The League of Legends Betting Podcast
Saturday, June 22nd Part One - LPL, LCK
Recorded on: Friday, June 21st at 5:10pm Eastern
Eric Haber (Sheets) had me on his show over on TrueDFS on Thursday to talk LOL betting, my origin story, how my content applies to DFS and some other big picture concepts about LOL Esports. Check if out here and check their content out!
Recap 0:26
LPL Slate 11:24
LCK Slate 25:07
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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. Good evening everyone, it's currently about 10 after 5 p.m. Eastern on Friday, June 21st, 2024. We had a four-game format slate in the LPL and the LCK this morning, quick over all of that. We really only had the one position on the LPL this morning, so didn't really have much going on today. But a couple of interesting spots. Homelife Breon will start with the LCK here. Breon actually was pretty competitive in this game. They never really had any kind of significant cold lead, but they had moments in this first game where they were actually pretty competitive. Ultimately they kind of didn't really do anything with their team comp, and Homelife just kind of waited them out and was like, "Yeah, they'll make a mistake at some point." This was like a classic Hanwah Breon matchup. Breon may be a little bit more chippy than usual. Second game was just a one-way traffic. Once Homelife took a hold in the early game, they just ran it home and it was over. T1 versus Kwangdong freaks, this one turned into an absolute rollercoaster. Game one, T1 blowout nearly a 5,000 gold lead. We're looking well on their way to a win. They had Ezreal Korki and three front-liners, just a huge, huge, huge advantage. It's going to be extremely tough for essentially zero access to the back-lying comp to get going here for Kwangdong freaks. What ended up happening in this game was around the 22-minute mark, there was a dragon fight for the third dragon and Karia kind of whiffs on his solar flare on Leona the ultimate. It looked like it was just going to back off and they were going to let Kwangdong have the second dragon. They still had a massive gold lead at this point. Then this bizarre skirmish, T1 correctly identified that they were in the advantage and tried to force the issue. Karia actually went back in, but it didn't look like they were all on the same page. I don't think anybody individually was wrong. I think they had the idea that they were a heading goal, had actual golden pocket, meanwhile Kwangdong hadn't spent. They had a legitimate advantage and a reason to push this, but Karia goes back in, Bulldog, a psycho just goes forward on Tristana and it created this bizarre segmented fight where T1 were trying to avoid the Malkai Ultimate counter-engage and it kind of left Karia out to dry and then Tristana got a couple of resets and picked up a kill on owner and got the carries really, really low and it was kind of like a whoa, this was weird from T1. Didn't ultimately result in anything, but it got a couple shutdowns, it kind of took a small chunk out of the gold lead. Kwangdong reset and literally just blitz the baron immediately after that. They blitz the baron, T1 I guess, were just a little slow today, just slow on the punch. Kwangdong just full-scented, super decisive call, T1 were really, really slow to react and they literally just burned this baron down in like, you know, 12 seconds or something. T1 got there, tried to contest it but it was like already gone already too late and from this point forward Kwangdong got a bunch of gold in their pockets and actually turned this game all the way back and ended up winning it somehow. Like it was, it kind of looked like T1 just got stunned a little bit by the fact that someone did the T1 baron to them for a change because like they didn't really put up much of a fight in the second half of this game, it was really, really strange. It literally looked like someone stuck up on some and they were just like, wait, what just happened? But perhaps the Kwangdong, I felt their comp basically had to be ahead and they identified that so they forced the issue. They were like, listen, we don't have a way to get to your back line so we're just going to make you come to us, identified that, forced the baron and then ended up like snowballing that into a game win. It was pretty wild to see. Game two, there was a decent start, actually like, it was a pretty even game for like the first 10 minutes or so, Kwangdong turned it, it was like the second dragon spawn, had a good advantageous trade across the map, ended up taking just a small gold lead into the mid game a little bit and then T1 just won a couple fights in a row and just like completely steamrolled this game over and this was another, this is like a classic T1 game where it's like once they took grip, it was just over and yeah, that was it, I don't have too much else to say about that one, it wasn't even like an early baron either, they just kind of like won a couple fights in a row and just stomped from there. Game three was one way traffic for T1, not really a whole lot to say, pretty decisive close out there. Kwangdong, you know, I was optimistic about this team in spring, the results didn't quite get there, I was optimistic about this team moving forward into summer, I like this coaching staff a lot, I like this player base, like, or this set of players a lot, Leeper was an unexpected surprise addition here, he's been excellent