Another week of esports action gets underway on Monday night and Michael Lee is back to preview some of his key matchups of the night across the REPUBLEAGUE Season 2 and the LOL World Championship. Check out his best bets below.
Esports Betting Tips: Monday, October 25th
Dignitas vs Team LDLC
REPUBLEAGUE Season 2
Dignitas and Team LDLC dropped down to the REPUBLEAGUE Season 2 Play-in lower bracket, where they'll have one last shot at qualifying for the playoffs. Dignitas lost against Entroipiq (0-2) on Friday, while Team LDLC couldn't deliver against K23 (0-2).
Team LDLC and Dignitas last met in June, during the first Pinnacle Series, when Dignitas won with 2-1 and improved their H2H record to 1-1. Team LDLC won the first match in April with 2-0 during the DreamHack Masters Spring 2020 qualifiers.
PickleBet has Dignitas priced as the favourites, and I can't say I am surprised, even though I don't rank either team too highly.
Across the last three months, Dignitas have been averaging solid win rates on Inferno (75%), Nuke (61%), and Vertigo (60%), where Team LDLC are at 50%, 70%, and 22%, respectively. Besides Nuke, LDLC only do better than Dignitas on Dust2 (50% - 33%). And even their better win rate on Dust2 isn't as valuable since Dignitas played only three games on the map since July.
I expect Dignitas to win and qualify for the REPUBLEAGUE Season 2 playoffs; however, I don't believe they're good enough to cover the map line. Even though Team LDLC aren't very good, they still have enough talent to make this match interesting.
As long as Team LDLC can get enough out of Ali "hAdji" Haïnouss and Bryan "Maka" Canda, they should do fine and potentially even win. However, for that to happen, Dignitas will need to underperform. Take over 2.5 maps!
Eternal Fire vs ENTERPRISE esports
REPUBLEAGUE Season 2
The second match of the day in the REPUBLEAGUE Season 2 Play-in lower bracket will feature Eternal Fire and ENTERPRISE esports, who will meet for the first time. Eternal Fire are the favourites to come out victorious, while ENTERPRISE are priced as high as 2.46 to cause an upset.
The odds aren't far from what I expected to see, but at the same time, I don't believe Eternal Fire are as good as some seem to believe. They lost to Team Fiend in the upper bracket (1-2), and even though they won one map on the day, they also lost two with 9-16 (Nuke) and 6-16 (Inferno).
ENTERPRISE were even less convincing in their upper bracket matches, where they lost against ECLOT, who are not even inside top-80 in the global ladder. With that defeat, ENTERPRISE are 2-5 across their last seven fixtures, and it doesn't seem like their situation is getting any better.
Eternal Fire have disappointed before, but they really shouldn't struggle against ENTERPRISE. I'm taking some risk here, but Eternal Fire with a map handicap at 2.52 is a solid bet.
Eternal Fire -1.5 Maps
$2.53
Gen.G vs Cloud9
LoL World Championship 2021
Cloud9 are expected to lose against Gen.G in the 2021 LoL World Championship quarter-finals, which is more than fair. However, Cloud9 have a legitimate chance to cause an upset and defeat Gen.G.
I did not come to that conclusion because Cloud9 are very good – which they aren't – but because Gen.G haven't been too great this tournament. They still made it out of their group with relative ease, but Gen.G were a bit lucky in a few of their games and could have easily missed out on the playoffs.
Although Gen.G still field a very strong roster with elite-level players, their overall team performance is mediocre. It's also fair to mention that Gen.G haven't done too well in the previous LoL World Championships, including the 2020 LoL Worlds, where they disappointed everyone with their performance in the quarter-finals. Interestingly the same core of players who flopped last year is back.
While I believe Cloud9 can take advantage of Gen. G's weaknesses and cause an upset, Cloud9 themselves haven't been too impressive either. Player-wise, Cloud9 aren't up to par with Gen.G across most positions, most notably in the bottom lane.
However, they should do relatively fine in the top lane and mid lane. So as long as they can forge a solid plan and do well enough in the bottom lane to survive until the mid-late game, Cloud9 might have a shot.
I won't be betting on Cloud9 to win since Gen.G should still come out ahead in most scenarios. However, the Korean squad have looked shaky enough for me to believe they can drop two maps. Cloud9 with +1.5 maps is a good bet.
