Some of the biggest off-season moves have come from Invictus Gaming, LNG Esports and JD Gaming. Invictus Gaming have added a new head coach, assistant coach, coach, jungler and mid-laner for the upcoming season after an underwhelming 13th-place finish in the LPL Summer 2022 split. LNG Esports acquired a new AD carry, support and top-laner, however, their biggest addition was in the mid-lane where they signed, World Championship winner and LPL legend, Lee “Scout” Ye-chan, who made the move from Edward Gaming after five years.

JD Gaming also made changes during the offseason, with their long-time mid-laner Zeng “Yagao” Qi and AD Carry Wang “Hope” Jie leaving a big hole in two key lanes for the team. However, the JD Gaming organisation made two massive signings, with one being Zhuo “knight” Ding from Top Esports and the other being the legendary LCK AD carry, Park “Ruler” Jae-hyuk from Gen.G.

Many esports betting sites have JD Gaming as their clear favourite at $2.50, followed by Top Esports ($4.00) and Royal Never Give Up ($5.00).

LPL Spring 2023 Top Tip – JD Gaming

Our top tip for the LPL Spring split will be the favourites, JD Gaming, as they have improved significantly since their LPL Summer 2022 success and semi-final exit at Worlds 2022. The addition of Zhou “knight” Ding from rivals Top Esports, who had the highest KDA of 10 during the LPL Summer 2022 regular season, should bolster their mid-lane dominance going forward. Even though adding knight seems to be a massive coup, the second of the new signings, Park “Ruler” Jae-hyuk, is set to be one of the biggest player moves across the international League of Legends professional scene.

Ruler, much like knight, recorded the top KDA of 7.6 in the LCK Summer 2022 split when playing for the LCK Summer 2022 champions, Gen.G. Ruler is one of the best AD carry’s in the world and he won the 2017 World Championship with Samsung Galaxy before making the move to Gen.G and playing for the Korean juggernaut for over five years.

These two signing for JD Gaming makes them a clear favourite, especially when you add the fact that they are the reigning LPL champions. We aren’t getting much value with the $2.50 on offer with GG Bet, but when you consider that Top Esports, Edward Gaming, Ninjas in Pyjamas and Royal Never Give Up have undergone big roster changes, it is hard to see them challenging JDG this split.

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Victory Five got off to a fast start to the summer split, picking up four straight victories while dropping just one map (8-1). That might not sound too impressive given the team’s status, but they won against the reigning Mid-Season Invitational champions Royal Never Give Up (2-1) on Saturday and stomped FunPlus Phoenix (2-0) a few days prior.

What’s interesting is that V5 looked a bit off in some of their wins against weaker teams, but overall they’re playing much better than in LPL 2022 Spring (stat-wise). Last split, V5 had to count on Song “Rookie” Eui-jin to bail them out from some sticky situations, but without him, it seems like everyone else is stepping up – which is scary.

We won’t spend too many words on Team WE, who are possibly the weakest team in the league. But that’s hardly surprising considering how underwhelming WE have been over the last few splits.

The biggest issue we have with Team WE is their inability to do anything meaningful in the first 20 minutes, and if you cannot show some teeth early against V5, you’re doomed from the start. Nothing fancy here – we’ll trust Victory Five to sweep Team WE, as they should.

LNG Esports might be a very stacked team, but we have some concerns about this squad, mainly due to their questionable neutral objective setup and lack of vision control. You can still trust LNG to defeat lesser teams by brute-forcing games and counting on individual talent to lead them to glory. But against teams such as Top Esports, they’ll need to show a bit more.

Top Esports sit inside the top three in the league standings, and they’ll likely remain there for a while longer. This is an elite-level team that can do serious damage domestically and internationally, but there’s something about how TES like to play that makes them very hit-or-miss.

Aggression is TES’s name of the game (14.8 average kills – 3rd-most in LPL), and they’re fairly consistent in gaining leads either through kills or neutral objectives (62.5% dragon control, 61.1% Baron control). However, we saw them stumble against FunPlus Phoenix (2-1), so it’s entirely likely that they drop a map on Tuesday knowing that LNG are stronger than FPX.

