One of the big eSports competitions of the year gets serious this week, as the eight remaining teams in the LOL World Championships face off at the quarter-final stage. This is when esports betting at Cloudbet tends to get a little more interesting, as the outsiders begin to disappear and the teams with a realistic chance of winning come into contact with genuine rivals. That’s what we’ve been led to expect, anyway, but the European team Rogue lived up to their name in the group stages, qualifying in second place in their group at the expense of Chinese team Top Esports, who were unable to win any of their head-to-heads.
Top Esports had been considered among the top three contenders for the overall championship, so as well as being a fillip for Rogue, the elimination of the Chinese team has been a positive outcome for other contenders such as Gen.G Gaming from Korea, and Chinese favourites JD Gaming, who now have a theoretically easier passage to the final. With that said, Rogue are now in the last eight, and they are there on merit. So any team considering them an easy opponent in the knockouts would be well advised to remember that they’ve already seen off one team who thought that. Looking ahead to what’s in store, what are the narratives to look out for in the quarters?
Gen.G still favorites
The Korean team were ahead of the pack as favorites when the finals were drawn at the beginning of this month, and they’re still the bookies’ choice now. They’re certainly battle-hardened. They won five and lost one of their group matches, and were announced group winners after beating out Royal Never Give Up of China in a tie-break match, so they have certainly demonstrated an ability to win when it matters. From now on, it all matters. There’s every reason to think they could come through a decent half of the draw now, with closest contenders JD and T1 seeded to meet each other in the semi-finals.
JD Gaming next in line
Part of that, undoubtedly, is down to the fact that they have in theory the easiest quarter-final, the draw having paired them with Rogue – the only team in the last eight not hailing from Korea or China, countries which dominate this eSport. That’s being treated as a de facto bye to the semi-finals, which is somewhat insulting to Rogue, and it will be interesting to see how the odds change if JD come through the quarter-final less emphatically than expected. T1, their putative semi-final opponent, have performed well so far and are past winners at LOL Worlds.
T1 still hopeful
Most betting odds seem to confirm a suspicion that Gen.G are expected to face JD in the final, and that the Korean side have the upper hand, but only by a little. With that said, even if Gen.G do make it in their half of the draw, there’s no guarantee they’d be facing JD Gaming. T1 are the only one of the remaining teams that won both their outings against a fellow top seed, winning on both the red and blue sides against Edward Gaming. That could work psychologically in their favor both in the quarter-final against Royal Never Give Up, and whoever they might face in the semis. At the moment, they seem like a value bet, being much longer-priced than JD Gaming.