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Although the Tencent League of Legends Pro League (LPL) is now past its first decade of competition, it is still continuing to grow today along with the huge potential from its talented stack of teams and players. Find out which teams are looking to one up the reigning champions in our comprehensive LPL betting guide.
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The League of Legends Pro League (LPL) is China’s premier professional league for League of Legends. The regional esports league is organised by TJ Sports, a joint venture by Riot Games and Tencent, and at this time, uses a franchise-style tournament system.
Join the legends and witness their rise. WELCOME BACK TO THE #LPL. pic.twitter.com/CGlKWSOGIj — LPL (@lplenglish) January 13, 2023
Join the legends and witness their rise.
WELCOME BACK TO THE #LPL. pic.twitter.com/CGlKWSOGIj
— LPL (@lplenglish) January 13, 2023
First established in 2013, the LPL has come a long way, arguably, becoming the most competitive country in the world with 17 teams competing throughout spring and summer. Since 2018, the region has won Worlds in 2018, 2019, and 2021, and are currently the reigning Mid-Season Invitational champions. The LPL is known for their skirmish-heavy playstyle with historic players like TheShy, Rookie, Uzi, and Doinb who can rough it out in any scenario. And given the league’s motto “Crazy is our game,” these players certainly can make crazy work.
As the years have come and go, the region has only grown in stature from its days back with Positive Energy in 2013. Throughout the past decade, it seems as if the LPL was destined to play second fiddle to the dynasty that Korea made for themselves.
It was only in 2015 when EDG won their first-ever international tourney against the esteemed SKT T1 at MSI 2015 that the region lifted off. It started a wave that would bring China trophies to come with RNG at MSI and iG and FPX at Worlds. However, with a deep talent pool combined with the work ethic to succeed, it was only a matter of time before China started racking up the trophies — which they exactly did when historic organisation EDward Gaming finally won their first-ever championship at Worlds 2021 after upsetting Korea’s DWG KIA.
In 2022, the LPL had its flashes of brilliance as Royal Never Give Up narrowly took down T1 3-2 in Busan. This win would be the region’s first-ever back-to-back championship in the MSI. However, the region could not get far in Worlds 2022 as its only representative in the playoffs, JD Gaming, got knocked out in the semifinals by the very same T1 roster.
Due to the expansive following that League of Legends has in China, Riot Games gave them the opportunity to field 17 teams for their regional league. This means that, due to the best-of-three tourney format, they can only have one single round robin to run the league.
After the regular season, only the top 10 are qualified into the playoffs with two phases held in best-of-five matches. In Phase 1, teams are seeded into a King of the Hill single-elimination bracket. Meanwhile, the second phase features the top four teams from phase one in a double-elimination bracket.
Overall, this adds up to a potential 816 games for the regular season and 60 games for the playoffs. Nevertheless, only one champion can rise from the ashes and take over in the LPL 2023 season.
With a league that has so many teams and games to be played, the LPL has to broadcast its matches on a day-to-day basis. So, from Week 1 of the LPL Spring 2023 regular season all the way to its last week, you can expect daily live matches from January 14 to March 26. The two-phase playoffs will follow shortly after to decide who will be representing the region in MSI 2023.
Meanwhile, the summer season is set to run around June to August in the later half of the year. The Regional Finals will follow by early September to decide the last representatives of the region for Worlds 2023.
As the region with the most number of games played per season, it takes a lot of grit to be the last team standing in the LPL. The stakes could not be any higher as well, given that China has the world’s largest esports audience. And with that viewership comes an equally impressive prize pool of ¥4,200,000 or around €540,000, the largest among LoL Esports’ major regions.
Money aside, the sole winner of each split’s playoffs qualifies as the region’s first seed at international tournaments like MSI or Worlds. In 2023, Riot announced landmark changes to the format of its premier esports tournaments. Because of this, the LPL will be sending two representatives to the Mid-Season Invitational in May. Hence, the teams who will reach the grand finals of the LPL Spring 2023 split will be the ones to qualify for MSI 2023.
Come Worlds, the second seed will be decided by the team that has the most championship points at the end of the season. Just like in Korea, the third and fourth seeds are to be determined in the Regional Finals.