so far this season, he's like the rookie of the split so far, I know there are not that many new players in summer split but he's been kind of the surprise story of summer so far in really any player rookie or not, he's been outstanding, Kwangdong, you know, they have a lot of confidence and it's fun to watch and you know, they didn't quite get there in this series but they did get a game off T1 which is not an easy thing to do. Moving on to the LPL, we had two matches in the LPL, the first match yesterday was just an absolute circus and you know, I had a feeling this entire slate for the LPL was just going to be a complete clown fiesta and it delivered. Game one ultra prime anyone's legend, this was back and forth, I think the gold league changed like seven times in the first like 30 minutes of this game before ultra prime turn did won a fight and it on a fight that actually was looking good for anyone's legend brain got a ton of damage with the with the ultimate off but they just got wombo comboed with Carthus and Yone and that was the end of it. Game two, the game two in this series has my award for, I think I wrote in the Patreon and this is a reference to succession HBO show, there's an episode titled on that show I should show at the fuck factory and I think I think this has my should show at the fuck factory award for 2024 so far as an individual game. This was a back to back to back failed Nexus siege game like we had like this was an even game it went back and forth and back and forth both like both teams tried to end the game failed to end the game on the Nexus. The other team ran across the match tried to end on the Nexus got ace or not ace but failed other team had to come back across the Nexus failed again and eventually the other one won like I was you know I've been trying to be optimistic and not be too serious and not clown too much on these LPL teams but like for the love of God like I just want anybody just anybody at all to challenge these elite three teams anybody and I said on Twitter like you know I like listen games like this are fun and they're highly entertaining and I know I come across as a bit of a Grinch on Twitter and on on on here and everything when I'm talking about this the thing you need to understand is like this is not it's not good League of Legends like you're not watching a good like good play it might be entertaining but you're not watching good play I'm a junkie for good play that's what gets me going and you know like the LPL had I think at this point we need to start actually considering this I think the LPL had kind of its prime in like 2019 2018 through 2022 because you had like legitimately like seven to ten teams that were like decent and competitive and you know usually there was like an elite you know two or three or four or whatever but like right now it's literally three teams and then fourteen teams worth of mostly dog shit and it's it's really difficult to watch and like from a quality standpoint I don't even want to go into like the third game in this series was one way traffic for anyone's legend they ended up getting there but like this this ultra prime team keeps luck luck sacking their way into game wins anyone's legend or a team that I thought was gonna be maybe in that like tier two like could challenge for like the fourth fifth six best team in the league that hasn't panned out at all they look like shit now too I mean maybe this is just too weird series from them but like there's just zero consistency in the middle of the table and I don't know if this is just like fearless draft having its influence and and all these teams are struggling to to adapt to that and it's just gonna engineer these crazy series I understand that's part of why they did it but like man oh man is it becoming a tough product to watch and I don't know I've I don't want to keep driving this point home I just it's becoming such a chore to watch like straight up it's just becoming a chore like it's not enjoyable and I'll think I'll be combat on this stuff because this is one of the benefits of sports betting is that like it takes games that would otherwise not be entertaining you can create your own entertainment out of it I know I shouldn't say entertaining it's not entertaining as much to me because whatever I'm I digress NIP vs. Weibo I said yesterday that absolutely nothing would have surprised me in this series it turns out we just got to one-sided shit stomping from NIP and that NIP Moneyline was absolutely the correct play without a doubt I was too much of a wimp these two teams both make me want to vomit and I should have just closed my eyes and played NIP and I wanted to and just didn't so you know lesson learned I guess we only had the minus eight and a half kills on on that crazy map to triple nexus failure siege game in between anyone's legend and UP we had a all minus eight and a half kills on map to that failed to get there so we're down my one unit on the day that was the only position we had today moving on to Saturday morning the eastern slate just a quick heads up I'm gonna be doing a separate patreon post and separate podcast for the LAC and LCS that's likely not going to be out until much later tonight probably in the wee hours of the morning for for the LAC and LCS just I have I have some things going on tonight I try to get it done this afternoon I'm just probably not gonna have enough time there's a small chance I get it out before like seven