, this is e-sports VIG guys, we're not paying, like, this isn't like -1 10 on both sides, we're paying, you know, what, like, -1 16, sometimes -1 20 both ways. Like, you're paying more than 3% in VIG, so if you're, like, you gotta make sure that you have something, so don't just don't overplay these, just don't, like, maybe if you come up with a thesis, cool, go for it, if you're just, you know, putting a beer on things for fun, fine, that's whatever, but it's, you have to understand, like, you're getting involved with really low level, really inconsistent shit here, so don't, you know, rely on anything. Pure threshold for what's worthy of a play and, and be careful. Alright, uh, I'll be all summer, week two, day two, OMG plus 107 on the money line, plus one on the headmaster, minus 285, minus one on the headmaster, plus 304, against Royal Never Give Up, minus 128 on the money line, minus one on the headmaster, plus 230, plus one and a half is at minus 389, uh, RNG have, not one as favorites, they're O and two, have not covered in that spread, uh, either, um, RNG are pretty bad, uh, you know who's worst though? OMG, OMG, or by far the worst team in the league, the model makes them by far the worst team in the league, the ITES says that they are by far the worst team in the league. That said, they're making a change here, uh, coming out of the break, they are, uh, starting Harry, uh, now they're, they're switching to Tienzen and Angel is coming back into the lineup and then starting PP got, are still playing so, um, Angel was on this team, he's back, uh, they're, they're starting him tonight, I don't know if they're going to be going to this full time or not, and then, uh, Tienzen is coming in, we saw him a little bit last year and last split so, he's kind of a new quantity, he's, Tienzen's a starter, he's an LPL quality player, he deserves to be here but it's, uh, he's not like great, he's not good, he's just, you know, he's a cat, he's, he's LPL caliber, he, he's fine, he's just fine. RNG are running the juice, Jeju, Tengwon, Wanfung and I, Wanda lineup which is what we saw last time out, um, model made this plus 141 minus 155 but again, keep in mind that, you know, OMG are switching things up here and we don't have a big sample on this new RNG lineup so I typically don't like to fade teams, uh, that are, that are making a big change like this, it might ultimately be a big change, um, but like my, you know, obviously based on the numbers and based on my opinions on OMG, this is one of those few spots that I, I would take a stance, like they're one of the few teams that I did have a strong opinion on in this bottom conference. I do think they're clearly the worst team, um, typically when you have a team in any league, when you have a team that is very clearly the worst team by margin, it's typically very profitable to fade them with like the, you know, the second worst and third worst teams when you get like close to even money prices against them, not always but historically that's been a good, a good angle. Um, now in this case, it's a little weird because like both teams have kind of made lineup changes recently. I think RNG have upgraded. I think OMG have probably upgraded slightly here, but like it doesn't mean it's going to work and I don't think it really changes the fundamental problems which is that their lanes are just getting their shit kicked in. Um, you know, this is a, uh, anybody that like trades equities or anything, um, I, I referenced in the Patreon post shorting in the hole and I referenced that in, um, in, you know, what's been causing me some issues just like with my P and L recently, uh, you, you don't typically want to short something that's already been exhaustively beaten up. Sometimes you do. Like if it's, if it's a fundamental short and like a, you know, like a company that you think's going to go bankrupt for whatever reason or, you know, they're going to get indicted on something or whatever, I'm not going to get into all that. But if you have a fundamental reason for it, then sure, just whatever, but if you're just momentum trading stuff, you don't typically want a short stuff that's already been beaten up to the point where like it's, it's, you know, only small, small direction to the downside. Like you only have a little bit of room left to go to the downside and it's all ups, it creates all upside risk because that creates an asymmetric risk, risk situation that you're on the wrong side of, right? Like most of the time in those situations, like the best case for you is like you get maybe a couple more dollars out of something or a couple more percentage points, but the downside is it, you know, flips the other way and you end up squeezed. So in this kind of situation, like OMG can't really get much worse than they've been. They have a sub 1600 agnostic economy. They have a minus 158 agnostic differential per minute, which is like RNG have the second worst number in the LPL for agnostic gold differential per minute. And OMG almost 50 gold per minute worse than that. So keep that in mind OMG, they have a lead in just 43% of their games, they have a significant lead in 14% of their games, they've won 16.7% of their games with a lead. So yeah, they're not great. They can't close games. They don't frequently get advantages. That said, RNG aren't exactly great at that either. They only have a lead at 20 minutes and 29% of their games and 60% is not a terrible closing rate, but the fact that like they're not getting leads consistently is a problem. And ultimately like a little bit of that is whatever. Like sometimes you have teams that hover in that 45% range that are like more control style teams where they play scaling and they're good at that and they're good at minimizing losses and they rarely carry significant deficits. RNG are not that, they have a significant deficit in almost 30% of their games and yeah, it's not great. So they're not super reliable, I think OMG are terrible, but RNG are not a super reliable team either. So like as much as I want to go, like the price looks right, like my initial gut handicap on this was just that RNG, I kind of like the changes they made and like the price is right and I typically like playing this kind of price range against the worst team in the league when it's a clear worst team in the league. But the worst team in the league is making a change that is probably a slight upgrade and OMG don't get leads