League of Legends World Championship 2019 Play-In Group Stage Odds

• Round one of the League of Legends World Championship Play-In Stage gets underway on October 3rd
• Clutch Gaming, Splyce and DAMWON Gaming are all heavily favored to win their respective groups
• The top two teams from each group will advance to the second round of the Play-In Stage which begins on October 7th

The Play-Ins for the 2019 League of Legends World Championship consists of 12 teams that are divided into four groups. Eight teams will qualify for the knockout stage, also known as round 2,  where teams compete in a best of five to advance to the main event.

Group A Odds

All odds taken 09/30/19.

As are most of the groups, Group A looks pretty clear-cut. The third seed out of the LCS, Clutch Gaming, are heavy favorites to win this group. They didn’t have a spectacular regular season, however, they completely turned things around in time for the Regionals Finals. They took down Flyquest, CLG and TSM enroute to locking up NA’s third seed.

Their toughest competition will be the Unicorns of Love from the CIS. In their very first season in the LCL, the Unicorns qualified for Worlds with playoff wins over Elements Pro Gaming and Vega Squadron. With legendary support player Edward on the roster, this team will have a veteran leading the way on the Worlds Stage.

MAMMOTH is the OPL representative. Last year we saw the Dire Wolves from the OPL fail to make it into the knockout stage at Worlds. If MAMMOTH were in a group that didn’t include the Unicorns of Love, then maybe they’d advance to round 2. But as it stands, Clutch and UoL should qualify fairly easily, with the Unicorns having a small chance of upsetting Clutch for first.

Picks: To Qualify – Clutch (-50000), Unicorns of Love (-700),  To Win Group – Clutch (-1000)

Group B Odds

Group B looks like it’ll have a fairly clear-cut winner, but the battle for second will be fierce. Splyce should have little issue winning this group as Europe’s third seed. On a grander scale though, it’s hard to tell how good Splyce is. They’re the third best team in Europe but they can’t compete against the likes of G2 and Fnatic. Even still, Splyce is miles ahead of the rest of the group.

Detonation FocusMe is Japan’s top team and they were able to defeat Kabum esports in 2018 to advance to round 2. This team has been in this very situation before and shown they have what it takes to advance.

To do so they’ll have to defeat Isurus Gaming. Isurus has a couple of international veterans in Oddie and Seiya from when they were a part of Lyon Gaming and Rainbow7. Isurus cruised through the LLA playoffs only losing a single game but I predict that they’ll fall short to Detonation FocusMe.

Picks: To Qualify – Splyce (-100000), Detonation FocusMe (-EVEN), To Win Group – Splyce (-10000)

Group C Odds

The LMS isn’t as strong as they once were. This isn’t a region that will consistently pull off upsets against SKT any longer. Still, Hong Kong Attitude look to be the favorites in Group C. They came up just short of reaching the finals in the Summer playoffs but they didn’t drop a single game in their run through the regional finals.

Lowkey Esports is an extremely interesting team out of Vietnam. Although they couldn’t compete with GAM Esports who are already in the Main Event, Lowkey Esports had no issues running through the loser’s bracket to earn the second VCS spot at Worlds. We’ve seen upsets from the Gigabyte Marines in the past, and this group definitely has a chance of being taken by the VCS representatives.

Unfortunately for MEGA, their odds of qualifying are quite poor. The SEA representative last year, Ascension Gaming, went 0-4 in the group stage and that’ll likely be the same result for MEGA this year.

Picks: To Qualify – Hong Kong Attitude (-10000), Lowkey Esports (-8000), To Win Group – Lowkey Esports (+130)

Group D Odds

DAMWON will win group D without a doubt. There’s a reason for their -100000 odds, and the third seed from the LCK will have no issues winning this group.

A lot of people were expecting Supermassive to be the representatives from Turkey but Royal Youth took the spot from them with a 3-2 win in the TCL grand finals.

With Korean AD Carry, Pilot, on their roster, Royal Youth should be favored over the Brazilian squad of Flamengo. Brazilian teams have historically not fared too well on the Worlds Stage. In 2018, Kabum failed to qualify for the knockout stage. With bot laner BRTT, Flamengo has a chance to find glory in the first round, but I’d bet on the top Turkish team to take care of the CBLOL representative.

Picks: To Qualify – DAMWON Gaming (-100000), Lowkey Esports (-450), To Win Group – DAMWON GAMING (-100000)