LoL Worlds 2020 Play-In – Day 2 Betting Previews and Predictions
The opening round of the 2020 League of Legends World Championship Play-In stage is behind us and what an exciting day it was! LGD Gaming who were billed as by far the strongest team in the Play-In suffered a humiliating loss to PSG Talon, Legacy Esports locked in a historic win for their region and INTZ proved that no matter how far ahead you are, you can always lose.
What awaits us in the second round of play is anyone’s guess, but we can be sure we are in for another exciting day of LoL action as we welcome V3 Esports, Papara SuperMassive and Unicorns of Love who will make their 2020 Worlds debut. Now let’s look at which teams will face off against each other and who did we select as our favorites!
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Rainbow7 vs V3 Esports
Rainbow7 lost their opening game against PSG Talon in what was a very iffy performance from the LLA representatives. Having said that, PSG Talon have proven to be a very resilient and well-rounded team, so perhaps we should give R7 some slack for that loss.
In their next bout, R7 are set to face V3 who are a huge enigma, both because this is their first time at Worlds and because we haven’t seen them in action yet – outside of their domestic league. While we believe R7 are capable of much more to what they have shown on day one, we don’t feel comfortable predicting the outcome of this bout due to the unknown quality of V3.
No Prediction
INTZ vs Papara SuperMassive
After one day of play, INTZ seem like the worst team in the group and not necessarily because they lack individual quality, but mainly due to the way they play. In both of their games, the Brazilians looked lost and disorganized on the Rift and even though they put up a solid fight against MAD Lions, INTZ seemingly always look to engage in coin-flip situations, which is our biggest concern with this squad.
Their high variance playstyle has earned them a humiliating loss to Legacy Esports in a match that otherwise looked to be heavily in favor of INTZ. On the topic of INTZ’s weaknesses, their support Ygor “RedBert” Freitas had way too many iffy moments for us to ignore and at times looked like he’s playing in a solo queue rather than at the World Championship.
We haven’t seen SuperMassive play yet, but if INTZ’s performance from the opening day are to go by, I am giving the Brazilians little to no chance of upsetting the Turks. Papara SumerMassive dominated their domestic league since they acquired their Korean duo in jungler Lee “KaKAO” Byung-kwon and support No “SnowFlower” Hoi-jong and even though there is no way of telling whether SuperMassive can look as dominant on the international stage as they did domestically, they at least play far more consistently.
Prediction: Papara SuperMassive -5.5 kills – 1.900 at Pinnacle
V3 Esports vs Unicorns of Love
We haven’t seen either team on the stage yet, making this game hard to predict from the get-go. Then there is also the fact that UoL are extremely hard to evaluate due to their domestic dominance (lost only three games in 2020) and an extremely aggressive playstyle, which might not translate to the international stage.
This match has a way too high variance for us to consider predicting the outcome before seeing both teams in action.
No prediction
LGD Gaming vs Rainbow7
LGD lost their opening game of the tournament and while it was a massive upset, they deserved to lose it. We expected LGD to start a bit slow and struggle against solid teams, however, we did not expect to see PSG Talon play so well.
Nevertheless, LGD Gaming now desperately need to start winning games and what better way to get their wheels spinning than facing arguably the weakest team in the group. The main problem we have with LGD is still their drafts, which – like many other Chinese teams – focus too much on having a strong laning phase rather than looking for compositions that are strong in team fights.
That is also one of the main reasons why we have our doubts about the LPL teams being billed as such massive favorites to win their third consecutive Worlds title for LPL, but that is a topic for later.
On the topic of drafts, we have to weight how much do team compositions matter in relation to team’s quality and when we are looking at such a massive quality gap as we are seeing here, LGD might as well pick random champions and still have a very solid chance to win – not really but the main point is still there.
We are not undervaluing Rainbow7, but considering how many silly mistakes they have made against PSG Talon, we have no hope for R7 to upset the Chinese’s fourth seed. This should be a complete stomp from the side of LGD.
Prediction: LGD Gaming -10.5 kills – 1.840 at Pinnacle
Unicorns of Love vs PSG Talon
No prediction
Papara SuperMassive vs MAD Lions
We had high hopes for MAD Lions heading into the World Championship, but after one day of play, we have become very skeptical about their chances of securing the first seed. We must give some praise to their mid laner Marek “Humanoid” Brázda who is playing extremely well while we also can’t ignore the input of their bottom lane, but their main issue and the biggest reason why we don’t see MAD Lions making it far is their jungle.
Zhiqiang “Shad0w” Zhao was billed as the next big thing in the LEC, but after what he has shown not only at Worlds but also in LEC playoffs, we can confidently say he is not as good as some people believe. As mentioned in out Worlds Play-In preview, he is a highly mechanically gifted individual but lacks in all other departments.
What’s more, Shad0w has proven he is only good on Lee Sin and not so much on other champions, which obviously is not optimal for a pro player. Comparing him with KaKAO, we would confidently say the latter is a much better-rounded player and a bigger asset to his team mainly due to his experience. Having said that, we haven’t seen him play on the international stage yet nor do we know how Onur “Bolulu” Can Demirol will stack with Humanoid.
While siding with the Turkish squad to upset the LEC’s fourth seed is very tempting at 3.00, we will rather wait and see what Papara SuperMassive can bring to the table before making out the final decision.
One thing to note from SuperMassive’s win over INTZ was their calm playstyle, waiting for their opponents to make mistakes and react rather than play proactively. Being a more reactive team might not be a bad characteristic to have here, since MAD Lions are known to be very explosive and volatile, which again begs the question of whether SUP can match MAD Lions’ tempo of play.
Since MAD Lions can’t afford to lose here, however, we expect a more cautious playstyle from them, meaning we are in for a longer game which effectively means a bit more kills on the board. SUP might even upset the LEC representatives if their top side and KaKAO can continue playing at the same tempo, but we are going for over 9.5 kills for this one.
Prediction: Papara SuperMassive over 9.5 kills – 1.79 at Pinnacle
Team Liquid vs Legacy Esports
Anyone who watched Legacy Esports’ historic win over INTZ would agree that that game was a mess and painful to watch. Not necessarily because INTZ had the game in their hands and let it slip, but mainly because of the shockingly low level of play.
Neither INTZ nor Legacy proved they are good teams and unless we see some drastic changes from them they are bound to finish in the bottom of the standings. All in all, Legacy did not deserve that win, since they played extremely poorly and won solely due to INTZ’s mistakes.
The biggest issue we have with Legacy, however, is their ADC Quin “Raes” Korebrits who was not only building wrong items for the situation the game was in but also had extremely poor positioning, and was overall more of a liability to his team rather than an asset. His iffy performances alone are enough for us to believe Edward “Tactical” Ra and Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in will demolish Legacy’s bottom lane and we all know how TL’s games end when Tactical gets ahead.
The only positive we can take from Legacy is their top laner Kim “Topoon” Ji-hoon who was doing god’s work on Camille, but since he is facing Jung “Impact” Eon-yeong, we don’t see how Legacy will manage to see the same level of success in the top side of the map.
Prediction: Team Liquid -8.5 kills – 1.86 at Pinnacle
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