As flawed as LNG Esports are, they need to win and have enough talent to compete against LPL’s best. This is more of a “you can do it” angle, but at $1.90, we’ll trust LNG to force a three-map series.

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Most people are very high on LNG Esports and after their win against Bilibili Gaming on Sunday, LNG Esports surely deserve some recognition. But they would have nevertheless, due to the immensely talented players on the roster, yet LNG also have their problems, namely poor setup around neutral objectives.

It might have something to do with poor communication, but that’s something LNG can fix with time. It might take them until late this season, but LNG could be dangerous if things fall into place.

Anyone’s Legend stunned Rare Atom (2-0) on Saturday, which was surprising. As a team that used to rely way too much on kills to get gold, Anyone’s Legend showed some improvement, but we would be careful not to overreact to one result. Moreover, you could say that Anyone’s Legend won not because they placed well but because Rare Atom played poorly.

The only reasonable bet at the offered LoL betting odds is LNG Esports with a -1.5 map handicap. Admittedly, the teams clearly aren’t comfortable in the current meta yet, but LNG Esports are just a far more complete team with a significantly better mid-jungle duo who will be too much to handle for Anyone’s Legend.

ThunderTalk Gaming acquired Yoon “Hoya” Yong-ho as the new top laner earlier this month from DWG KIA, which might not seem like a big deal, but Hoya is not a bad player. Admittedly, he is much better on tanks and is not your typical carry player, but he’s excellent on the weak side.

And given how the meta is shaping up, TT Gaming’s signing might be a sneakily good move. Besides Hoya, TT Gaming also got their hands on former FunPlus Phoenix jungler Yang “Beichuan” Ling, who is not great, but definitely an above-average jungler who doesn’t have an ego. We don’t believe that the new signings make TT Gaming a good team, but they now have the talent to be more than a bottom-tier squad.

Unfortunately, that likely won’t be enough to defeat Victory Five, who are one of the main favourites to win the LPL crown and rightly so. Other teams have a higher ceiling, but V5 won the LPL 2022 Spring regular season and placed third in the playoffs. And there is nothing that would suggest they won’t be just as dangerous in the summer split.

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www.grivaschess.com have previewed Wednesday’s League of Legends series and provided our best bets for each contest.

Last time they met: Top Esports (3) defeated Victory Five (2) in the first round of the upper bracket finals. TES completed the reverse sweep over V5 after they lost the first two maps and then won the last three. The MVP of the series was TES mid-laner, Zhuo “knight” Ding, after he compiled a series-best 6.4KDA and only died four times in their three wins over the last three maps.

Top Esports tasted their first defeat in the 2022 LPL Spring playoffs when they lost their last series 3-1 to Royal Never Give Up in the upper bracket final. Before that loss, TES had not lost a series in the playoffs recording wins against Bilibili Gaming (3-1), LNG Esports (3-0) and Victory Five (3-2), and they were the hottest team in the LPL.

TES have the wood over Victory Five in recent times after they beat them 3-2 in what started off as a close first two maps, but then TES took over and blew V5 away in the fourth and fifth map with both games only lasting 27 and 28 minutes. If TES plays the same way they played in map four and five last series against V5 in this series coming up, they could easily blow V5 away in this lower bracket final.

Victory Five have only played two series so far in the LPL Spring playoffs and they have a fifty-fifty record, with a loss to Top Esports (3-2) and a win over JD Gaming (3-1). V5 finished the regular season with the best record of 14-2 and finished as the top seed two games clear of second seed Royal Never Give Up. V5 will have been very disappointed in their first series loss to Top Esports conceding the reverse sweep but they were quite impressive in the last three maps against JD Gaming after losing the first map which was very close to going either way.

Victory Five beat JD Gaming for the first time throughout the split last series after losing to them during the regular season, meaning they only have a losing record to one team, Weibo Gaming, in the 2022 LPL Spring split. However, V5 beat TES during the regular season 2-1 in a tight series, but TES turned the table on V5 in the playoffs which leaves the series win totals at one win each heading into this third series between one another. V5 will need to be much better than they were in those last three games against TES last time and still even better than they were against JD Gaming otherwise they will be going home.