As the league celebrates its first decade of competition, the LPL has had old timers and newcomers join the league since 2013. But since its franchising in 2019, the league has had more or less the same teams competing, just with renames here and there.
In this season, for example, Ninjas in Pyjamas had a merger with Victory Five and will be taking over their slot in the LPL.
These are going to be the 17 teams competing in the upcoming LPL 2023 season:
Being the biggest esports league in League of Legends, countless bettors are drawn to the bloodshed that comes from top teams going head-to-head in the LPL. With 17 teams competing, there is going to be a team for you to rally behind in LPL Betting. Get started by following the steps below:
As we mentioned earlier, you have an abundance of options to choose from when you start betting on the LPL! From Monday to Sunday, take a look at what bets you can make during the LPL 2023 season:
To start, you can begin betting on the LPL by choosing which team you think will end up winning the entire tournament. This betting market is otherwise called choosing the outright winner or futures. If you feel particularly confident about your predictions, you can even place bets on this market before the tournament kicks off.
Moneyline bets should be your staple when it comes to the LPL. With the insane number of matches taking place, you won’t run out of games to bet on! If you want to take it easy, though, you can simply bet on who you think will be the outright winner of the series. But if you want to go even further, you can choose to bet on who will win the individual maps from games one to three. That said, always remember to keep it simple and follow a team or two of your choosing when just starting out.
As Pinnacle explains it, handicap betting balances the playing field so that odds for the underdogs stay competitive. Operators do this by placing ‘handicaps’ on teams that require them to win by a significant lead to get their payout. These handicaps are in the form of number of kills they should be ahead by at the end of a game or alternatively, the number of games won in a series.
To illustrate the above by way of an example, a +1.5 map handicap on an underdog means that they only have to win one game in a best-of series to get a payout! That is definitely doable if the team you’re betting on has a fighting chance. Meanwhile, a -1.5 map handicap on a dominant team means that they need to win two straight games to win the bet. The kill handicap works in the same way.
One last reminder, the outcome of the series hardly matters in handicap bets unless they directly relate to the handicap you bet on. As another example, you predict that a match between EDward Gaming and Royal Never Give Up will be an all-out clash and decide to place a bet for RNG with a -6.5 kill handicap. Here, you only get to cash out if RNG has at least seven (7) kills above EDG.
In total betting or over/under betting, you predict whether the game at hand will go over or under a listed metric such as total dragons slain, total towers taken, game duration, and even total maps played throughout a series.
This makes it simple and straightforward for bettors, because if you think that the game will have a longer game time, then you simply pick over – the longer the game, the more dragons, nashors, towers, and kills to be taken. This can be seen in regions with slower playstyles as well, such as in the LCK. Again, look at the numbers and see how teams play around objectives to know whether to bet over or under.
For best-of-three and best-of-five series, if you think it will be a one-sided affair, you simply bet under. However, if you want to err on the side of caution, it can be safer to bet over since teams tend to want to try out picks during the regular season. So, unless you’re sure that the gap between the teams is insurmountable, it’s much better to bet over!
If you’ve got the time and enough experience, propositional or prop betting is a fun way to change it up from simply betting on match outcomes. Through prop bets, you can predict how matches will go from who secures First Blood to the team who’s first to take down an inhibitor. Though it can depend on the operator of your choosing, prop bets have been known as special bets due to their nature described below.
In Rivalry, you can put prop bets on occurrences such as:
Whether you bet on which team will take Baron Nashor first or if both of them will take it down at the end of the game, you can make good on your bets outside of who wins or loses. To maximise your success, do your research beforehand on platforms such as Games of Legends and Oracle’s Elixir to see how teams play from a statistical standpoint. When you’ve got easy-to-use stats such as First Baron Rate (FBN%), First Blood Rate (FB%), or First Tower Rate (FT%), it becomes way easier to decide on your bets when you know the likelihood of it happening on the Rift is high.
The LPL is in a league of its own, and if you want to bet on the regional league, you have to start by doing your research on its 17 teams. You do not have to bet on every game and every team involved. Choose which team you want to follow across a season and look into their roster changes, playstyles, and form before heading into each match. Research the competing teams you are betting on and check if their players can perform in the current meta. One other question you can also ask yourself is if a team’s star player is proficient at the most popular champions being played currently.