thirty or so but I've got plans for the night so I will get it out probably you know it's probably gonna end up being like one two three in the morning or something like that but I will have something out for it and I'll get that done patreon subscribers I'll probably have the LAC at least done beforehand so earlier tonight but the podcast for combined LAC and LCS won't be out until later on tonight or early tomorrow morning so check that out anyway LCS or anyway LCK and LPL for Saturday this is a very very interesting slate I like a couple of the underdogs there's a couple interesting scenarios here so let's let's chop it up let's go first to the LPL week three day six we have team we minus 352 on the money line minus one a half maps at minus 101 against LGD gaming plus 271 on the money line the plus one a half maps at minus 120 in the underdog sweep is that plus 660 so we're getting the same line ups we've been seeing from these two teams way would hang Fofo LP and Mark for W E Birtle meteor high chashaya and ginger out for LGD model made this very small favorites for team W E the market makes team W E almost an 80% favorite here that's a big diversions that's a huge delta let's chop into why that's happening here qualitatively just I test watching film watching their games team W E look like a legitimately good team they look like one of the only teams that aren't the elite three in the LPL that I can't just relentlessly clown on and I think that's perhaps hopeful for their future you know that said they are one dimensional team another thing to consider here is that I said the same exact thing event about E B G just earlier this week and they turned back into a pumpkin very quickly so really W E and when I say one dimensional team I mean they're basically only good at playing like two core mid to late game scaling kind of looks they're not a very good up tempo team it's not that they haven't tried it they've they've had some some attempts at it and they've done pretty well over the course of 2024 not just in summer they're they've looked good so far they're a good you know control deck style team what I mean by saying that you know magic players will get it but what I mean by that is like they're good at at just playing a slower controlled game like they they want to they want to keep everything in front of them not let it get wild they're not good at wheeling and dealing kind of kind of game they want to play a more controlled methodical game and they're good at that and they've remained pretty good at that so far despite the coaching changes and everything so team W E I think there's a chance they're like your fourth or fifth best team I don't know how many times I've said that about E B G and A L and F P X and N IP this week like I don't know who that's gonna be it's kind of hard to tell so far I think that we have a shot to at least be and I think they're already in that tier it's just a matter of where they fall in that tier they remind me a lot of just the way LNG plays it's a very similar team style to LNG and like it's going to be really good against the bottom of the table teams it's probably going to struggle against the good teams L G D you know I talked to that knows him about this team too they are a handicapper's delight this team is almost always underrated by the market they are the new rare Adam from from a couple years ago rare Adam for a while was like legitimately like the eighth best team in the LPL but because the results never came through we ended up making a ton of money on them because the market was just like oh no this is a bad team they have bad records they're a bad team you know so but if you look at the performance metrics like they were actually pretty good so we made a lot of money with rare Adam covering kill spreads taking maps in series stuff like that so L G D are kind of becoming that we don't have like Pythagorean wins like we do for like baseball or football or anything like that for League of Legends but like if there was like a Pythagorean wins team then I think like L G D would be like the team that people are betting on expected like regression back up positive regression yeah so that's that's L G D L G D are weirdly similar to team W they play a very similar kind of game they want to keep games close early they actually lead earlier they they have a lead at 20 more often than W E does they have a significant lead at 20 minutes the same rate that team W E does and they both have a similar closing rate and if you look at like if you look at just like the economy numbers yeah like W E are better and I think W E are a better team overall but it's not that big of a difference between these two teams and you can see like you can bear that out and like well the model perceives this matchup like the model makes this minus 134 I don't think it's that close I think I think team W E's macro is quite a bit better than L G D's but this is a match that should absolutely be closer in price than it is in the market like if you want to make some qualitative adjustments and factor in the team W E have side choice I think this should probably be like W E minus 200 maybe like minus 225 or so and like you're getting you're getting minus 352 for that like there's no way this is W E are a better team there's no doubt about that but I think these two teams are stylistically similar and they're a lot closer matched and then it looks and the way team W E play they don't really