PSG Talon vs Royal Never Give Up – LoL Mid-Season Invitational 2021 Semi-Finals Betting Preview

The 2021 League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational Rumble Stage is behind us, leaving us with only four more teams in the race for the coveted Mid-Season Invitational 2021 Trophy. Heading into the semi-finals (or the knockout stage) are DWG KIA, MAD Lions, PSG Talon and Royal Never Give Up, as the top-performing teams of the tournament.

As the first seeded team, DWG KIA have selected MAD Lions as their opponents, leaving RNG with PSG Talon. Traditionally, the top-seeded teams play out their MSI semi-finals on Friday, with the second and third-seeded squads squaring off on Saturday.

However, the bizarre turn of events flipped that schedule upside down, forcing DWG KIA to play out their game on Saturday – only a day before the finals. The explanation behind that decision is that RNG need to get their blood tested for COVID on Saturday before flying back to China.

Although Riot knew that well in advance, they failed to inform teams before this week. Regardless of all the drama, I don’t see how it can have any serious impact on the games. You can read the whole thing HERE, or just skip to our betting preview for the RNG vs PSG Talon semi-finals bout.

ICYMI: Five winning bets at odds of 1.781-3.530 with our 2021 LoL MSI Rumble Stage Day 5 betting preview.

PSG Talon vs Royal Never Give Up

Friday, May 22 – 13:00 GMT

The first thing that caught my attention for this match is a surprisingly large gap in the odds offered by the bookmakers. For some -to me unknown reason – RNG are priced as 1.157 favourites, implying they have a 86.4% chance to defeat PSG Talon.

On the map market, RNG are priced at 1.340, i.e. 74.6% implied probability to win.

If you read our previous LoL betting previews, you would know that we don’t quite agree that RNG are (that much) stronger than PSG Talon. In fact, you could have come to that conclusion on your own if you watched any of the two games featuring the two.

RNG are still a better team, but not nearly that much better than what the betting odds might suggest. This leaves us with a situation where you either go with the underdogs or don’t bet at all.

Important Picks and team’s playstyles

While watching RNG play, it became self-evident that the LoL Pro League (LPL) champions usually do well on a couple of comfort picks (for MSI, at least). Those include Rumble (in the jungle), Gnar, and Kaisa.

PSG Talon’s key to success here would be to get RNG off those picks, and most importantly, get their jungler Kim “River” Dong-woo on the Rumble pick. He has been exceptional on “The Mechanized Menace” and arguably the best player of the tournament.

In six games played on Rumble, River managed a 66.7% win rate and 7.0 KDA. Although those numbers don’t necessarily mean he is an outstanding player – since Rumble is broken in the current meta – having him on the pick will be a priority for PSG Talon and their teamfighting strength.

As far as the team’s playstyle is concerned, PSG Talon are not playing the same way they had in the domestic league. They have become far more active on the Rift, which might have something to do with adding Chiu “Doggo” Tzu-Chuan as a substitute ADC.

PSG Talon are very effective in the early game and usually like to force tempo and open up the game pre-15 minutes. That’s something that could work in their favour against RNG, who are not a particularly strong early-game team.

If you checked the numbers, that statement would seem false, but you have to consider that RNG’s early game numbers are inflated from the group stage, where they were clearly the best team and had no issues smashing Pentanet.gg and Unicorns of Love.

Both sides fairly equally matched when it comes to objective control. RNG have a moderately higher Harold control, which isn’t too surprising considering they like to play through the top side.

Li “Xiaohu” Yuan-Hao has been RNG’s primary carry this tournament and throughout most of the season. Although he is not particularly good in the laning phase, he still has a massive impact in teamfights, especially if you let him play Gnar.

That brings us back to what was said before. Talon will have to take away Gnar from RNG, which will help them make Xiaohu less of a threat – effectively making RNG as a whole weaker.

PSG Talon vs Royal Never Give Up Betting Picks

As mentioned at the top – you either bet on the underdogs or you don’t bet at all. There is no reason to take RNG at the offered price, and you can’t really make a case for them to win the game 3-0 or 3-1 either.

Although RNG will likely win since they’re the better team, I don’t believe the odds are fair, nor am I convinced that they’re as good as they’re portrayed to be. If PSG Talon approach this game the right way, and if their mid laner Huang “Maple” Yi-Tang can continue showing the same form he has towards the end of the MSI Rumble Stage, I wouldn’t count out the possibility of an upset win either.

PSG Talon already beat RNG once before and should have arguably won the second meeting as well. Those were best-of-one (Bo1) games, however, it still shows that Talon are individually good enough to take on the Chinese champions.

Those who have followed our LoL MSI tournament preview and backed PSG Talon to reach the finals (at 23.0), might want to skip this bet. You could look to hedge it and bet on RNG to win with 19.86 units for a 2.14 profit, but I’ll just let this one go.

For those who haven’t followed our outright predictions, a bet on PSG Talon is the way to go.

Prediction: PSG Talon to win – 5.530

Prediction: PSG Talon -1.50 Maps – 9.71

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