It's time for our Esports betting tips for Thursday, March 18th. Today, our Esports guru Michael Lee takes us to the LoL Pro League where he has plucked out three of his best bets for the day. Check out his thoughts here!
Esports Betting Tips: Thursday, March 18th
Team WE vs Bilibili Gaming
LoL Pro League
Bilibili Gaming's chances of making playoffs are very slim, but that does not necessarily mean they're out of the race. Suning (7-6), Invictus Gaming (7-7) and LNG Esports (7-6) are all within striking distance, meaning Bilibili Gaming (6-7) are technically not out of the playoffs race, as long as they can pick up a win against Team WE on Thursday, and avoid losing against Suning on Tuesday.
With crucial games ahead of them, the motivation to perform is surely there for Bilibili, but it's very difficult to trust a side that has been playing very underwhelming LoL of late. A specific characteristic of Bilibili that can both work in their favour and against them is that they tend to adapt to the opponents they face, instead of building their own identity and play around that. They're effectively decent playing all styles, but master of none.
Bilibili's biggest weakness is their inability to close out games, which has led to a few underwhelming losses against V5 and OMG, and that could be a problem when they face Team WE.
Team WE enter this match off a huge 2-0 victory against Suning on Sunday, which was their fifth victory in a row that has catapulted them to third place in the standings with a 10-3 record. During that run, WE bested the likes of OMG (2-1), LGD Gaming (2-0), eStar (2-0), FunPlus Phoenix (2-0) and the aforementioned Suning (2-0), which might not look too promising considering three out of five teams are inside the bottom-four, but you can't look past WE's victories against Suning and FPX.
Even though this is a crucial match for Bilibili to win, they simply lack the talent to compete with the in-form WE. I’m tempted to take Bilibili with a map handicap since WE are not immune to dropping maps against weaker sides, but at the offered odds, betting on Team WE to win 2-0 makes more sense.
ThunderPredator Gaming vs Rogue Warriors
LoL Pro League
ThunderPredator Gaming are a fun team to watch with their strong early pace, however, but they tend to have a very poor economy and lack the talent to compete with the top dogs in the league, which explains why TT Gaming are in 14th-place with a 2-11 record and locked out of the playoffs.
TT Gaming's last match happened last Friday, when they won a map off FunPlus Phoenix (1-2), which was quite a remarkable feat, but much of their success in game one came down FPX playing poorly, so we should take that result with a grain of salt.
I must, however, give some praise to TT Gaming who seem like they have the potential to be much better than 2-11, however, you can't expect much more from a team that has the tendency to throw their early-game leads, which usually leads to their doom. If they can improve on that and find a way to snowball their advantages, TT might challenge for a playoffs spot next split, but we will have to wait and see whether that will be the case.
Rogue Warriors are arguably the weakest team in the league and their 1-13 record makes it difficult to say otherwise. This team clearly lacks individual talent and their poor decision making doesn't help their cause either.
The only player that is relatively solid is ADC Lu "Betty" Yu-Hung, yet even he is hardly a top-10 ADC in the league. On a more positive note, he is still slightly better than TT Gaming's ADC Lee "SamD" Jae-hoon, so RW at least have that going for them.
Looking at other lanes, it would be hard to say TT Gaming field significantly better players. In fact, I would argue RW's mid laner Deng "Forge" Jie and Jungler Chen "Haro" Wen-Linare better than TT Gaming's Huang "Twila" Ting-Weiand Wang "Xiaopeng" Peng , whereas the top lane matchup goes in favour of TT Gaming, but only slightly.
Individually these sides are fairly equally matched, and since TT Gaming's playstyle isn't exactly efficient, I can imagine this game ending in RW's favour. At better odds, I would side with TT Gaming, but at 2.42, you can't pass on a bet on the underdogs.
Rogue Warriors -1.5 ($4.50)
DWG KIA vs Gen.G
LoL Championship Korea
DWG KIA might not be as strong as they were during 202 LCK Summer, but it's not fair to compare their current performances to those from a couple of months back, simply because DWG KIA were at the time playing some of the best LoL ever seen. They're still a very strong team and deservingly sit at the top of the standings with a near-perfect 14-1 record, four wins ahead of their next opponents Gen.G.
Despite how strong DWG KIA have been of late, I don't believe they should be priced as such a massive favourite against Gen.G.
Even though Gen.G have dropped a few games they shouldn't have this split, this is still one of the strongest teams in the world. While their current standing in the league might not make it as obvious, Gen.G are much stronger than the rest of the league and undeniably the second-best Korean LoL team.
DWG are extremely deadly, but they're not immune to dropping maps as seen a few weeks back when they lost a map against KT Roilster, Hanwha Life Esports and T1, who are all weaker than Gen.G. While I'm not a big fan of betting against DWG KIA, I also don't believe this game will end in a 2-0 sweep. Gen.G have the tools to compete with DWG KIA and force a tight series.
