Betting-Previews.com returns with a League of Legends European Championship (LEC) 2021 Summer betting preview, where we look at the games that will be played on Saturday, June 26.
LEC Summer Week 3 – Day 2
When: Saturday, June 26 – 17:00 – 21:00 CEST
Number of Games: 5
The third week of at LEC 2021 Summer ends today, with a set of interesting bouts, including the LEC Match of The Week, between two arch-rivals in G2 Esports and Fnatic. Today, we have a few more games on the menu for you to look at.
Excel vs SK Gaming
Saturday, June 26 – 17:00 CEST
SK Gaming haven’t impressed me with their performance against MAD Lions. Although the game could have been much closer, the bottom lane gap was quite noticeable and was one of the main factors that led to MAD Lions’ commanding win.
SK Gaming’s new support hasn’t had a very good debut, but it’s hard to value a player off a one-game alone. At the same time, I haven’t been following enough to say whether he has a potential upside, granted if he was one of the up-and-coming stars, we would have heard of him before.
Excel got torn apart by Misfits yesterday, which doesn’t surprise me one bit. As noted before, Excel aren’t exactly a good team, and their record from the opening weeks would confirm that. Having said that, this is still a well-coached side that is bound to find its footing sooner or later and start racking in wins, even though I don’t see them being too competitive against LEC top dogs.
Excel enter this match as favourites (1.684 at Pinnacle), which seems reasonable. As weak as Excel has been against stronger teams, they usually do well against bottom sides, so it should be somewhat decent today.
Siding with Excel to secure their third win of the season seems like a good play, but not at the offered odds. They have been both good and bad this split, and you can’t really know which version of Excel we’re going to get. At the same time, SK Gaming’s situation with a new support doesn’t look too promising, and I’ll rather wait and watch a few more of their games before to get a better read on how SK Gaming operate.
Schalke 04 vs Misfits
Saturday, June 26 – 18:00 CEST
Misfits demolished Excel yesterday and kept their impressive form alive. This team has improved quite a lot since the last split, yet they still seem a bit underrated. Given their form, it’s no surprise that Misfits enter this match priced as favourites (1.55 at Pinnacle).
They seem to thrive in the current meta and are playing a very clean league. It will take a lot more than a mid-table team such as Schalke 04 to defeat them if they can keep playing this way. At this point, it would be fair to point out which players on Misfits are doing all the heavy lifting, however, there is not a single player that stands out – they’re all on top of their game.
Schalke 04 lost against Rogue yesterday in what turned out to be a very one-sided affair. Some of it has to do with the jungle gap, but then there was also Schalke 04’s bottom lane overextending and making some very obvious mistakes for which they got punished more than a couple of times.
It was a complete stomp, but not necessarily because Rogue were theta much better individually, but rather because Rogue managed to take full advantage of S04’s slip-ups. We’re still very early into the season, but I expected a bit more from Schalke 04.
Much of it has to do with subpar showings from their jungler Thomas “Kirei” Yuen, who has proven to be more of a liability for the team. He’s bound to get replaced by Erberk “Gilius” Demir sooner or later, and only then S04 might escape this slump.
You have to have a good reason to side with the favorites in an online best-of-one (Bo1), but Misfits are clearly the better team from what we have seen from these two teams. Misfits are priced at 1.56 on Pinnacle, but as high as 1.61 on Bet365 – take the obvious value.
Rogue vs Astralis
Saturday, June 26 – 19:00 CEST
As evident from the first three weeks of play, underdogs tend to perform much better than expected, some of which has to do with the current meta, but it’s fairly evident that the LEC has become much more competitive. Still, this is a match between the best and the worst team in the league – stat-wise – so when you look at it, you have to ask yourself whether Astralis are really as good as they seemed or have they been lucky enough to face teams that allowed them to look as good.
As we saw yesterday, Rogue completely smashed Schalke 04 by punishing their mistakes in the laning phase, which was enough to snowball to a commanding victory. There’s a good chance that could happen again here, but then again, Astralis haven’t been playing nearly as poorly as S04 did yesterday.
Rogue are priced as massive favourites (1.209) for this match, which makes a lot of sense. They have been improving throughout the split and don’t make enough mistakes for me to believe Astralis can upset them. Still, there’s no value at this price.
Alternatively, you could look at Astralis on a +8.5 kill handicap since they have been relatively efficient in keeping their games close. This is probably the right play, but with how efficient Rogue looked yesterday, the offered odds aren’t appealing enough for me to pull the trigger.
Team Vitality vs MAD Lions
Saturday, June 26 – 20:00 CEST
Team Vitality humiliated G2 Esports largely thanks to their hyper-aggressive playstyle. I’ve noted before how this style of play isn’t bound to earn them much success in the long run, but it worked wonders for the Bees yesterday.
In some way, Vitality are becoming like Evil Geniuses in the LCS, as a coin-flip team that can upset the favourites but will often slip against weaker teams. If that is, in fact, the case, Vitality (2.43 at Pinnacle) to defeat MAD Lions is definitely worth looking at.
Team Vitality and MAD Lions have one thing in common – they more often beat themselves than their opponents do, making this an extremely volatile match. MAD Lions are, however, still a better team individually (1.571 at Pinnacle), but just as inconsistent.
Vitality haven’t been too solid throughout the split, but they played extremely well yesterday. On the other side, MAD Lions had a fairly easy match, so it was easy for them to look good. As much as it’s not smart to overreact to one solid game, Vitality are a team that will work off momentum, and there’s no better way to get it than to defeat G2 Esports.
This one can go both ways, so there’s clear value on Vitality to hand MAD Lions their third loss of the split. You can get Team Vitality at 2.50 on Bet365.
G2 Esports vs Fnatic
Saturday, June 26 – 21:00 CEST
The day will end with a LEC match of the week, and the European League of Legends “El Classico” between two arch-rivals in G2 Esports and Fnatic. G2 Esports were obviously the more successful team of the two of late, but they haven’t been playing nearly as well recently.
You could argue that the historical record between these two sides should hold some value, and it might, however, with all the roster changes Fnatic have made, it’s fair to say that this is not the same Fnatic as the LEC 2021 Spring Fnatic – and I mean that in a very positive way.
At the same time, G2 Esports looked much better this split than how they did in LEC 2021 Spring – excluding their loss to Vitality yesterday. However, that game also showcased G2’s main weakness and that’s their early game.
G2’s tend to start slow and ramp up post-20 minutes, whereas Fnatic are the exact opposite. The teams’ GD stats @10, @15 and @20 show: G2 (845, 354, 429), Fnatic (957, 1054, 159).
Fnatic tend to drop off in the post-20 minutes, but that shouldn’t concern you too much. As seen yesterday, G2 Esports are easily beatable if you can get them on their knees early, and Fnatic should know that.
Fnatic’s performance yesterday wasn’t spotless, which could concern you, albeit it’s not like G2 have been playing much better. Pinnacle has Fnatic priced at 2.240, which is a bit low; however, you can get them at 2.50 on Bet365, which is an obvious value bet.
All odds are correct as of Saturday, June 26 – 13:30 CEST