try to blow early games open so it's probably going to be you know somewhat coin flippy or a parity level game here so I actually I like the L G D side of this underdogs have have only been so so actually underdogs have been doing better in the LPL than they have in years I should mention that just from a macro perspective I'm going to pull this up really fast because I haven't discussed this but probably next week I'm going to try to do I'm going to wait until after the placement stage is over to do like a macro trend analysis post for the LPL I'm not sure how much we can really grasp from it because it's a group stage versus the old format where everyone's like single round Robin but so far just just looking at a I do this just to get like a picture like a snapshot it's not it's not an endorsement to be blind backing every dog or anything like that or every favorite I do this just to get like a snapshot of like where the market might be off on something so far in the LPL so far under dog money lines have had an implied win rate just based on the average odds of of the of the the underdog in every series so far they've had an implied win rate of twenty point eight one percent the actual win rate has been like twenty seven and a half percent that's like almost a seven percent divergence six point seven percent divergence and I just find that interesting it's not necessarily an endorsement to auto back everyone because you know coincidentally relative to price the favorite sweeps have also been doing well so it's it's interesting to see just like a snapshot like maybe there's something there might be a little bit of signal doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be but worth mentioning I just think this price is a little heavy-handed just getting back to this series sorry getting back to this series I think this price is quite a bit heavy-handed I think these two teams are a lot more closely mass than it looks and I think LGD are definitely live to win this match so I played a 1.5 x stake on LGD LGD plus one and half mass at minus one twenty to win one so one point two units to win one and the other point three units I played on the LGD money line plus two seventy one next up a decidedly less interesting match up is Billy Billy gaming minus like two thousand on the money line minus one and half minus three hundred against RNG where I'll never give up at plus one thousand sixty eight on the money line plus one and half plus two thirty three the sweep is at more than twenty to one. The Billy Billy have dropped a game a single game oh by the line of change for this one so we have the same lineup for BLG been June night elk and on RNG are letting the juice loose once again that juice playing top lane way tang one Juan Fong and Ming anyway RNG have been a disaster like I didn't have super high expectations but I was optimistic that they would at least like over perform market expectations that has not been the case like RNG have been terrible like actually terrible and you know if you actually look at the Ragnarcy economy like for the Patreon post I didn't tell the tape for just the full season sample minus the first two weeks of spring but if you look at just summer this is a sub sixteen hundred agnostic economy team and the losses have some something to do with that there's a team that's one in eight right now in games but like just watching them they look like a complete mess they've actually had a decent like opening salvo in a lot of their games like their first ten minutes has actually looked decent a couple of times and they've picked up first blood in about half their games and they've gotten first blood on to somebody that matters and they just don't do anything with it and they look completely lost the scene looks out of sorts they look like they don't really have weirdly enough with all the veterans on this team they just don't look like they have any kind of like leadership or direction in game they just look like they're wandering around playing solo queue you can maybe knock the coaching for that but it might be a little bit early to plant the flag on this I want to give them some some flowers because like this is a tough like this is a tough group that they're in like they have it's all good teams in this group and orangey are like like billy billy w e and lgd are all very good team like not very good they're billy billy's a world class team w e's a pretty good team and lgd are like probably better than everyone thinks they are and orangey are not a good team so like it's not surprising that they're out in four it's maybe a little surprising that they're one and eight in games though and the fact of the matter is like they've only really been competitive in like two games and one was like that huge game that huge game to throw against w e they have like a I think it was like a nine thousand gold beat or something that they they threw and the other was their single game win but this is a team that it's they haven't even been remotely close to competitive so I don't think it's necessarily like a like oh man they're just not getting the results like the team looks bad I test they look bad their numbers they look terrible and they are up against the world class team here so here there is a caveat with this match though because everything I've said so far is like oh you just slam the billy billy minus 300 like minus one and half maps right there's a caveat here so with the new format