frequently enough to make me really want to get involved with them unless they're really, I don't want to get involved with RNG much in general. So yeah, OMG also has side choice in this. I don't know, I think there's enough reasons to not play this, I had to talk myself out of it basically, and like I said, like I'm just increasing my threshold for what warrants a play with these teams, so I'm not playing anything in this one, lean RNG, money line, but no play. Except we have JDG gaming, or JDG gaming, woo, ATM machine, right, JD gaming minus 490 on the money line minus 1 1/2 maps at minus 143 plus 1/2 that minus 1549 against FPX from plus Phoenix plus 360 on the money line plus 1/2 plus 1/2 plus 1/18 minus 1/2 is at plus 897 on this 9 to 1 JDG coming off of that 2/0 loss to Weibo, god that team is bizarre. Starting shear again here, the rest of the line up staying the same. Fun plus Phoenix, obviously the Zhela who off season stuff must have added and came up and came to a conclusion because he is taking it personally which probably means that he's just done with this coaching staff. They're bringing ZDZ, ZDZ is a known quantity, he's not super one dimensional, but he is more of a carry player, more of a top laner that you want to play around, I think that's going to change the dynamic of this team, Zhela who is also kind of more in that realm, but I think he's a better weak side player, like he's a better weak side player than ZDZ is, but that's not exactly his strength either which is part of why I think he was beefing with not getting a lot of help, but I do think he was actually pretty good at that and probably underappreciated for that. I think Zhela who is just a way better player than ZDZ is and he's a little bit more well-rounded than him, so this is a weird fit, obviously FPX are trying to find something that's like passable on short notice in the middle of a season that's pretty tough, ZDZ I think is LPL caliber, like he belongs here, I don't think he's great or anything, but he's, you know, he's good enough to hang, the thing is like I do think this is a downgrade and I think it's a bad fit, not like the worst fit I've ever seen, but it's a weird fit here like what FPX have been and unless they're going to change things up, it makes, I think this is, you have to say this is a downgrade, they've had the EWC break to incorporate him, I assume that happened, not short notice, we got the announcement recently but I'm sure that there was stuff, but they were trying him out and all that, so it's not like they're stepping in with like a one-day notice here, they probably have like a week to get games in with him, get a feel, but they're going up against an absolute freight train here. I know JDJ had two really rough starts with those games, we got Waybo's two best games of the season, we got two of Waybo's stronger game grades of the entire year in that one which was freaking hilarious but whatever, to me, all right so the model made this one is 247 plus 220, I would like to get involved with FPX like on kill spreads and stuff like that but I really think this move is probably not good for them, or it might take some time for them to get acclimated, we've also, these two teams played in the same group so we've also seen these two face each other already, JDJ completely obliterated them in three of these four games, I'm talking like the first three games these two played, the smallest gold lead at 20 minutes, the JDJ had was like 5,300 which is huge, the fourth game FPX had a huge lead and they couldn't close it and JDJ wanted anyway so JDJ or 4.0 against FPX to this season, that was obviously with the previous lineup, if I think, now FPX obviously haven't looked all that great but they're going to either have to change what they're doing fundamentally or I think this is just strictly a downgrade, it's a bit of an unknown, I don't, again, I don't usually like going against that but if you look at like the market price here like the money line here is not that different than what we saw the first two times and I think FPX have downgraded, not by a ton, I've been trying really really hard not to overpay for favorites, like I've been trying really really hard about that, I've increased my threshold for what's worthy of a play, I've been trying not to go against my model more as often because it's just been kicking the shit out of me this summer but I think this is a place where it's a situational angle more than any kind of quantitative angle and I think JDJ are still an elite team, I don't think that was their second and third game losses the entire summer, I know they didn't have a tough group but JDJ have been utterly shit stomping like anybody, like most people that they've played this season, including Fun Plus Phoenix, so I think I'm going to take a shot here, I'm going to play JDJ to sweep this -143, I know that via the model I'm overpaying for this but I really really don't like this whole, so I don't like what's going on with Fun Plus, I just don't and I think there's clearly something going on, I think it's possible that they jump out on them but we've already seen the one time that they did jump out to a lead on JDJ, they couldn't close them, I don't even think they took an inhibitor in that game if I remember correctly, so the amount of game states, like FPX need a massive advantage for me to even want to get involved with them and then FPX have had issues closing games this season, they only have a 46.2% closing rate, that's abysmal, that's like what terrible teams have, like we just looked at that last match, like RNG have a 60% closing rate with a lead at 20 minutes, like FPX have thrown a handful of games this summer already, so even if they do get a lead, I don't trust them to actually win the game against JDJ, JDJ are an extremely tough team to close a game out against, they're very fundamentally sound, so I'm trying not to go against the models often as I was but I think to me this is a situational spot where I think the change is bad, JDJ are tough to close against, FPX have struggled to close with leads in general and they're making a change and there's all this shit going on off the rift with them that I have, it's just everything about this is bad vibes, it's this kind of a gut or vibes handicap and I'm playing JDJ to sweep -143 for one unit, that's gonna be it for me, I will catch you all tomorrow, we'll have LPL and LCK starting back up tomorrow.
