We're back with another big day of Esports action on Monday night! Our Esports guru Michael Lee heads to the CS:GO Nine to Five tournament to bring you his best Esports bets of the day below.
Wisla Krakow vs AVEZ – Nine to Five 3
We are in for another Polish CS:GO derby featuring Wisla Krakow and AVEZ and like it was the case in all previous meetings between these two sides, it’s fair to expect another exciting and close spectacle.
Wisla Krakow and AVEZ met only twice in 2020 and both times we saw a three-map series, while there was only one occasion where we did not see both teams reach double digits on a map. While I don't believe either team deserves to be priced as huge favourites, it's AVEZ who look slightly better.
AVEZ are entering this match with a five-match winning streak which they gathered by defeating CR4ZY, 9INE, Copenhagen Flames, Movistar Riders and Nordavind and are currently looking like one of the best Polish teams. Nevertheless, they still have a lot of room for improvement, since they’re prone to dropping maps against any opponent they face.
This should give Wisla Krakow a fighting chance to avenge their loss and while I am not ready to bet on Wisla Krakow just yet, I can safely say Wisla Krakow should be able to exploit AVEZ’s weakness and at least force the series to go the distance.
ForZe vs KOVA – Nine to Five 3
ForZe have recently made it to the grand finals of the FunSpark ULTI 2020 Europe Qualifier where they lost to HAVU, thus had to settle with a runner-up finish. While it was a slightly underwhelming finish of their tournament run, forZe deserve some praise for their performance, since their loss to HAVU was their first and only defeat throughout the whole competition.
I would even go on and say that forZe deserved to win the final match, but as many times before, forZe stumbled in crucial maps and handed HAVU a 2-1 win with 14-16 on Nuke, 16-14 on Mirage and 12-16 on Dust2.
KOVA, on the other side, are your typical tier3 CS:GO team filled with young players, who tend to rely more on their individual talent to win rather than a proper execution, which is a type of playstyle that does eventually turn around and bite you. KOVA did, however, manage to get a few wins recently, albeit none of the teams they have defeated are nowhere near the level of forZe, so it's hard to overvalue KOVA's achievements.
Even though forZe did not achieve anything remarkable at the start of the season, they have looked much improved as of late and produced a 68% win rate across the last three months. They might not be the best team in the world, but since they're facing a tier3 team that recently lost to HellRaisers, I have my faith that forZe should come away from the match with a perfect 2-0.
HellRaisers vs Galaxy Races – Nine to Five 3
HellRaisers looked at least somewhat decent across the last three months, producing a 54% win rate in that time, however, they were facing much weaker teams such as KOVA, SKADE, Cyber Legacy, bezotca, Nexus and Lyngby Vikings, so perhaps we should take their win rate with a grain of salt.
It’s also worth mentioning that HellRaisers struggled against bezotca and Lyngby Viking, where it seemed like HellRaisers could easily lose, which only goes to show that this team is just not good, to put it lightly.
Galaxy Racer looked slightly better than HellRaisers across the last three months with a 62.5% win rate, but it's also true that they have played only 16 games so far. From what they have shown, Galaxy Racer are not a bad team per se, since they have no issues defeating teams of their quality, but tend to struggle against some heavyweights.
Neither of these two teams are top tier and while HellRaisers are rightfully priced as the favourites, namely due to the more experienced roster, I would not value experience too much when it comes to online CS. The online format should keep this match close and since both teams look like they could win, we will side with the underdogs here. Bet on Galaxy Racer!
Galaxy Racer to win
$2.04
SKADE vs K23 – Nine to Five 3
SKADE and K23 both have a very deep map pool and since both teams play all available maps except for Vertigo, this match could prove to be much closer than what the odds indicate. Additionally, there are no previous meetings between SKADE and K23, which leads me to believe this game could be a complete coin flip.
K23 indeed have far more experience playing at this level, but since experience does not matter in online CS on top of the fact that they did not impress in their games against KOVA, Movistar Riders, HellRaisers and even lost to Wisla Krakow, there is no reason to bet on them at these low odds.
SKADE, on the other side, have been on the rise as of late, picking up wins against Izako Boars, CR4ZY, Nordavind, Wisla Krakow, Copenhagen Flames and were even close to taking down Spirit. Those results are quite inspiring and while SKADE hold only a 50% win rate across the last three months, they have proven to be fairly efficient in most of their games, as long as they aren’t facing any top tier teams.
I don't believe betting on either team offers any value, however, given that these games are usually pretty one-sided, betting on under 2.5 maps makes the most sense in my book.
