LoL Mid-Season Invitational Day 1 betting tips – 6/5/2021

ESB’s free League of Legends betting tips for Thursday focus on six bouts from the 2021 Mid-Season Invitational group stage. Here are our best bets for the opening day of play at the first LoL international tournament of the year, with odds courtesy of BetOnline.



DWG KIA are the most fundamentally sound team in the world, boasting some of the best players in each position. Their biggest strength, however, is the ability to play against their opponents rather than having their own set style.

Any team can look bad when compared to DWG KIA, so it wouldn’t be fair to say Cloud9 are no good. But while they were the best team in the LoL Championship Series (LCS) during the spring, it’s not like they romped to the title unopposed.

C9 rely way too much on Luka “Perkz” Perković and Robert “Blaber” Huang to do all the heavy lifting. That might have earned them good results domestically, but it won’t work against the likes of DWG KIA, who can and will exploit their weaknesses elsewhere.



The Liga Latinoamérica (LLA) has become a much stronger league since it combined Latin America’s North and South competitions a few years back, but the quality of play is still miles off the world’s strongest domestic competitions. For that reason, we don’t rank Infinity Esports too highly, but there are arguments to be made that they are stronger than Detonation FocusMe.

DFM are the strongest team from Japan, but that doesn’t mean much when there is only one other team in the region – Rascal Jester – that can match them. As such, they have not evolved and rely on outplaying their opponents on individual talent rather than winning via strong macro play.

Detonation are your typical ‘win lane, win game’ team and rarely show anything outside of that. If they step up on the individual level, DFM could see some success in Iceland, but they lack too much in other areas for us to trust them.



Although the Oceanic teams aren’t terrible in international competitions, you can’t make a case for Pentanet.gg when faced with the reigning LoL Pro League (LPL) champions. No matter which way you slice it, the skill gap between the two leagues is simply too great.

Royal Never Give Up are a class or two above all wildcard regions and would have to severely underperform for this match to be even remotely close. This should be an easy win for the Chinese representatives, but that doesn’t mean Pentanet.gg are a lost cause in other matchups.



Even though the CIS teams usually do well internationally, Unicorns of Love haven’t been as dominant domestically this year as they were in 2020. UoL struggled a bit after the departure of Ilya “Gadget” Makavchuk due to communication issues with their new ADC Antonio “Frappii” Botezatu, although that problem was soon fixed with the signing of Stanislav “Lodik” Kornelyuk.

While UoL looked better in the LoL Continental League (LCL) playoffs, we don’t quite agree with the esports betting sites that have them as -285.71 favourites for this fixture. The Oceanic region has delivered talented players in recent years, and with the success Pentanet.gg have had this season in the LoL Circuit Oceania (LCO), they should do relatively well against other wildcard representatives.

Pentanet.gg are a fundamentally solid team, which should work well against the aggressive style of UoL. As a best-of-one (Bo1) match, there is a serious chance for an upset at odds.



On paper, paiN Gaming look very good, but it’s important to understand that their numbers are a bit inflated due to the style of play in the Campeonato Brasileiro de League of Legends (CBOLO). That’s not to say that Brazilian LoL matches aren’t entertaining, but you would be hard-pressed to find quality gameplay.

Istanbul Wildcats hail from the Turkish Championship League (TCL), which is a league that has done well on the international scene in recent years. The competition in the TCL is much tougher than in most other wildcard leagues, which is basically all you need to know when comparing these two sides.

We don’t believe Istanbul can make it far in Iceland, but they should win games like this with relative ease.



PSG Talon had to replace their starting ADC Wong “Unified” Chun Kit – who suffered a collapsed lung – with Chiu “Doggo” Tzu-Chuan, which obviously isn’t ideal, but that doesn’t justify the latest LoL betting odds. The LoL Pacific Championship Series (PCS) is a strong league that doesn’t get the acknowledgement it deserves, and that might explain why Talon are viewed as the weaker side.

MAD Lions are a very momentum-driven team that can play extremely well when they hit their peak, but most of the time they’re mediocre – largely because their bottom lane likes to coin-flip. If MAD show up, they’ll win, but we like PSG Talon’s consistency better.