Betting-Previews.com brings you coverage of five League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) 2021 Summer bouts, slated for the first day of Week 6. The games will be played on Friday, July 9 at 15:00-19:00 PDT.
LCS Summer Week 6 – Day 1
When: Friday, July 9 – 15:00 – 19:00 PDT
Number of Games: 5
There weren’t many surprise results last week. Evil Geniuses, 100 Thieves, TSM, Team Liquid, and Immortals all justified their tag as the favorites, whereas TSM edged out a win against Cloud9 with a well-executed early-game plan. It was a very calm week for the LCS, but things might change for the sixth week of the season, with new meta picks finding their way in North America.
TSM vs Counter Logic Gaming
Friday, July 9 – 15:00 PDT
The LCS 2021 Summer Week 6 will kick off with a clash between TSM and Counter Logic Gaming. TSM enter the match as betting favorites (1.335 Pinnacle) and are fresh off a victory against Cloud9.
TSM are now 11-4 on the summer season with two back-to-back victories in their pockets, which includes a victory against Immortals last Saturday. Counter Logic Gaming are 4-11 on the summer season and with a six-game losing streak.
Last week, CLG lost to Golden Guardians, Evil Geniuses and 100 Thieves. However, I’m not as concerned with CLG losing against 100T and EG since they shouldn’t stand a chance to win against either of them – both due to quality gap and stylistic matchups.
Comparing these two sides, TSM are clearly in a much better shape; however, their metrics aren’t nearly as good as their standing would suggest. TSM are ranked only seventh-best LCS team in early-game ratings (45.7) and average a poor -129 GD@15. They are, however, the best rated mid-late game team with a 27.6 MLR.
Last week, in their match against Cloud9, TSM won purely off the advantage they got in the early game. The team compositions in that game should favour Cloud9, who had better scaling; however, TSM took the lead and never let go of it.
It was a solid showing, but I’m not convinced with TSM, mainly due to their poor early-game and questionable decision making. They are a type of team that will drop a crucial objective late in the game and lose, which indicates issues that go much deeper than just a player struggling with their form.
One thing that stands out with TSM is that they like to play slow games, as indicated in their Average Combined Kills Per Minute (CKPM), which is the lowest in the league (0.65). They also average a 1.16 KDA, so it’s not like TSM win their games with huge kill margins.
This match could be much more volatile than expected, which is largely due to the development of the current meta. As seen in Asian leagues, many teams started to prioritise Varus, who is an excellent pick for teams looking for early-game strength.
Strong picks like Varus could turn this game upside down, at least if CLG are smart enough to pick him up instead of Kalista, which likely won’t do them any favours into TSM’s (expected) late-game compositions.
CLG are priced at 3.34 (Pinnacle) to defeat TSM. I can see CLG enter the match with early-game focused team composition to prevent TSM from scaling and doing their usual thing. CLG have enough veteran figures on the roster to know how to approach this game and hit TSM where it hurts, but it remains to be seen whether they can overcome the individual talent gap.
Cloud9 vs FlyQuest
Friday, July 9 – 16:00 PDT
FlyQuest seemed to have given up all hope, and now enter the LCS 2021 Summer Week 6 with their academy roster, hoping their secondary lineup will help them get out of the hole they’re in. It’s easy to follow the narrative of how academy players are underrated and how some deserve to play in the LCS.
The latter part might be true, but anyone who believes that a full academy team can be competitive in the LCS is just plain wrong. And it doesn’t help that FlyQuest are now facing the reigning LCS champions, Cloud9.
We were a bit down on Cloud9 this split, but they are improving. In their loss to TSM, Cloud9 gave up too much in the early game, which put them in an unsalvageable position, although you also need to give TSM some praise for keeping their early lead.
Cloud9 are the better team in all aspects of the game. They have more talent on the team, are more experienced, and in desperate need of wins. The only reason why you would look towards FlyQuest as a potential bet is the generous odds (4.690 Pinnacle); however, the only way FlyQuest can win here is if Cloud9 play like trash.
The kill line for this match is set 9.5, which is a bit high in our book. Cloud9 have the talent to win this game 20-0, but they might as well take it slow and not risk too much not to get humiliated. There’s nothing that appeals for this match.