Top Esports will go into this series with confidence after they were able to dismantle V5 in their most recent five map series, specifically in the last three maps. V5 won’t want to go home before the Grand Final after finishing as the top seed and Top Esports will want to make it the Grand Final for another chance to beat Royal Never Give Up.

Therefore, this game should be going all the way to five maps here and that is our suggested bet. Over 4.5 maps is $2.62 with GG Bet.

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The first round series of the lower bracket will bring us a BO5 between Victory Five and JD Gaming. V5, who finished the regular season as the number one seed and with a 14-2 record, fell to the rampant Top Esports 3-2 in their first round playoff series. Whilst JDG, the third seed with an 11-5 record, were ultimately defeated by Royal Never Give Up in a tight series 3-2.

Last time they met: JD Gaming defeated Victory Five 2-0 in week seven. JD Gaming took down Victory Five in dominant fashion with some outstanding team-fighting and great individual gameplay by their support and AD carry in the bottom lane.

Victory Five were on the receiving end of the most feared way to lose in any sport, the reverse sweep. They took the first two maps against Top Esports and were cruising into the upper bracket final, but then Top Esports went on to win the next three maps completing the reverse sweep.

There seems to be a trend that is working to beat V5 during the back end of the LPL Spring split. If you can ban the champion ‘Orianna’ during the pick and ban phase and take her away from V5’s mid-laner Song “Rookie” Eui-jin, you will have a much better chance of beating V5. “Rookie” has a 100% win rate when he plays ‘Orianna’, therefore we are sure JDG will definitely ban her, much like they did when they beat V5 2-0 in the regular season.

JD Gaming were also on the receiving end of a reverse sweep against the number two seed Royal Never Give Up, where JDG won the first two maps in very close game. However, then RNG went on to win games three, four and five quite quickly to take the series. Once RNG banned the ‘Lee-Sin’ away from JDG’s jungler Seo “Kanavi” Jin-hyeok, it seemed that they finally had gained an advantage and therefore ran away with the series.

JDG were on a seven series win streak before their loss to RNG in the first round of the upper bracket, having beaten Weibo Gaming in their last regular season series and their round of six series to make the upper bracket and final four. JD Gaming will have to find the form that saw them finish the regular season as one of the hottest teams in the LPL and what saw them sweep Victory Five in week seven, to once again get past the top seed in this series.

One of JDG and V5 will be eliminated after this series, with either the top seed or the third seed going home. We believe that the top team in the LPL, V5, will bounce back in this series, but it still won’t be enough to beat JDG. JDG in the win market is currently $2.37 with the top esport betting sites and that is great value for the outsiders.

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VICTORY FIVE vs TOP ESPORTS LoL BETTING & MATCH DETAILS

?The LoL Pro League is now starting to heat up with only four teams left in the running for the 2022 LPL Spring championship. The first upper bracket series bring us the number one seed out of the regular season, Victory Five, and the number five seed, Top Esports, this coming Tuesday. These two teams will enter the final four of the LPL Spring Playoffs as the two form teams. Victory Five have only lost two series all split and 11 maps for the whole split. Whilst Top Esports have won their last 12 games in a row over the end of the regular season and playoffs.

Victory Five finished the regular season as the number one seed with a 14-2 record, therefore going straight through to the upper bracket final four playoff. Victory Five has had an incredible split so far and they have only lost 11 maps out of their 40 total, winning seven of their 14 wins by in 2-0 sweeps. The one problem that Victory Five may have is that they haven’t played a competitive game in the LPL since the 23rd of March making it more than two weeks of sitting on the side lines waiting for their opponent.

Victory Five have been so good in this split and there is no doubt that their mid-laner and AD carry have been the reasons why. Victory Five’s mid-laner, Song “Rookie” Eui-jin and their AD carry, Ying “Photic” Qi-Shen, have been outstanding throughout the regular season with “Rookie” compiling a 5.7 KDA with a team-high 71% kill participation. Whereas for “Photic”, he recorded the third highest KDA in the entire LPL with a 6.4 KDA. If Victory Five are going to beat Top Esports and progress to the upper bracket final continuing their incredible season, they will need “Rookie” and “Photic” to keep up their own individual performances.

