TSM vs. Evil Geniuses: 2022 LCS Spring betting analysis

The 2022 LCS Spring Split will kick off with a match between two powerhouses in TSM and Evil Geniuses. 

After an intense Lock In tournament, the LCS will officially kick off its spring split this weekend with many great matches to catch. One of those will be the opener in which TSM will take on EG, who made it all the way to the recent Lock In final before taking a hard defeat to Team Liquid. 

The Lock In tournament showcased a lot of what is to come and EG especially stood out as one of the teams that fans should keep an eye on. EG went undefeated in the Lock In tournament group stage. The team kept the streak going in the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds until losing 3-0 to Liquid in the grand final. 

Despite the tough loss at the end of the tournament, the star-studded roster proved that they are here to finally win an LCS split.

For TSM, the story was much different as the squad finished at the bottom of its Lock In group with a 1-3 score. The result was impacted by the fact that TSM played with its Academy roster, so going into the spring split there will be with a lot of question marks surrounding the team.

Playing the opening match of a split is always something special and for this one it’s EG that is most people’s clear favorite. The team’s run at the Lock In tournament really speaks for itself, so it’s expected that Jeong “Impact” Eon-young and the rest of EG will come out swinging. 

For TSM to do anything about the high individual skill and overall play of EG, the revamped TSM roster will have to come out with aggression and try to disrupt the play style of EG. This means shutting down jungler Kacper “Inspired” Sloma especially, who has been looking scary in the early game since joining EG. 

Inspired has been styling on his opponent in North America so far, showing that the current meta suits him perfectly. The Polish jungler has also shown off a diverse champion pool, with wins on such champions as Xin Zhao, Jarvan, Diana, Olaf, and Lee Sin. 

In the TSM camp, the young players will have to step up to bat, and jungler Mingyi “Spica” Lu will have a lot to keep track of especially. In a game like this one, the winner could be found through the early game. Both junglers are happy to be aggressive in the early stages and will look to get the snowball rolling. The late-game stage should be shakier, especially for a TSM roster that is yet to play a lot together in an official match. 

On paper, this looks like a match that EG should win. With that said, TSM has some skill to bring to the table and could win based on the element of surprise. The risky part about believing in TSM is that its starting roster is still an unknown, which could create some shaky performances until the team gels.

TSM vs. Evil Geniuses rosters

TSM roster: 

• Top – Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon / Omran “V1per” Shoura
• Jungle – Mingyi “Spica” Lu / Young “Hyper” Seo
• Mid – Zhu “Keaiduo” Xiong / Ji “Takeover” Hyeun-min
• Bot – Edward “Tactical” Ra / Tony “Instinct” Ng
• Support – Wei “Shenyi” Zi-Jie / Wang “Yusan” Sheng-Yu

Evil Geniuses roster: 

• Top – Jeong “Impact” Eon-young
• Jungle – Kacper “Inspired” Sloma 
• Mid – Joseph “jojopyun” Pyun
• Bot – Kyle “Danny” Sakamaki
• Support – Philippe “Vulcan” Laflamme

Evil Geniuses expected to beat TSM in LCS spring opener

With the Lock In tournament results in mind and considering the fact that TSM is still struggling to gather its complete starting roster, it’s the obvious to think that EG will run with the win in this opening match. This is heavily reflected in the odds, where bookmakers agree that there’s only a slight chance that TSM comes out of this match on top. Since it’s only a best-of-one, there’s always a chance for an upset, but it seems unlikely considering the way EG has played this year. This is also why betting on EG will be the best choice for this match, even though it should probably be combined with other matches to give a higher return.

Going with EG to win the match will grant odds of 1.25, while a win for TSM would give much better odds at 3.56. Even though the odds are high for TSM, it still seems that a TSM win is an unlikely outcome.

The 2022 LCS Spring opening match between TSM and Evil Geniuses will go down on Friday, February 5.