LCS Proving Grounds 2021 Summer predictions – September 9

Esportbet brings you free League of Legends betting tips for a pair of LoL Championship Series (LCS) Proving Grounds 2021 Summer bouts on Thursday, September 9. Although not a high-profile tournament, the LCS Proving Grounds offers plenty of exciting fixtures and, most importantly, betting opportunities – two of which we will explore today.


Team Liquid Academy are expected to secure a dominant victory over Cloud9 Amateur on Thursday, which shouldn’t surprise anyone. While the offered LoL betting odds on Liquid are very short, they are more than fair considering this roster technically isn’t comprised of academy players.

Unlike Cloud9, who field players with little to no previous experience playing at a professional level, Team Liquid boast two well-known names in top laner Thomas “Jenkins” Tran and jungler Jonathan “Armao” Armao, who have both played in the LCS this season. While you could argue that two players can’t make much of a difference, the current meta heavily favours teams with a strong jungle-top duo that can create early pressure with Heralds – and that’s exactly what TL Academy have here.

The kill line for this match is set at 10.5, which might seem a bit high, but it should be more than achievable for Liquid. They completely obliterated Supernova last week (21-7), and while you could say that Supernova are weaker than Cloud9 Amateur, that doesn’t necessarily mean the latter side will fare any better.


Not to be confused with Cloud9 Amateur, Cloud9 Academy is a proper second-string team featuring players who have previously competed at pro level, including ADC Calvin “k1ng” Truong.

K1ng, alongside top laner Darshan “Darshan” Upadhyaya and jungler Shern “Shernfire” Cherng Tai, is one of the three players on the team with previous LCS experience, and he is one of the best academy players in his role. Stopping k1ng is one of the main win conditions for any team facing C9 Academy, although they have proven before that they can win via top lane as well.

100 Thieves Next are receiving a lot of respect in the betting markets, which is fair since the 100T organisation is known to produce outstanding talent. However, we have to keep in mind that they recently parted ways with several star players in support Alan “Busio” Cwalina, jungler Maximilian “Chad” Lisitsa, and top laner Noh “Gamsu” Yeong-jin, who left for the academy roster in August.

Without that trio, 100T Next will struggle. That was already evident in their last outing against Wildcard Gaming Red when 100T Next averaged -4984 Gold Difference at 15 minutes (GD@15), -30.3 Average Gold Spent Percentage Difference (GSPD), and -4.54 Gold Percent Rating (GPR). As such, we are taking C9 to cover the kill line.