Top Esports are without doubt the red hot team coming into these upper bracket playoffs. They have won 12 straight series coming out of the regular season and through these playoffs so far. They finished the regular season with an 11-5 record and have beaten Bilibili Gaming 3-1 and LNG Esports 3-0 in their two series on their way to the upper bracket. Top Esports were near perfect in their last playoff series against LNG Esports winning the series 3-0 and even winning their second game in only 25 minutes.

As we mentioned in our preview for the Top Esports vs LNG Esports series, Zhuo “Knight” Ding and Yu “JackeyLove” Wen-Bo are the catalyst for Top Esports success. Those two in the mid lane and bottom lane, have been outstanding all split and they were no less than outstanding against LNG Esports. “JackeyLove” finished the three game series with a KDA of 8 and “Knight” finished with a massive 15 KDA. If “Knight” and “JackeyLove” are allowed to control the game and have this much influence for Top Esports, then it will be difficult for Victory Five to beat Top Esports.

Victory Five and Top Esports have the longest game recorded for the 2022 LPL Spring split with one of their games going for 53 minutes in their only series that they have played, where Victory Five won the series 2-1. The over 4.5 maps market is sitting at $2.62 with GG Bet, which is great value for what looks to be a very tight series.

?LGD Gaming enter this match off a shock 2-1 victory against RareAtom on Monday, yet their chances of entering the LPL Spring 2021 playoffs remain slim to none. Their next opponents, Oh My God, are already eliminated from the playoff race, and it would be hard to argue they deserve to be placed higher than where they are.

OMG have managed only two wins in 13 games and hold a -15 map differential (8-23), which is good for 14th-place on the ladder. They looked decent last week when they forced Team WE to three maps (1-2), but outside of that, they have not shown anything worth mentioning.

While we don’t believe LGD are as strong as their fluke win against RareAtom might suggest, they are still playing cleaner LoL than OMG. At these odds, siding with LGD is a no-brainer.

It is very difficult to find a reason to bet on Victory Five for this match. Even though the underdog odds at online bookmakers are very appealing, siding against Top Esports in the form they are in now would be like throwing money out of the window.

Since Top are not immune to dropping maps against weaker opponents, we will look beyond the map handicap in this contest. V5 to secure at least 7.5 kills is paying $1.77, which seems very generous considering they have averaged 9.5 kills in their losses and at least 8.0 kills in all but two of their last six maps.

What’s more, V5 boast the highest drake (57.4%) and Baron control (67.5%) percentages in the league, so there is some value in backing them to secure the first drake as well. The first Baron bet might seem appealing, but we predict V5 will fall too far behind before the 20-minute mark to be able to contest it.

?Oh My God have yet to impress this season, so it is hard to trust them with our money. At the same time, we are not too high on Victory Five either, even though they are a better team than their recent results would appear to suggest.

Instead of picking a winner for this match, we will explore the total kills market at LoL betting sites. V5 are averaging 13 kills and 13.4 deaths per game, whereas OMG’s averages show 10.4 kills and 15.2 deaths. Assuming V5 will win, we must also note they produce 15.6 kills and 5.8 deaths in wins, whereas OMG average 7.6 kills and 16 deaths in their losses.

Neither side averages more than 0.82 kills per minute, while the average game time for both is under 31 minutes. With those numbers, betting on fewer than 25.5 kills in the first map is a no-brainer pick for us.

Rogue Warriors enter Week 6 of LPL Spring 2021 with only one win from their last eight outings and an equally disappointing 2-15 map record. It wouldn’t be wrong to say RW are the weakest team in the region, but that does not necessarily mean we should ignore them.

Up to the Chinese Lunar New Year break, almost 30% of LPL games ended in an underdog win, with favourites failing to cover the handicap in 47% of fixtures. On that form, backing an underdog at this price can hardly be regarded as a bad choice.

We do not believe Rogue Warriors are stronger than Royal Never Give Up, but this is a value bet you simply cannot pass on. Alternatively, a +1.5 line bet on RW is worth considering as well.

Team WE got off to an excellent start of the season, having reached the grand finals of the League of Legends Demacia Cup in December to which they added a clean 2-0 victory against Rogue Warriors on Sunday. Victory Five, on the other hand, have yet to play a single match this split, but it’s hard to look past their quarter-finals run at the Demacia Cup.

