EU LCS Week 8 Betting Tips: The Race For the Play-Offs

Axel Sjödin

August 9th, 2018

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Quick Tips:

• Unicorns of Love to Draw First Blood - 6/5 at Bet365.
• Misfits to Win - 13/20 at Betway.

As the split is starting to come to a close we have some very exciting match-ups to determine which teams will reach the play-offs and which two teams that will go straight to the semifinals. Last week we saw some surprising losses from Misfits and Fnatic, all of the top three teams dropped at least one game and Vitality and Schalke 04 have now caught up.

Misfits who seemed unstoppable earlier in the split have now lost three in a row while Schalke who had a stumbling start have won seven out of their last eight games. Form will be an important factor as we move in to week 8 of the European League of Legends Championship Series.

Team Vitality to Run Over H2k

Many have talked about Team Vitality as a potential top three team this split and after a disappointing start to they finally seem to have got the ball rolling. They’ve won their four last games and have a solid shot at cementing their place at the top of the table should they win both their games this weekend.

Their first match against Schalke 04 will be tough, but nobody expect H2k to be able to put up a fight against the in-form team. Thus the odds for a Vitality victory aren’t really worth gambling on. However top eSports betting sites are offering 13/8 for Vitality to take the first tower versus H2k which is almost hard to believe. They must have misjudged the game completely or a perhaps mistake has been on their part.

Even though H2k managed to defeat Splyce last weekend they’re still sitting on a 1-13 record while Vitality sits at a shared third place with 9-5. H2k has taken the first tower in 35.7% of their games compared to Vitality’s 64.3%, interestingly the same percentage as the amount of games they’ve won. That signifies the importance of a good early start and map control for Vitality and there’s little reason to believe Vitality shouldn’t be able to get that first tower and control the match from start to finish.

G2 Are Strong but Start Off Slow

There’s a couple of good bets on both of G2’s matches this weekend keeping in mind their unique playstyle. First off we’ll take a look at the encounter against Misfits where they have the chance to get ahead in the standings.

As we pointed out earlier; Misfits’ last two weeks have been abysmal compared to how they played the first half of the split. Their bottom lane with Hans Sama and Mikyx seems to have fallen off recently. Misfits has had a history of declining in the latter half of the split though since Spring Split 2017 but not this rapidly. With their current form however, G2 should be able to take them down just as Splyce and Giants did. 13/20 for a Misfits victory on Betway is a solid bet.

Second we’ll take a look at their match-up against Unicorns of Love. G2 is a strong team, no doubt, and are the favourites to win the match. But as stated earlier they have quite a unique playstyle where they often start off slow and let the other team be the first to get aggressive. They then try to counter-engage or split the map.

For a team that sits on shared third place a 22.2% first blood conversion rate is quite remarkable. It’s the second lowest in the league overall. Unicorns of Love, sitting at the 9th place in the table has managed to grab the first blood in 50% of their games which is very high considering they have quite a lot of losses. Unicorns of Love are the team to draw first blood for 6/5 at Bet365, which is a very good bet.

Schalke 04 Look Unstoppable

As the last recommended bet of the week a Schalke 04 victory versus Team Vitality for 17/25 is a good one. Schalke is the team to beat right now as they’ve only lost once in their last eight matches and that was against Fnatic, arguably the strongest overall team in the EU LCS.

Team Vitality are no pushovers, but as Amazing seems to have found his role within the team Schalke has transformed into a winning machine. They’re great at controlling the map and securing objectives and as long as they don’t allow Vitality to run away with the game early they should be able to see them off. Vitality’s playstyle is a bit more one-dimensional and they have to have that early lead to be able to win.