Boom! The Summer Split is upon us!
The action starts on Saturday, June 1st in North America (LCS) and Friday, June 7th in Europe (LEC). Due to time constraints and the potential length of this document, let’s just focus on the LCS and the LEC in this article.
Very soon, top online sportsbooks will have individual match odds as well as futures odds on who will end up as summer champions.
LCS Preview
Team Liquid waded through the Spring Playoffs to win it all. And despite having a rocky start in the 2019 MSI, they made it all the way to the Final but lost to G2 Esports 0-3.
Now Liquid is getting ready to enter seasonal play once more, along with their Spring Playoff participants, Team SoloMid, Cloud9 FlyQuest, Golden Guardians, and Echo Fox. So who else made the cut?
Let’s look at the Summer Split Roster
- [col type=”1_3″ class=””]
- 100 Thieves
- OpTic Gaming
- Clutch Gaming
- Counter Logic Gaming
- Echo Fox
- Fly Quest
- Golden Guardians
- Cloud9
- Team SoloMid
- Team Liquid
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The only reason we don’t have match odds yet is because the first weekend of battle has yet to be determined. We can bet on the fact that Team Liquid, Cloud9, and Team SoloMid will likely be favorites if they are not matched against each other in the first rounds of Week 1.
100 Thieves just barely made the cut. And unless we see some serious improvement on their part, we can expect to see them as underdogs in most situations. The Got one victory against Counter Logic Gaming and one Victory against the the Golden Guardians and were able to snag two away from Clutch Gaming. Since they split wins with CLS and GG in Spring, it’s likely that we will only see 100 Thieves listed as true favorites against Clutch and I doubt their odds will be super long.
Look for both OpTic and Counter Logic to put pressure on Echo Fox. Both will be vying for that top-6 spot and the talent gap is almost non-existent between those three.
When all is said and done, the Summer Split should be another three-way race between Liquid, Team SoloMid, and Cloud9.
LEC Preview
G2 Esports won the Spring edition and as you already know, also took the 2019 MSI and have proven their current dominance over their North American counterparts. Origen took Silver, while Fnatic fell into the Bronze medal category, but hey that’s still on the podium, so to speak.
LEC Summer Split Roster
- [col type=”1_3″ class=””]
- exceL Esports
- FC Schalke 04
- Misfits Gaming
- Rogue
- Team Vitality
- SK Gaming
- Splyce
- Fnatic
- Origen
- G2 Esports
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Rogue is easily the worst team in the LEC. They might be the worst team in both the LEC and LCS combined. If you are planning on betting against them in the summer split, you won’t find much value in straight-up winner odds (moneyline). With them, it will be about finding matches where they may be able to cover the spread … or totals, like UNDER 2.5 rounds. This could be profitable knowing that a lot of the time Rogue is going to lose 2-0.
I don’t expect G2 Esports dominance to stop. But they will again be challenged by both Fnatic and Origen. Splyce may even be in the picture again with Team Vitality close behind, chomping at the heals of Splyce and Fnatic. When all is said and done, the 2019 Summer split is going to be exciting! We should see at least 5 of the same 6 in the Summer Playoffs again. We could get a little shake-up with FC Shalke 04 or perhaps Misfits squeaking in.