essentially what we're doing is we're playing for conference seating there's going to be the upper conference and the lower conference low upper conference is going to have seven of the nine teams that make it in there make the playoffs the lower conference is going to have the top two of eight teams make the playoffs and that's going to be your playoff bracket I could be crossing that up I apologize I think it's I forget I'm crossing that up I'm sure but it's something like that regardless we have to monitor this for the next couple like matches because a couple of these these positions are locked in now like billy billy I've already locked a position a seating into the top bracket they are at they're playing for nothing but pride in this game RNG already eliminated are already going to be in the lower bracket so they have nothing to play for either the reason I bring this up and it doesn't necessarily mean that it's always going to play out this way or that they will you know go off the deep end but I want to point it out because there's a pretty you know an elevated likelihood that some weird stuff happens in this in this match because like there's nothing at stake for either of these teams like it doesn't matter like billy billy billy billy win or could lose this O2 and it doesn't matter like there's no it's not like they're going to be higher seated in this other bracket or anything like that so it doesn't matter to them RNG are already going to the lower bracket this doesn't matter for them other than to like get the rest off the mat so to speak so that's enough to scare me away from playing billy billy sweeping this I don't have the stomach to go to war with RNG because I think billy billy could win this match like falling asleep but it makes me not want to mess with the week 1718 in effect this kind of like a week 1718 no NFL effect what I will say is for DFS players and I'm not recommending game stacks because they're not often right but this is one that could qualify there is a decent chance that some some shenanigans some clown fiesta thing happens in this game for betters you could maybe take a small stab on like some really far out like far out kill total overs you could play like over 30 and a half or something like that for like three to one or four to one is like a fun way to sweat this one I'm not personally playing anything on that but that's how I would play this match if you if you force me to play something worth keeping in mind that this is a meaningless match for both teams and we know just sometimes weird stuff happens in those moving on to the LCK week two day for an auction red force plus one 24 the money line plus one half mass of minus 242 the minus one a half is a plus 338 against DRX minus 151 what on the money line minus one half maps at plus 194 full season model made this you know plus 110 minus 120 ish in favor of DRX the summer only model made DRX minus 500 yowza I don't think DRX is minus 500 against anybody but the data says that DRX have looked legitimately good they look like a completely reinvigorated team they've gone from a team that almost never had leads in the early game a team that struggled to close games out when they did get leads to they've had like two near perfect games and a couple of other just complete stompings so far you know I've been kind of I talked about this on the patreon but like I've been slowly kind of chipping away like the early portions of the spring split and I haven't quite converted to a summer only version like data set yet for for the purposes of all the charts you see and everything but DRX are another team that I that are a candidate for being treated as a different commodity it's eerily similar to like anyone's legend in EDG where it's like to do I really am I there yet like have I seen enough to want to treat this like a different team a completely different team than spring because like the eye test says they look like a completely different team I don't think this team is going to win the LCK or anything they might not even make playoffs but they look like a completely new team and you know I I've kind of been burned by that like I thought a all looked like a new team and I thought EDG looked like a new team and there's a chance that a third team this week kind of turns back into a pumpkin and reminds me and says that a you know maybe you're a little too early on this but I think you do need to probably treat DRX with a little more weight toward their summer more recent showing I mean this is a team that's given us like their third fourth fifth seventh and thirteen best game grades for the entire year in their past three in the past you know two matches seven games so that's a pretty clear and decisive to like delineation like that that's that's a complete change of pace so I think DRX look I'm not making DRX a modest 500 favorite against anybody but you know just that shows you like the divergence in their data is is real like this team looks legitimately better their eye test looks legitimately better I'll admit they haven't really played a super tough schedule yet like you know they've they've had to face who they beat they beat fear ex brian and then they took one off Hanwa life e-sports meanwhile qua noxim have had to face quang dong who did they face it was quang dong t1 and they had the opening week lost a fear ex in three games oh like I admit the DRX haven't really played anybody it's going to be interesting seeing