Quality-wise, Team WE are a more stacked team, but V5 are not to be ignored, largely due to their talented jungle-mid duo in Wei “Weiwei” Bo-Han and Li “Mole” Hao-Yan.

We can’t say for sure how high V5 can fly, but with so many talented players on the team, their ceiling is much higher than it may seem. We expect Team WE to come out ahead, but this won’t be a one-sided affair.

LNG Esports have yet to make any noise in the LPL since their debut in 2019 and we don’t expect that to change this split. The only positive we can say about LNG is their talented bottom lane duo in ADC Wang “Light” Guang-Yu and Liao “Iwandy” Ding-Yang, but outside of that, LNG simply can’t compare to the LPL’s top dogs.

Another big offseason story was the signing of a veteran jungler jungler Lee “Tarzan” Seung-yong, but he’s past his prime so it’s hard to view him as a major upgrade.

Invictus Gaming tore apart the LPL 2020 Spring champions JD Gaming in their season opener thanks to a phenomenal performance from their mid laner Song “Rookie” Eui-jin and jungler Peng “XUN” Li-Xun. That, however, was only a taste of what IG are capable of and while it’s unclear how far they can go this year, one thing is for certain – IG should not struggle against LNG.

League of Legends Nerfs and Buffs

As we’re heading to the League of Legends World Championship in a couple of weeks, Riot Games have announced patch 10.19. The release will launch around the same time Worlds start.

The nerfs and buffs will be minor, but the changes will impact the qualifying teams. Regardless of how small, any adjustments have a massive effect when you’re playing at such a high level.

The patch is scheduled to go live on September 15, giving the Worlds qualifiers a week and a half to get used to the changes. Senna, Caitlyn, Talon, and others will be nerfed, while Sylas and Aphelios are two of the eight that will receive a buff.

Asia

Jackson Wang teams up with Victory Five

Jackson Wang is joining the many other celebrities that have taken a keen interest in the esports industry. During the Victory Five home stadium opening ceremony, the organization announced a partnership with Team Holding.

Team Holding is owned by Jackson Wang, a well-known rapper, singer, and dancer in Hong Kong. Other international celebrities such as Post Malone, David Beckham, and Heechul have invested in esports in recent months as the industry grows.

Victory Five have also announced a partnership with Shenzhen Media Group, which will see the organization move headquarters to Shenzhen.

Africa

African countries added to International Esports Federation

The International Esports Federation recently announced the addition of eight new member nations. Mauritania, Libya, and the six other countries push the membership tally up to 82. It’s an impressive growth, as the federation was founded in 2008 with only nine countries.

Boban Totovski, IESF Board Member and Secretariat Director, is reportedly pleased with the recent additions, but many others are still applying. He commented that the new members would build and strengthen the unity mission that they started.

The other new members are Slovenia, Monaco, Jordan, Chile, Ecuador, and Luxembourg.

Europe

HenryG brings kassad to Cloud9

Henry “HenryG” Greer recently announced his retirement as a CS: GO caster, but he has since joined Cloud9 as the team’s general manager. The news comes after C9 said they would be making significant changes to their Counter-Strike roster.

HenryG’s first acquisition is Aleksandar “kassad” Trifunovic, who takes over as head coach. The Serbian tactician is best known for his time at the helm of Renegades and 100 Thieves, with whom he parted ways in April.

South America

BTS Pro Series 3 Americas is Underway

The third season of the Beyond the Summit Pro Series is underway as Quincy Crew look to defend their title.

As the things stand, beastcoast hold first place in the group stage with a series record of 3-1-0. However, Peru’s Infamous are close behind. The race to the top will be tight this season as Evil Geniuses aren’t participating.

Thunder Predator, Team Brasil, and Infinity Esports will also be looking to take the Dota 2 championship home and represent the South American region this time around.

Oceania

Australia invited to Rainbow Six World Cup finals

Ubisoft announced during the week that they would be hosting a World Cup tournament for Rainbow Six Siege. In total, 45 countries and regions will participate, but only 14 received direct invitations to the finals, Australia being one of them.