It’s moving week in the NA LCS this week. This is the final week before the top four European teams come over to take on the top four North American teams at Rift Rivals. As such, there will be no NA LCS action next week, so this will be the last chance teams have to make up some ground on leaders Echo Fox and Team Liquid prior to the break.
The time off also means that North America is likely to be playing on a new patch two weeks from now, and there are likely to be major changes. If any team has been saving a unique strategy or draft, it is likely to come out on Saturday.
2018 NA LCS Summer Split Week 3 Betting Odds (Courtesy of BetDSI)
Team SoloMid -179
Cloud9 +130
Cloud9’s changes have not gone over well with its loyal fanbase. The pressure has been mounting to bring Jensen, Sneaky, and Smoothie back into the starting line-up, and we may see Cloud9 finally make the change this week. Sneaky and Smoothie have been playing very well in the team’s Academy matches and deserve their spots in the starting lineup back, while Keith and Zeyzal have not made much of an impact.
This would be the perfect time to bring the old guard back into the lineup. Team SoloMid’s bottom lane did not look sharp last week, and even stalwarts Hauntzer and Bjergsen had a bad game. Cloud9 needs to change things up and can’t let itself get in too big of a hole.
Team Liquid -159
Echo Fox +117
Liquid is picking up right where they left off in spring. However, it has not been the Doublelift show through the first four games of the season. Top laner Impact has been the team’s star, with great performances on Aatrox, Singed, and Renekton. Pobelter has performed well in his traditional support role in the mid lane too, and he continues to be one of the unsung heroes of the NA LCS.
I expect Echo Fox to pull off the upset here though. Echo Fox has the best top laner in the region in Huni, and they have been more proactive than any other team on Patch 8.11 and 8.12. They will have something special cooked up to shut down Liquid and will be all alone in first place at the end of the day.
100 Thieves -152
Clutch Gaming +118
Throughout the past year, the most impressive player has been Febiven. I have gushed over his skill repeatedly, and he has performed well in the summer. In this game, he will be going against Ryu, a mid laner who has had some problems adapting to this meta. Febiven will be able to jump on Ryu early and lead Clutch Gaming to a victory in this one.
FlyQuest -109
Golden Guardians -116
It’s a bit curious that these teams are considered relatively even according to the oddsmakers. Golden Guardians were seen as the worst team in the NA LCS coming into the Summer Split, but they haven’t played like it. They have looked like a middle of the pack team, while FlyQuest has looked abysmal through the first four games. I’ll go with Golden Guardians here.
Counter Logic Gaming -200
OpTic Gaming +145
This is my upset of the week. OpTic has looked much improved this summer. Replacing dhokla with allorim in the top lane seems to have paid off, and they would be sitting at 3-1 if not for a bad call in their loss to FlyQuest. They should not be this much of an underdog to a mediocre CLG team.
