Esports action is back this Monday, August 17th, as we take a look at key CS:GO matches from ESEA MDL tournaments across Europe and Australia. Check out our esports betting tips from our esports guru Michael Lee below.
Esports Betting Tips: Monday, August 17th
Sprout vs AGO – ESEA MDL Season 33 Europe Finals
The Grand Finals of the ESEA MDL Season 33 Europe Finals will serve us with a fixture between the German-Polish roster of Sprout and the all-Polish roster playing under AGO's banner. Since Sprout earned their spot in the Grand Finals via the upper bracket, they will be awarded a free series win, however, in a BO5 series, I don't believe one series is a game-changer or at least not to an extent it may seem it is.
Countless times before have we seen teams overcome a one map deficit in BO5 series, so it's fair to assume AGO will do the same, but then again, those teams were far better than AGO, so perhaps their chances to come out ahead here are slightly slimmer. While I don't rank Sprout too highly, I would rate AGO even lower. Their team seems like a project that won't evolve into anything remarkable since they lack any real firepower and desperately need at least two proper fraggers in order to succeed.
AGO and Sprout have played seven maps in 2020, and so far, Sprout won six. They last met about two weeks ago when Sprout won 2-0 with 16-14 on Mirage and 16-11 on Inferno. All things considered, Sprout look poised to claim the W here. They already hold a one map advantage, have a much better H2H record and field better players. Bet on Sprout to win with relative ease.
Secret vs Heretics – ESEA MDL Season 34 Europe Relegation
Secret and Heretics met three times in 2020 and have a total of five maps between then. As it stands now, Heretics are in a 2-1 lead in series and 3-2 in maps, which is a rather marginal difference, so I would not put too much weight on the H2H record. What is interesting, however, is that in all three matches Secret played with different players, meaning that Heretics had to play a different roster each time they met with Secret, which is another reason why the H2H record holds no weight.
Secret are entering this match with 1-4 record in their last five. They defeated Dignitas, but lost to Tricked, sAw, Syman and Nordvind. Even though Secret took a map off Nordavind, sAw and Tricked, they only managed to do so on Dust2 and Mirage, which are "puggy" maps, which indicates that Secret might have the raw firepower but lack the brains to win on more tactical maps.
Heretics, on the other side, are 3-2 in their last five. They won against HONORIS, AVEZ and BENELUX5 and lost to the likes of PACT and Lyngby Vikings. Overall, Heretics can be a decent team when they are motivated to win. But at the same time, they rely too much on their star player Nivera, whose performance on any given day dictates whether Heretics will win or lose.
Since both teams have their flaws and tend to produce very volatile results, I expect a scrappy match that can end either way, but at the same time, I don't expect to see a clean sweep by either team. Bet on over 2.50 maps.
Paradox vs Bantz – ESEA MDL Season 34 Australia
The last time we saw Paradox and Bantz meet on the battlefield was about two months ago during the ESL Australia & NZ Championship Season 11, where Paradox won 2-0 with 16-9 on Nuke and 19-15 OT on Mirage.
Daniel "rbz" Urbani was the best-performing player that day with 53 frags and 1.39 HLTV rating. The rest of his team looked fairly decent as well, with only Sharvesh "dangeR" Saravanan failing to reach 1.00 HLTV rating. On the side of Bantz, James "Roflko" Lytras had an MVP performance with 59 frags and 1.39 HLTV rating, but as you would guess, his teammates were completely useless, with neither of the four even coming close to a positive 1.00 rating.
The current core of Bantz roster has played only three maps in the past 30 days which is something to consider for this match. Since they did not have any proper warm-up matches, we can expect Batnz to come into this match cold which is not optimal, especially when facing a significantly stronger team, who on top of that have played a handful of matches in recent weeks.
Bantz are one of the lowest-rated CS:GO teams from Australia and much like other low-rated teams, Bentz tend to struggle against the top dogs such as Renegades, Rooster and Paradox.
While Betnz looked fairly solid in their last meeting with Paradox, and even managed to take one BO1 victory, their current roster is nowhere near the level of one they had before, so we can expect to see a much more one-sided bout this time out. Bet on paradox to win 2-0!
