It was a 2-1 day for Michael Lee in esports betting tips to start the week and he is back again this Tuesday, the 20th of July with a couple of his best bets from the LPL Summer 2021 and the Dota 2 Champions League events.
Team WE vs LGD Gaming
LPL 2021 Summer
Team WE and LGD Gaming will clash on Tuesday, July 20, in the opening League of Legends Pro League (LPL) 2021 Summer match of the day. Team WE enter the match on a two-game winning streak and a 6-4 record in the league.
LGD Gaming have been slightly less efficient this season and have managed a 6-6 record. Even though LGD Gaming haven't been as successful as Team WE, we have to consider that LGD had a very tough schedule.
Across the last two weeks, LGD met with the 2021 MSI champion Royal Never Give UP, 2018 LoL world champions FunPlus Phoenix, as well as the current betting favourites to win the 2021 LoL World Championship, Edward Gaming.
To no one's surprise, LGD lost all three of those games, but I wouldn't call them a bad team because of it. There aren't many teams that would do well against RNG, FPX, and EDG, and I can confidently say that Team WE aren't one of them.
LGD Gaming might not be good enough to compete for the title, however, they aren't weaker than Team WE. The latter have more talent in the roster, but they struggle to show that, whereas LGD might be weaker individually, but they make better use of the tools they have.
This is a 50/50 match, which is why I will gladly take LGD Gaming at 2.33.
Bilibili Gaming vs JD Gaming
LPL 2021 Summer
JD Gaming are heavy favourites to defeat Bilibili Gaming which isn't too surprising. JDG are viewed as one of the best teams in the world, and while I wouldn't rank them above Edward Gaming or FunPlus Phoenix, they are, without a doubt, up there with the elite LPL teams.
Bilibili Gaming are a decent team with some excellent players and very underrated. They can be extremely deadly with their early game and efficiently use those leads to gain edges in the mid-late game.
Bilibili are ranked as one of the best teams in Gold Difference (GD@) in the league. They average +343 GD@10, +462 GD@15, and the second-highest +1000 GD@15. In comparison, JDG average +189 GD@10, +126GD@15, and -375@15.
Those numbers don't mean much in the greater picture as it doesn't take into account how good the teams are using those leads to win, but it's definitely an indication of stability. Perhaps a better metric to look at would be Gold Difference for the rest of the league, from the 15th minute onwards, where JDG take the lead at +600 to Bilibili Gaming's +386.
JDG are the better team, but they can be a bit sloppy against weaker sides. Bilibili Gaming, on the other side, are usually very efficient as an underdog and have beaten teams equally as strong as JDG before. Take Bilibili Gaming to upset JDG!
Team Unique vs Hellbear Smashers
Dota 2 Champions League
Team Unique and Hellbear Smashers met only once before, at Pinnacle Cup in May, when Team Unique won 2-0. Both teams have since made several roster changes, so I wouldn't value that result too much.
The most notable roster changes happened at Unique with the departure of Andrii "Ghostik" Kadyk and Nikita "Palantimos" Grinkevich, who left Team Unique today! This leaves Unique with the same core that was with the team since January 2021, albeit with an unknown talent in Artem "spAce" Golubiev as their new number one.
Hellbear Smashers lost Geogrii "Gilgir" Svistunov, who left the team on Thursday. In their game on Monday, Hellbear Smashers played with former Natus Vincere player Viktor "GeneRaL" Nigrini, so they obviously have options to fill in the gaps with quality players.
It's unclear whether GeneraL will step in for Monday's match as well, but it's comforting to know that Hellbear Smashers don't need to look for amateurs to replace their players.
HellBear Smashers are priced at 1.57 on PickleBet to defeat Unique, and I believe that's a fair price. With GeneraL, they should have a massive edge over Unique, who are a huge enigma following their recent roster changes. Take HellBear Smashers to win!
