The road to the next CS:GO major is in full swing at the moment and some of the qualifiers for ESL One Rio headline the esports action today! See our best bets for Friday night and into Saturday morning below!
Esports Betting Tips: CS:GO and Dota2 – Friday, April 17th
paiN vs Imperial
CS:GO ESL One: Road to RIO – South America Play-in
PaiN only played a total of ten matches since the turn of the year and won six of them against the likes of Yeah, Redemption POA, ALMO, F4K3, and their next opponents, Imperial. Out of ten matches paiN played three were against stronger (by stronger I mean strong compared to the local Brazilian scene) sides, which includes clashes with Isurus (1-2), TeamOne (0-2 and Sharks (2-0). Imperial, are coming into the match on the back of five straight wins over 9z, Paqueta, Reapers and other teams of similar calibre. Similarly to paiN, Imperial only played a total of 12 matches in 2020, winning seven of them. Imperial's record against stronger teams shows they managed to edge out a 2-1 win over Sharks and 1-0 against TeamOne, while they took one map off BOOM (1-2), but lost Isurus (0-2).
Neither side fields any known players and neither of these teams are ranked high in the Brazilian leaderboard, which brings some risk when predicting the outcome as you don't really know what to expect from these players and what their real motivation is, so it seems reasonable to go for a gamble with higher odds. PaiN features slightly stronger roster, however, due to their shaky form they will be prone to dropping a map. Nonetheless, we have to side with the team with more quality on the roster.
Pro100 vs Nemiga
CS:GO ESL One: Road to Rio – CIS Play-in
Both teams are coming into the match after defeating 1WIN, both with the 2-1 scoreline. If this was the normal T1 competition I would not put any meaning into such results, but with 1WIN losing similarly in both fixtures - normal play for the first two maps, but blown out of the server in the third - is a little suspicious. It is not the blow-out I am suspicious of, it's more about the fact that 1WIN even managed to win one map with the quality of players they possess.
Pro100 and Nemiga met just a couple of days ago at the LOOT.BET Season 6, with Nemiga winning the match 2-1. Pro100 took the series lead with an incredibly close 19-17 OT win on Dust2, which was seemingly enough for Nemiga players to wake up and pick up the reaming matches on Vertigo and Mirage with relative ease.
Due to the online format matches like this can be incredibly random, as almost everyone can bet anyone, but in theory, the stronger team should come out ahead more times than not. Nonetheless, pro100 looked solid enough for me to believe they can put up enough resistance and pick up one map. Going the distance and securing up a win, however, seems a bit far-fetched.
EDward Gaming vs Invictus Gaming
LOL LPL Spring Split 2020
Invictus Gaming have established themselves as the strongest and most consistent LPL team throughout the split and their 12-2 record makes it hard to argue otherwise. However, their journey through the Spring Split is still far from over, as Song "Rookie" Eui-jin and his crew still need to pick up the remaining two matches or hope FunPlus Phoenix will drop at least one, in a bid to secure the top seed of the split. Although IG's run throughout the split was simply phenomenal, they have dipped in form slightly in recent weeks. A 0-2 loss to JD Gaming and closely-fought (2-1) wins against Bilibili Gaming and Team WE are not exactly what you would expect to see from this team and it only goes to show even gods can bleed. EDward Gaming, on the other side, are entering this bout with a 2-1 record in their last three outings, which includes wins over LNG Esports (2-0) and Oh My God (2-0) as well as 1-2 loss to FunPlus Phoenix. Although EDG failed to secure a perfect 3-0 record, it’s hard to undervalue they took the reigning world champions to three maps.
This will be a highly important match to win for IG and given the raw quality this team fields it's difficult to side against them. Having said that, Rookie and his crew left a lot to be desired in their recent showings, which suggests they will be prone to dropping one map. Expect IG to win, but not without facing tough resistance from the high-flying EDG.
