EU LCS Week 3 – Day 2 Tips – Giants Shrinking

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Team Vitality (2/7 bet365, betfair and Coral) vs. Giants (11/4 William Hill) – 19:00 CET
Both Vitality and Giants come into this match looking to put a game 1 defeat behind them and end week 3 on a high, as both teams suffered fairly convincing defeats. Vitality seem to be a benchmark for the top teams, as they are only ever beaten by the other highly skilled teams, whereas Giants sit winless at the bottom of the LCS and have been struggling to even threaten a win so far.

We expect this to be a very comfortable game for Vitality, and on a day of what is expected to be mostly one sided affairs, this is one of the safest bets. Giants simply do not have the raw talent to match up to Vitality in any position other than mid, and do not seem to have developed their poor macro play from last season either. They will be hoping the switch up in the jungle is simply taking a little bit of time to bear fruit, but it doesn’t seem likely. With all the firepower Vitality have, particularly in the side lanes, expect them to comfortably take the win here versus Giants Gaming.

Recommended bet:
Team Vitality to win at 2/7 with bet365, betfair and Coral (1.28)

Unicorns of Love (21/20 betfair) vs. G2 Esports (4/5 bet365, betfair and Coral – 20:00 CET
This game was already going to be an interesting one between two of the strongest teams out of the gate in the EU LCS, but with the growing storylines it now becomes even better. Unicorns of Love did not break stride despite losing veteran jungle presence Diamondprox, with substitute Djoko posting an incredibly impressive 0 – 0 – 11 on Rek’Sai in their win over Elements. G2 continued their impressive LCS debut with a very impressive stomp over Fnatic, finishing the game in only 23 minutes, with Perkz and Emperor providing the majority of the heavy lifting. This clash comes at the end of the first third of LCS regular season play, and it seems a fitting time for it to happen.

The matchup between the two teams is an interesting one, but the differing strengths in these two teams are apparent in their day two matches; the mid and bot lane for G2, with the top lane being a stronger focus for Unicorns of Love. We expect to see UoL take an interest in getting Vizicsacsi rolling early against Kikis, as the one real question mark for G2 has been their top laner. His laning phase is shaky at best, and often Kikis has struggled to make in impact in teamfights even with a decent lead. Considering G2’s strong jungle presence as well, we may see UoL opt for a lane swap here to take some of the sting out of G2’s aggressive early pressure. For G2, the game plan is simple; win mid and bot, snowball to victory. This is the real issue for G2, the fact they haven’t been pushed out of their comfort zone yet this season and have played the same style to accrue all of their wins. Hopefully we can see UoL stretch G2, and considering the odds offered by betfair on the Unicorns (21/20) in a game where all other bookies are putting the two teams very close, we would opt for a punt on UoL here.

Recommended bet:
Unicorns of Love to win at 21/20 with betfair (2.05)

By: Arron “King Dempz” Dempsey – @arrondempers