LoL LCS Lock-In betting picks & predictions – January 16

ESB’s betting previews for Saturday focus on the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) Lock-In tournament. Our LoL betting expert has provided us with his insight, predictions and best odds courtesy of the top esports betting sites.

Immortals enter the 2021 LCS season with four new members on their squad including three ex-OG (now Astralis) members in jungler Andrei “Xerxe” Dragomir, support Mitchell “Destiny” Shaw and coach André “Guilhoto” Guilhoto.

Even though they have not signed any big names, Immortals’ rebuild project looks fairly promising and while we don’t believe they can achieve any remarkable heights, it’s not unlikely they might drag their way into in the playoffs.

Evil Genuises have made quite a few drastic changes to their roster as well, and like it’s the case with IMT, their new squad does not look all that bad. The only issue we have with EG is that most of their players – namely Daniele “Jiizuke” di Mauro – are very volatile, effectively making EG one of the most unpredictable teams in this LOL league.

EG should win this match, but at $1.37, they’re not worth a bet, especially so early into the season. Over 25.5 kills is the safest bet to take here, both due to the current fast-paced meta and the fact that neither team is known for a slow-paced playstyle.

With all due respect, Golden Guardians are by far the weakest team in the league, whereas we would have no issues ranking Team SoloMid amongst the top-four, so it’s easy to see how this game should go.

There is a world where GG grow and emerge as playoffs contenders down the line, but we can’t expect much from them in the first split of the season.

The main reason why we are not too high on GG is the lack of star players and questionable quality of their rookie squad. Although we must give them some praise for trying to put together a more development-oriented project, the execution was not all that good.

TSM’s raw quality alone should be enough to make this match a very one-sided one. Unlike GG, they field world-class players, which should be enough for a comfortable win.

Both teams are well-coached and should have a solid macro play, so the best way to approach predicting this match is comparing the players lane-by-lane. Starting in the top lane, FlyQuest should have an advantage, namely because Ibrahim “Fudge” Allami is an unproven player whereas Eric “Licorice” Ritchie is easily one of the best top laners in the league.

Moving down to the jungle role, we could give C9 an edge, but if we consider Brandon “Josedeodo” Joel Villegas’s performances at 2020 LoL World Championship, there is a world where FlyQuest can at least go even in that matchup. Much of the same holds true for the bottom lane, largely due to Johnson “Johnsun” Nguyen’s incredible growth as a player in 2020, although we are a bit concerned with the quality of his support.

The biggest quality gap can be found in the mid lane where we are giving Cristian “Palafox” Palafox zero to no chance of defeating Luka “Perkz” Perkovi?. Letting Perkz establish his lane kingdom will be more than enough for C9 to secure a win, but we don’t expect a large kill lead.