Team Liquid vs 100 Thieves

100 Thieves dropped the ball -- hard. There's no denying it. Losing to Dignitas QNTMPAY (in 0:2 fashion, no less) is simply unacceptable for a team as stacked as they are. But it's also ludicrous to see them valued as a 2.48 underdog. That, too, is outlandishly bizarre. They're still the defending LCS champions, and they didn't get to that point through sheer luck or happenstance -- they've earned it fair and square.

Now, are they better than Team Liquid at this point in time? That's a very hard question to answer, and we'd rather not even attempt to muster up some kind of response. Your guess is as good as ours. Team Liquid might not be as cohesive as the reigning champions, but whatever they might lack in synergy they more than make up for with individual performances. They don't *need* to be at their most cohesive if they can beat their lane opponents to a pulp. It's the brute force method, obviously, but it can still work wonders even at the highest levels of play.

We know that this 100 Thieves bunch is exceedingly confident. Losing to Dignitas must've lit a fire beneath them, so they'll probably come out the gates swinging, hungry to find redemption and let everyone know that they mean business.

This is quite a hard game to predict; the sample size that's at our disposal is quite meager, so we're sort of improvizing here and hoping for the best. Our heart says Team Liquid, but that could very well be a bit of recency bias. Our brain, on the other hand, *screams* 100 Thieves, especially with the odds being set up in such a peculiar (and most alluring) way.

We really shouldn't put too much stock in their loss to Dignitas. It happens, and it's not like there was anything on the line. They're still one of the very best teams in North America and losing an insignificant Best of 3 to a middle-of-the-pack gatekeeper in no way changes that fact. Whether they'll be able to take down Team Liquid still remains to be seen, but the odds on them winning are simply too good to pass up.