Golden Guardians vs 100 Thieves
Friday, July 9 – 17:00 PDT
This is another David and Goliath match, featuring 100 Thieves and Golden Guardians. 100 Thieves are priced as 1.174 (Pinnacle) favourites to win, while Golden Guardians are a 5.160 underdog.
The large price gap doesn’t surprise me, as you can’t make a strong case for the outsiders. Golden Guardians might have acquired Eric “Licorice” Ritchie from the sinking ship that is FlyQuest, but I don’t see his arrival to make much of a difference here.
Licorice is definitely an upgrade and an experienced figure, which GG need, but he hasn’t had the best season, and since this is his debut, it’s hard to expect any outstanding showings. He will face Kim “Ssumday” Chan-ho in the top lane, who he has outperformed on the LCS 2021 Summer metrics, but it’s not like GG will have a realistic chance to win this game through the top side.
If we compare 100T’s and Golden Guardians’ numbers on the season, the former outperform GG in all metrics. The gap is particularly noticeable in their early and mid-late game ratings.
100 Thieves are the best early-game team in the league (67.4 EGR), whereas GG are sixth-best with 47.3 EGR. The mid-late game ratings place 100T in second with 19.3 MLR and GG in second-to-last with -13.9.
The GD@15 shows the same story, with 100T leading the league with +1800 and Golden Guardians sporting the fourth-lowest -242.
Immortals vs Evil Geniuses
Friday, July 9 – 18:00 PDT
Evil Geniuses enter this match as favorites (1.781 Pinnacle), which seems to underestimate them a bit. They’re 5-0 in their last five and have been putting up some of the best metrics in the league.
During that stretch, EG faced mostly weaker sides in Dignitas, FlyQuest, Counter Logic Gaming, and Golden Guardians. Seeing EG win all of those games quite convincingly is a welcome change.
EG were a team that consistently underdelivered against LCS bottom feeders, but as noted before – and now confirmed – EG are a more stable team.
Stat-wise, EG are still a bit “meh” in KD (1.15), which isn’t too surprising as they are a very bloody team (0.85 CKPM). Outside of that, EG are the second-highest rated team in early game ratings (62.9) and fifth-highest in the mid-late game ratings (-2.9).
In comparison, Immortals are the fifth-best early game team (49.2 EGR) and third-best mid-late game team (4.2 MLR). Those numbers, however, don’t take into account Immortals’ slump in form.
Across their last six, Immortals are the eighth-best early-game team (44.2 EGR) and fifth-best mid-late game team (5.8 MLR). In the same stretch, EG managed 71.9 EGR and 11.4 MLR.
Team Liquid vs Dignitas
Friday, July 9 – 18:00 PDT
Team Liquid have yet to make up their mind whether they’ll field Barney “Alphari” Morris or not. The closes they’ve come to announce that is with some weird sponsor video, where Alphari refers to his tweet about getting benched.
I have no idea what Team Liquid were trying to say with that post, so for the sake of this preview we’ll assume Alphari won’t start against Dignitas. Liquid enter this match off a 1-2 week, where they lost to 100 Thieves and Cloud9 but managed to defeat FlyQuest.
Not very convincing results, nor did Liquid manage to produce any impressive numbers during that stretch. Across last week, Liquid managed a 40.3 early-game rating and -7 mid-late game rating. They were also at -768 GD@15.
On the topic of GD@15, Team Liquid were one of the best teams in accumulating gold leads early, but that was when they still had Alphari as their top laner. The Brit averaged just south of +500 GD@15 and was a major reason why Liquid were so efficient in gaining early leads and snowballing to victory.
Dignitas enter this match off a solid 2-1 week. They have looked solid even without Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnet and produced quite a convincing win against TSM to kick off LCS 2021 Summer Week 5. They then went on to defeat Golden Guardians but lost to Immortals.
Dignitas definitely have some upside, but they haven’t achieved much outside of their win against TSM. Even in that game, TSM had a bizarre draft that didn’t allow them to play the game how they usually do.
Team Liquid are generally a slow team and average relatively low kill counts, which excludes their stomping of FlyQuest last week. With that in mind, we like Dignitas with a 6.5 kills advantage, particularly because Team Liquid haven’t been too convincing of late.
Having said that, we still don’t know whether Alphari will start tonight. If he does, Team Liquid should win, and the sheer impact Alphari’s arrival can have on the outcome is enough for us to pass on betting on this match.
Betting Odds are correct as of Friday, July 9 at 19:40 CEST