Once you understand the team matchups, you can then start shopping around for odds provided by the recommended bookmakers above. Make sure to have a betting strategy in mind too so that you can maximise your potential winnings and take better advantage of value betting.
Finally, and most importantly, set a budget limit when you start betting. Manage your bankroll wisely by never betting anything that you are not willing to lose, especially in a league like the LPL where upsets are bound to happen. Nevertheless, if you keep at it, you, too, can hope to break even or even land bigger winnings than expected.
The LPL 2023 offseason saw the wildest of changes that the league has had for a while. From Ruler making his way to JDG to old teammates like Karsa and Xiaohu to Rookie and Jackeylove reuniting, this year will be sure to change up the competitive scene in the region.
Odds for the outright winner of the LPL Spring 2023 taken from bet365, January 24, 18:00 CET:
With the massive player base that the Ionian server has, it’s only natural that its own competitive league has just as many teams to represent them regionally. As such, we will be introducing its 17 competing teams to help you get started on your esports predictions for the LPL.
From top to bottom, we will be introducing the teams who we think are the strongest contenders for the trophy, those that sit comfortably in the middle, and others that still need significant improvement to even come close to the championship.
Jingdong Gaming is coming into the year with a chip on their shoulder after their disappointing run at Worlds 2022. Having said that, this year, the organisation picked up the legendary marksman Ruler alongside mid laner Knight to bolster their already-stacked roster. Now, JD Gaming are poised to absolutely dominate the LPL 2023 Spring split with players that are, arguably, the very best in their respective roles within the league. In fact, in the team’s first series of the split, Ruler has already scored a pentakill with JDG. Given time, this roster should only continue to grow to be one of the most formidable teams of the year.
No matter what anyone says, expect Top Esports to still be a leading name in the LPL in 2023. In the offseason, Top Esports reunited Rookie, one of the greatest players of all time, with former teammate from iG, JackeyLove. With a jungler like Tian at their command, we could see these former world champions get back to form and establish their hold over the rest of the league. The only question that remains is whether Wayward and Mark can keep up with the rest of the squad when they inevitably challenge teams like JDG, T1, and Dplus KIA internationally.
Weibo Gaming, formerly known as the Suning, went beyond all expectations in Worlds 2020, and have now finally decided to overhaul their roster for the coming season. This year, they got Karsa and Xiaohu back together again from their days in RNG while keeping laning legend TheShy in the top lane. Then they have Light, who will perfectly slot into the team given his ability to play weakside and deep champion pool. To round off their all-new team, Crisp will be supporting Light after coming from a great split in BiliBili, which should, all in all, further improve their bot side.
Last year, BiliBili Gaming’s Bin was single-handedly carrying the team with his insane carry performances on champions like Fiora and Jax. Now, he is finally going to have teammates that can play around his strengths like jungler XUN and JD Gaming’s former mid laner, Yagao. Meanwhile, down bot, Elk and On have been on the come up, showing that they can stand up to the top carries in the league like in the past season’s Demacia and Weibo Cup. All of which could just be enough to push BLG to be able to contest the best teams in the league.
Known as the Kings of Spring, it is hard to imagine RNG failing to win spring and losing the chance to defend their title at MSI. But for the first time since 2015, Xiaohu will not be returning to play for Royal Never Give Up in the upcoming LPL season. Angel has big shoes to fill, and this year will be a chance for the fallen mid laner to prove his worth. Meanwhile, should Ming not return to the team, Bunny, a homegrown support from their academy roster, will have the same undertaking ahead of him. Expect this team to experience growing pains at the start of the year as their team’s dynamic drastically shifts.
