[DOTA 2] My prediction and bet for WeSave! Charity Play EU / CIS grand finals:
HellRaisers - Team Nigma:
BetOnBitBig bet here. Team Nigma is a European esports organization founded by former Team Liquid members and four out of five of the Champions of The International 2017. Following the 2nd Place at The International 2019, captain KuroKy announced the team’s departure from Team Liquid with the idea of forming their own organization. Since then they won WePlay! Bukovel Minor 2020 and WePlay! Dota 2 Tug of War: Mad Moon, and they finished in the 9 - 12th position in DreamLeague Season 13. HellRaisers is very well known CIS esports organization with teams in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2. After a 2 year break, in September 2019, HellRaisers returned to Dota 2 with a new lineup. Since then, they made few changes to their roster, and today they are featuring their Dota 2 roster with superstar players like RodjER and old school veteran Funn1k. Their last bigger results were 3rd place at DOTA Summit 11 in November last year, 2nd place in russian Dota 2 Parimatch League Season 1. It’s important to say that they barely failed to qualify for the ESL One Los Angeles Major 2020. They lost to VirtusPro in the qualifiers 0-2.
I would say, this tournament had 2 favourites in the EU / CIS region. Team Secret and Team Nigma entered this WeSave! Charity Play as the biggest favourites, but they were forced to face each other in round 1. Nigma surprisingly took that win with a clean 2-0 result, and immediately they became the biggest contenders to win the grand finals in their region brackets. After 2-0 vs Team Secret, they won against Team Liquid in the best of 5 match 3-1. Surprisingly on the other side of the brackets we expected NaVi or Virtus.Pro in the grand finals, but that didn’t happen. Against all odds, HellRaisers showed us that they are really a team to watch for in the future. 2-1 vs VirtusPro and an incredible performance against NaVi with a 3-0 win, brought them to the finals. However, now they need to face one of the favourites, Team Nigma. Yes, Nigma are big favourites with approximate 1.20 odds for their win. But this match is another best of 5 match series, and I do think if HellRaisers played like they played vs NaVi they can pull off at least 1 map vs Nigma. Over 3.5 total maps bet is really good and odds are decent. That means that we need to see at least 4 maps. For example: 3-1 for Nigma or any other similar score will do. Good bet overall.
[CS:GO] My picks and predictions for ESL Pro League matches today:
FaZe - TyLoo:
BetOnBitTeam Liquid - mibr:
BetOnBitTyloo are a rapidly-improving team in CS:GO circles. Despite their growth, it doesn’t seem like they have enough depth to even come close to the quality of this Faze team. There is a massive rankings mismatch too. Tyloo are currently ranked at 29 in the world, while Faze are seventh. Faze have won three of their previous five games. They have lost twice in that period to top-ranked Natus Vincere. Both of those defeats were in three maps. In the four maps these two teams have played against each other, Faze have won three. Incidentally, all of those results were at the ESL Pro League last year.
Backing Liquid outright is unlikely to allow you a high-risk, high-reward punt. However, it’s hard to see MIBR beating this Liquid team. For a long time, Liquid were the best CS:GO team in the world. Of course, that’s not true anymore as they have slipped to sixth in the world. Yet, there is far too much skill and experience in that team to slip up against MIBR. MIBR aren’t pushovers but they’ve lost some of their lustre in the last few months, particularly after their rebranding. The head-to-head matchup is quite revealing. Of the 35 maps against each other, Liquid have won 23 of them, including the last five on the bounce. Liquid won in straight maps in the Blast Premier Series earlier this year (22-19 in Vertigo and 16-9 in Inferno). MIBR taking 1 map is possible and odds are amazing.