We have another set of League of Legends betting predictions from our esports expert Michael Lee, who looks at two LoL Pro League (LPL) and one Circuit Oceania (LCO) match on Tuesday, August 9. Today he provides his picks for LGD Gaming vs Rare Atom, Top Esports vs Victory Five, and Pentanet.GG vs Dire Wolves.
Esports Betting Tips: Tuesday, August 9th
LGD Gaming vs Rare Atom
LPL 2022 Summer
LGD Gaming and Rare Atom won’t be making the LPL playoffs this season, so the two squads are playing only for pride, assuming they have any left. Rare Atom and LGD Gaming have proven to be two of the weakest teams in the league and, by quite a significant margin, struggling to produce any consistent results.
Of the two, LGD Gaming have done much worse, as they’ve managed just two wins across the 13 series (2-11) and have won less than a third of maps played (10-23). Rare Atom have achieved marginally better results this split, with a 3-11 record and a 31% map win rate (11-25). Suffice to say; I don’t expect to see any high-quality gameplay on Tuesday.
Still, if we compare the two teams and their recent showings, I would prefer Rare Atom, who picked up their third win of the split on Thursday when they shocked LNG Esports (2-1). A couple of days prior, we also saw Rare Atom take a map from Invictus Gaming (1-2), and they even forced JD Gaming to three maps (1-2) at the start of July.
Although those are just some flashes of greatness in what was otherwise a disappointing campaign, Rare Atom at least showed us something. Unfortunately, we can’t say the same for LGD Gaming. Besides producing better results, Rare Atom also looked much more alive across the last week, perhaps due to the current meta that seems to suit Rare Atom’s style.
Considering what I’ve seen from LGD and Rare Atom last week, I expect Rare Atom to win, but knowing how inconsistent they can be, a bet on over 2.5 maps makes more sense.
Over 2.5 maps
$2 (1 Unit)
Top Esports vs Victory Five
LPL 2022 Summer
Top Esports and Victory Five are two of the best Chinese LoL teams, but out of the two, Top Esports are stronger. You can argue that Victory Five have just as much individual talent, which I can agree with, but as a team, Victory Five doesn’t work as well as Top Esports.
Victory Five’s main issue is their lack of consistency, which becomes evident if you check their results from the last three weeks. Despite fielding one of the most stacked rosters in the league, Victory Five lost against OMG (1-2), and they even gave away a map against Ultra Prime (2-1) on Sunday.
Top Esports are the complete opposite. They’ve not lost a game since the opening week of the split, have given up just seven maps (27-7) across 14 series and are on a streak of four straight 2-0 sweeps. Although they did not face any tough opposition over the four games, you have to give Top Esports some props for not giving away maps.
Top Esports are in much better form than Victory Five, but they’re not a very inviting bet at 1.44. I also wouldn’t feel comfortable betting on Top Esports to sweep Victory Five, knowing how good V5 can be. There’s a strong possibility that we will see three maps on Tuesday, but ultimately, I would prefer to be on the side of Top Esports to close it out.
Top Esports to win 2-1
$3.20 (1 Unit)
Dire Wolves vs Pentanet.GG
LCO 2022 Split 2
The LCO 2022 Split 2 enters the final round of the regular season on Tuesday, kicking off with a clash between Pentanet.GG and Dire Wolves. The two teams are already guaranteed a spot in the playoffs, but they are still competing for a top-three seed, which will guarantee one of the two teams a much easier road to the LCO 2022 Split 2 finals.
Pentanet.GG are priced as slight favourites to win this bout at 1.80, mainly because they’ve achieved more this season, winning 12 games in contrast to Dire Wolves, who have managed 11. However, Dire Wolves are 2-0 in the H2H against their regional rivals.
Besides that, we must acknowledge that the Wolves have side selection, which might not be as important in LCO as in other major regions, but it still gives them a slight edge. The only thing that works against Dire Wolves is their 2-3 record across the last five matches, but I wouldn’t overreact to that.
This is a coin-flip match, so I don’t like either team at the offered odds. Instead, we’ll take over 28.5 kills, which is a low line knowing that Pentanet.GG and Dire Wolves are fairly bloody teams with 16.7 and 15.2 average kills per game, and they tend to play fairly long games at 30:21 and 31:43, respectively.
Over 28.5 Kills
$1.85 (1 Unit)