[EDWARD GAMING 2023 LPL Spring Split Roster] TOP: Ale JUG: Jiejie MID: FoFo MID: Fisher ADC: Leave SUP: Meiko Manager: Hibari Deputy Manager: Jasper Training Support: Gazero Coach: KenZhu Coach: Maokai Assistant Coach: Mni#EDGWIN pic.twitter.com/Va5FNKtjvC — Edward Gaming (@EDG_Edward) January 11, 2023
[EDWARD GAMING 2023 LPL Spring Split Roster]
TOP: Ale JUG: Jiejie MID: FoFo MID: Fisher ADC: Leave SUP: Meiko
Manager: Hibari Deputy Manager: Jasper Training Support: Gazero Coach: KenZhu Coach: Maokai Assistant Coach: Mni#EDGWIN pic.twitter.com/Va5FNKtjvC
— Edward Gaming (@EDG_Edward) January 11, 2023
EDward Gaming have lost their organisation’s top players, Scout and Viper, in the offseason, meaning that star jungler, Jiejie, will have to find a new direction to steer the team in. Whether through Ale, FoFo, or upcoming academy talent Leave, it is going to be up to Jiejie and the roams of support Meiko to support this all-new EDG. Should they struggle, they can choose to take a gamble on Fisher, who came from T1’s academy team back in 2020 and moved onto EDG’s own Youth Team.
LNG Esports is entering the season with only their star jungler, Tarzan, from last year’s lineup. However, even after losing Doinb in the mid lane, the team is still in good hands with EDG’s Scout filling in for the former world champion. While in the top lane, Zika is a prospective talent from iG that can take the team to greater heights. Look out for their academy rookie LP to see how he and Hang stack up against the league’s best bot lanes. When all is said and done, LNG has a high ceiling should Tarzan see a return to form and work together with his new laners.
Oh My God is sticking to what they know in the LPL 2023 season, only pulling in ppgod from Victory Five and keeping their roster intact. While there will be those who criticise OMG’s reckless playstyle, it simply works. Shanji, Creme, and Able can all carry from their respective roles, putting out outstanding damage numbers. And now, with the almighty ppgod in the team, OMG have the means to make a deeper run in the league. However, jungler Aki needs to be the team’s initiator with his high-impact, early game champions to put OMG ahead of the competition.
Last summer, ThunderTalk Gaming narrowly missed playoffs after losing tiebreakers. Despite this, they are keeping their lineup together, but with Weibo’s Huanfeng and iG’s XinLiu coming onboard. In the past season, Ucal and Hoya were finally finding their groove in the league and were on an upward curve. Alongside them, Beichuan has also grown to be a jungler that these laners can rely on, a crucial factor for their success in the league. Now, only Huanfeng is left to complete the puzzle on how TT makes a deeper run in the league, should he return to his form in Suning.
Having merged recently with Victory Five, Ninjas in Pyjamas introduced various roster changeups in the offseason, with key players Karsa, Rookie, and ppgod having all left the squad. This means that NIP does not have the same brute strength to run through the league like in 2022. However, up-and-coming mid Dream and jungler XLB have the potential to become their carry, given how he performed in the games they did play last summer. Follow Zhuo along with these newcomers to see how NIP is going to perform for the rest of the season.
Already performing beyond expectations, Invictus Gaming are playing with the wind behind their backs off of their reworked lineup. YSKM has been living up to the hype playing out of his mind on champions like Jax, Fiora, and Camille – even against Breathe. While we have yet to see more out of GIDEON and Dove, they have had time playing together in the LCK in KT Rolster. At the same time, Ahn and Wink already have synergy from the past year. With all the right moving parts, this roster could just reach playoffs in spring.
Despite going 0-16 in last year’s LPL Summer split, Team WE has still decided to start solo laners BiuBiu and Shanks for spring. However, coming in to save the team is their new-and-improved bot duo Hope and Iwandy, as well as academy prospect, Heng. Once again, Hope has been dropped by his former team after winning a split with JDG. Regardless, he can still be considered a carry who is far better than the league’s average AD. And with LNG’s Iwandy by his side, this bot lane can definitely carry the team further than the bottom of the standings.
Anyone’s Legend were on the cusp of reaching playoffs last summer until they were met with a six-loss streak that knocked them right out. Despite their last weeks being rough, the organisation chose to stick with their roster, with the only change being SwordArT in the support role. This means that Betty and SwordArT are finally going to be reunited from their days back in the former LMS’ Flash Wolves. With an outspoken voice in SwordArT, AL could just turn their luck around in 2023. But aside from the duo, Harder will have to make an impression this split if AL are to go far in the tournament.
