Betting-Previews.com is back with another set of betting previews and predictions for League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) 2021 Summer. Today we focus on the opening round of LCS 2021 Summer Week 5 bouts, scheduled for Friday, July 2.
LCS Summer Week 5 – Day 1
When: Friday, July 2 – 15:00 – 19:00 PDT
Number of Games: 5
Evil Geniuses and Golden Guardians both delivered last week for us to secure another perfect 2/2 with our LCS Summer Week 4 – Day 3 betting picks. For today, we have two more bets for you to look at.
Like the LoL European Championship, the LCS will use Patch 11.13 for this and next week, which likely won’t affect the teams too much. We might see a few more champions find their place in the meta, but nothing significant enough for me to say the balance of power will shift drastically.
Team Liquid vs 100 Thieves
Sunday, June 27 – 15:00 PDT
Barney “Alphari” Morris is expected to return to the LCS today, but it seems like he won’t. As announced by the former Origen top laner, he will be joining Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng’s co-stream for today’s games with Schalke 04 Esports’ top laner Sergen “Broken Blade” Çelik.
Although Alphari will be missed, I don’t see that as a massive negative. His replacement Thomas “Jenkins” Tran has been playing well this split, so even if Alphari would end up playing today, I don’t see Team Liquid benefiting much from it.
Team Liquid have been playing well relative to all the drama that has been happening in the team, however, “playing well” won’t be enough to stop the in-form 100 Thieves. The latter continue to look like the best team in the league, and while I have my doubts of whether they’ll manage this pace until the end of the split, they’re currently the team to beat.
100 Thieves enter this match on a five-game winning streak. Besides round-one defeat against Immortals, their only loss was the questionable 0-21 defeat against Counter Logic Gaming. I’m still unsure what happened that day, but 100T are back on their feet and stronger than ever.
Even though Liquid are a solid team, it’s 100T who are priced as betting favourites (1.564 at Pinnacle), which makes a lot of sense. Their Gold Difference at 10, 15 and 20 minutes show +985, +2147, +1957, which are some of the highest numbers in the LCS.
Although gold leads on their own don’t mean much, 100T are also very efficient in using their advantages to crush their opponents. The eye-test suggests 100T smash this game, but the odds aren’t high enough for us to recommend the bet.
FlyQuest vs Evil Geniuses
Sunday, June 27 – 16:00 PDT
I might sound like a broken record every time I talk about how bad FlyQuest are, but this team has now shown anything that would suggest they’ll improve. Last week, they announced that they’d field academy players for their bout with Golden Guardians (just a few hours before the game), but even that hasn’t helped them overcome what was billed as the weakest team in the LCS.
FlyQuest looked marginally better by switching up their roster, but not good enough for me to believe that they can take on any of the upper-half teams. And that includes the Evil Geniuses.
As coin-flippy as Evil Geniuses can be – and usually are – they are playing fairly clean league of late. They might have lost a few games against weaker sides this season, but I can’t complain about their showings against TSM and Dignitas.
Granted, Evil Geniuses looked like they were behind against DIG on Sunday yet managed to come out ahead. They did so by playing smarter, which isn’t something I expected to ever say about EG.
Evil Geniuses are showing an entirely different version of themselves, which is quite refreshing. I fully expect EG to win, but the offered odds (1.465) are way too low. EG might have looked improved of late, but I’ll wait to see a bit more before I can view them as a “stable” team.
TSM vs Dignitas
Sunday, June 27 – 17:00 PDT
TSM are tied for first place with 100 Thieves with a 21-9 record on the season and an impressive 9-3 run through the LCS 2021 Summer. Their only loss of their last seven came against Evil Geniuses.
Even though TSM have managed to win all but three games this split, you could argue that they should have lost a couple more. Their numbers are good, but what this team is showing on the Summoner’s Rift doesn’t justify their high success rate.
Neutral objective control is TSM’s bread and butter, but only on paper. They might boast an 80% Baron Control, however, the way they’re approaching Barsons and Dragons isn’t exactly convincing.
Their “sneaky” Baron calls aren’t as sneaky as they might believe, and I saw way too many flaws in their execution. At least clear wards and have someone guard the ways leading to the Baron pit… In short, TSM were a bit lucky to get as many wins as they have.
I won’t lose too many words on Dignitas. I am not convinced with the path this team is taking, and with the removal of Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnett, DIG lost a key player that would help them outperform the expectations. They supposedly had good reasons to part ways with their jungler, but the team’s overall quality suffers as a result.
Dignitas enter this match as a 3.170 (Pinnacle) underdog, which is a fair price. They might catch TSM off guard while they try to do Baron and turn the game upside down, albeit I wouldn’t count on that happening. TSM should come out ahead, but they’re not worth a bet at this price.
Cloud9 vs Immortals
Sunday, June 27 – 18:00 PDT
As noted in previous LCS 2021 Summer betting previews, Cloud9 look good on paper, but you wouldn’t be able to see that in games. The reigning LCS champions have been playing very questionable league, and are as a result struggling to keep pace with 100 Thieves and TSM.
C9 are still an extremely stacked team, but I am not convinced with what they have been producing on the Rift. Fear not – they’ll improve, but it might not happen this week.
Immortals are at a clear disadvantage pound-per-pound, but unlike Cloud9, they know what they’re doing in games. Immortals take their games slow, stack drakes and eventually roll over their opponents. Scaling is obviously their strategy, but it’s not like Immortals can’t play more aggressive compositions.
One problem with Immortals is that they will get outperformed by teams who do well in the early game. If they fall behind too much pre-15 minutes, Immortals will struggle to execute their strategy, which is something to keep in mind here.
Cloud9 have the talent and tools to grab an early lead and essentially leave Immortals in a position from which they won’t be able to achieve much. Even though this could happen, the odds offered on Immortals are just rude.
They’re priced as a 2.64 (Pinnacle) underdog, which is way too high for a team that has been much more consistent than Cloud9. Take the obvious value bet.
Golden Guardians vs Counter Logic
Sunday, June 27 – 19:00 PDT
Golden Guardians are not a very good team. Now that we have established that, we can also note that neither are Counter Logic Gaming.
As weak as Golden Guardians seem on paper, they have their strengths and usually perform well enough not to get humiliated by their opponents. I like GG’s strategy to go for objectives and slowly outscale their opponents, and while that approach won’t work against fundamentally sound squads, they should do more than fine against less organised sides.
Counter Logic Gaming are a weird team. They have enough talent and veteran figures on the roster to be competitive, but they seemingly have no idea what to do.
Of late, they have been starting to use what was named as a “Bongo Comp” which is a very meme-y name for a team composition that isn’t very difficult to counter. That was very noticeable last week.
Picking some weird compositions in hopes to turn the season upside downs screams desperation, and unless CLG come up with a more effective composition, I don’t see how they’ll achieve much – even against weak sides such as Golden Guardians.
Golden Guardians might lack individual talent, but they have an excellent coaching staff, who should help them get ready for whatever CLG throw at them. At these odds (2.35 at Pinnacle) you have to take Golden Guardians. It won’t be an easy match by any means, but with the way CLG have been performing of late, they should be priced as a 1.606 (Pinnacle) favourite against any LCS team.
Odds are correct as of Friday, July 2, at 14:30 CEST