how they do against the other teams but like they've been dominating so far and nonxim are are not that much different I think they've looked a little bit better especially when you consider like moving roster around and trying all these different players out I think they've actually looked kind of okay like with the eye test but the underlying numbers suggest that this team isn't all that different than what we've seen in so far in spring like if you just put nonxim spring against nonxim summer right next to each other they look basically the same and DRX look like a completely new team so I never in a million years thought I'd be doing this and it feels bizarre as hell but you know I'm playing DRX on the money line here like I think like yeah you could say oh they've had an easier schedule but like it nonxim isn't a step up in competition for what they've been facing it's like the same level and DRX looked legitimately good against how my life so like I don't I think this is real I think there is a chance that they're going to be challenging for that last playoff spot they probably won't get it I don't know if they're that good but DRX are being upgraded from me personally and I'm going to play DRX money line here I got -149 over at nitrogen one unit play on the DRX series money line last but at least we have BNK fear X plus one four fifty four on the money line plus one a massive plus 124 the sweep is that plus one thousand sixty against D plus Kia minus six forty seven on the money line minus one a half set minus one fifty model made this much closer plus two thirty five minus two sixty three this is a bit of an odd one fear X only have two game wins for the season and it was against no action they've lost every other game including a couple absolute beat downs the hands of Gen G and the aforementioned DRX their underlying numbers are still respectable though and don't suggest that there's been a massive drop off with this team something we know about fear X from spring is that this team is kind of kind of kind of dumb for lack of better terms like they're not exactly a brilliant macro team they but they have hands for days they have good players they just sometimes you know make some poor decisions in games they get ahead of themselves and you know they have the hands and the player quality to hang with the good teams once in a while but they're just a little inconsistent so they're they're kind of like a really diet version of KT Rolster a team that you want to embrace volatility with because they're ceiling games are actually pretty good and they're underlying numbers suggest that they're a lot better than the record we've seen so far you know if you look at something like a you know I've been talking the past couple days it's because it's just come up a lot but if you look at something like a like how an elo model would price this team out like fear X have some results that would not be you know that they're going to kind of juke something like that where they've you know they have a couple losses to bad teams but their underlying numbers suggest that there's not really all that much that's changed about this team like they're still decent they have a 1642 agnostic economy if you look at just summer it's not that much different than that even though they've been losing so this is a team that I would bet on regression positive regression for and it's typically a team you want to back as a big underdog now D plus D plus have been an excellent team this season they look like they're in good form they've been competitive against the top teams this is by far the easiest opponent that they face so this so far this summer they face homo life kt world certain t1 like really they only have gen g and if you want to make a case for quong dong that's the only good teams they have left in the first round robin so D plus have only faced good teams so far to start the summer and they've done pretty well and they look really really good and this is by far the easiest competition that they're going to face so I understand why this is heavy hand the markets heavy handed toward d plus here I just think this number is massive and that fear x have enough chops that I think this is it's worth you know being like a like a closure I special situation um this is probably going to be a d plus 2 oh I still think that's the most likely outcome here but like we're talking about a double digit delta between my model price and the market price in this series and no matter what kind of manual adjustments or anything like that I just can't reconcile that at all so I think this is a classic you know hold your nose special and I fear x have enough hands and like good enough players that I think they can get across the finish line we also see random just no show games from d plus kio once in a while dating all the way back to the beginning of this year so I played some fear x plus one and a half maps at plus 124 for one unit and I played this I played a quarter unit on the fear x money line the series money line at plus 454 this is mostly just a play on price I still think the most likely outcome here is a d plus 2 oh I just think it's a lot less likely than the markets implying so um give me some underdogs here that's going to be it for me today I'll be back later on tonight or early tomorrow morning with the LPL or LEC and LCS podcast as well as the patreon post until then have a wonderful friday night and I will catch you later