Rare Atom fell off from being a playoffs team in spring to a bottom two team in summer. Whether it was because their mid-jungle struggled or the team fell apart, we cannot say. However, with a new season upon us, Cube, Leyan, and Strive have a chance to prove themselves once again, given their record. With LGD’s Assum taking over iBoy’s place, RA find themselves with a capable carry down in the bot lane. For RA, The glaring problem will be how Southwind performs in RA, as he has been criticised for being a liability to his team.
Questions are desperately waiting to be answered for Ultra Prime after they picked up Ning and Baolan in the offseason. Despite being former world champions that brought the region pride, these players have seen little to no play since 2020. Then, considering that Doggo has not had the best time in the LPL, UP’s standing in the LPL spring split looks rough. But they do have an upcoming mid laner in Qing to play around, should he be up to the task. This leaves zs left up for discussion, as the top laner has yet to make his mark in the region after winning the academy league in 2020.
Since their crash-and-burn in Worlds 2021, FPX have looked worse each year. In 2023, the former world champions might just even end up as a bottom team in the LPL. With Summit and Clid gone, the team has decided to field two of their amateur league champs in Haoye and Lele to their starting roster. Meanwhile, only Lwx remains from the old rosters that could compete at the highest tier. With Xiaolaohu and Care being subpar in the past year, it feels as if 2023 will be a developmental year for FPX.
Predictably, LGD Gaming is at the bottom of the community’s Spring rankings as the team just has no standout carry for the upcoming season. While yes, Meteor once played well as a part of BLG back in 2019, he has no laners like FoFo, Zeka, or Kingen to play off from. Xiaoxu, Haichao, and Lpc are all rookies coming off mid-tier splits in China’s LoL Development League. Even Jinjiao, his former teammate, is not the same player that he used to dominate with since his role swap to support. So, understandably, it makes sense for LGD to be placed at the bottom for now as they figure it all out.
To keep up to date with the region’s legion of games, we suggest you follow LoL Esports to track the LPL’s daily schedule. In addition, we recommend their social media channels on their Instagram, Twitter, and Weibo.
To stream the games live, however, you can head onto Twitch, Huya, Bilibili, and YouTube from January 14 to March 26, 2023. For full coverage of the LPL, you can go to their official page daily starting as early as 10:00 to 12:00 CET and watch the following broadcasts live:
Looking at how the offseason turned out, it is hard to look at the LPL 2023 Spring split and see it in any other way. JD Gaming are coming into the year with Ruler and Knight on their roster, which makes the team even a bigger threat in the coming year. But do not be fooled, as coming behind them are stacked rosters in Top Esports: Rookie, Weibo Gaming with TheShy and Xiaohu, and BiliBili Gaming with Bin surrounded by a supportive team.
As always, there is always a match to bet on in the LPL given its vast number of teams. Each team has its own narrative coming into the season, with old teammates coming together or new rookies looking to prove themselves in the league. At the time of writing, we've already seen iG, a team on the bottom of everyone’s rankings, upset the historic organisation, RNG in Week 2 of the LPL. These kinds of upsets and so much more are waiting for you if you start LPL betting in 2023!
According to our team at esports-betting.pro, the obvious picks to go for in the LPL 2023 season would be JD Gaming, Top Esports, and Weibo Gaming. These teams, along with Bilibili Gaming as the dark horse, are poised to be the region’s representatives at Worlds this year.
The LPL has a prize pool of ¥ 4,200,000, or roughly $644,082 split between the top 6 teams in the Playoffs.
Among all the bets you can place on the LPL, we especially recommend moneyline, prop, total, and handicap betting. For each type of bet, you can head on over to bet365, GG.BET, Rivalry, and Pinnacle respectively for the best odds!
Although the exact dates have not been released yet at the time of writing, we do know that the playoffs for the 2023 LPL Spring Season will kick off after the Group Stages conclude on the 26th of March.
In 2022, Royal Never Give Up won the LPL Spring spit once again. Meanwhile, JD Gaming went on to win the summer split in September, their first-ever summer title.
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