We’re back with another League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) 2021 Summer betting previews and picks. The LCS drama that started a few weeks back is still going and has reached new heights ahead of Week 4 of play, which might or might not affect the team’s performances, and it definitely doesn’t help that almost every team in the league has already made a roster change after three weeks of play.
LCS Summer Week 4 – Day 1
When: Sunday, June 26 – 14:00 – 18:00 PDT
Number of Games: 5
Coming off a loss with our LCS Summer 2021 Week 4 – Day 1, we have only one bet for today’s action.
Team Liquid vs Counter Logic Gaming
Saturday, June 26 – 14:00 PDT
Team Liquid are coming off a convincing victory against Evil Geniuses and are now 18-10 on the season. It was a solid showing from Liquid, who played much cleaner LoL than EG that day, and while you can’t really defend EG for losing, they had a few chances to keep the match close and potentially edge out a win. Still, Liquid were simply the better team on the day.
Liquid are playing well, and while they haven’t yet reached the status they held last split, the improvement is obvious. It is, however, surprising to see how stable the team is despite all the roster and coach swaps.
Counter Logic Gaming lost against immortals yesterday in a match they should have won. It was an extremely frustrating match to watch even from a neutral standpoint. If we rewind to the 21st minute of the match, CLG were 6-2 up with two drakes and the third drake coming up in about 40 seconds.
In situations like that, all you need to do is transition to the dragon pit, take the third drake and win. But for some reason, Jason “WildTurtle” Tran decided to fight a two-item Jayce in the top lane, (obviously) lost the fight while executing a series of mechanical errors. He wasn’t the only player on CLG that got caught and made a cricital error that game, but his play definitely stood out.
To avoid rambling too much, CLG were in a winning position and should have won, but made way too many errors. CLG enter this match as underdogs (2.740 at Pinnacle), which is a fair price.
I would be far more excited about CLG had they played even remotely good yesterday, but after such a display, I can’t find a solid argument in CLG’s favour.
FlyQuest vs Dignitas
Saturday, June 26 – 15:00 PDT
Drama seems to be the theme of the LCS 2021 Summer, and while some teams handle it relatively well, Dignitas take the medal as the team who handled its issues in the worst way possible. It’s not so much about Dignitas releasing Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnett, but the way they have announced it.
It might be a subjective thing, but it shows that this organisation is poorly run, although they’re not alone in that. Back to the prediction-relevant information, Dignitas enter this match off an unsurprising defeat against 100 Thieves where they haven’t shown anything of note.
The current state of Dignitas makes it very hard to like them. They might be the worst team in the league right next to Golden Guardians as a strong candidate for LCS wooden spoon. Right next to the two are FlyQuest, who are just as terrible.
Had this game been played a couple of weeks ago, Dignitas would be an obvious choice, not now though. After everything that has happened and the form these teams have been showing, you can’t make much sense of what’s going to happen. I favour FlyQuest slightly over Dignitas, but there is no value backing either team at the offered odds.
Cloud9 vs 100 Thieves
Saturday, June 26 – 16:00 PDT
Cloud9 beat Golden Guardians even though GG had infernal drake. It’s an impressive achievement, however; 1. They defeated Golden Guardians (barely) 2. C9 let Golden Guardians get all four drakes.
As mentioned in our LCS 2021 Summer Week 4 – Day 1 preview, the reinstalment of Jesper “Zven Svenningsen isn’t a magic fix that will make Cloud9 instantly a better team, and that was very obvious yesterday. C9 didn’t play well, and while they have managed to turn the game around, they still won (only) against the worst team in the league.
100 Thieves are priced as underdogs for this match (1.884 at Pinnacle), which is fair. They’re currently the best team in the league and don’t look as shaky as C9, nor are they as predictable. C9 still rely too much on their mid-jungle duo to do all the heavy lifting, and I don’t see how this will work against 100T.
Evil Geniuses vs TSM
Saturday, June 26 – 17:00 PDT
This is a match I would usually be all over Evil Geniuses (2.430 at Pinnacle) as a team that is volatile enough to defeat anyone. However, Evil Geniuses announced that they’d be playing with a substitute jungler Juan Arturo “Contractz” Garcia, who will replace Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen.
While I like Contractz as a player, it’s the effect this change will have on the team’s synergy that is concerning. Contractz is an excellent player, and when he’s on, he can be one of the best in the league, but it’s unclear whether he has had the time to gel with his new teammates to show that.
From what I could gather from Evil Geniuses’ Tweet, fielding they’re simply trying something new to see how it goes, so we can expect Svenskeren to return to the roster next week.
The big question is whether this makes EG weaker. It might, or it might benefit them, although Svenskeren’s absence doesn’t change the fact that TSM are a more consistent team. They might not be as good as 100T, but TSM are still playing well enough to be considered as one of the top-three teams in the league.
EG would usually be the right play at this price, but I’m a bit cautious with how the jungle swap will work out.
Golden Guardians vs Immortals
Saturday, June 26 – 18:00 PDT
While Immortals don’t deserve too much praise for their performance yesterday, they’re still a solid team that I continue to be bullish about. They might get outclassed by stronger teams, but IMT are consistent and usually aren’t the type of a team that will choke and lose games they should be winning.
Their win against CLG was somewhat undeserved since it was CLG who shoot themselves in the foot, but you have to give IMT some credit for taking advantage of the situation and turning the game in their favor. Are IMT good enough to compete for a top-three finish? Not likely, but they just might end the split inside the top-five.
As mentioned before, Golden Guardians aren’t good, and they only seem to look solid in games where their opponents choke. Yesterday they lost to Cloud9 from what seemed like an unlosable position.
It’s extremely difficult to lose with an infernal soul, yet GG managed to do it and that speaks a lot about the (lack of) quality of these players. There’s no reason to over-analyze this match – Immortals are a quality team, whereas GG aren’t.
We’re keeping our LCS 2021 Summer bets at a minimum for now, mainly due to the ongoing internal team’s drama, combined with roster changes across almost all teams. Perhaps the league will calm down in by next week, however, this is likely the most volatile and unpredictable LCS has been in a while.
Odds are correct as of Saturday, June 26 – 20:00 CEST
