Plenty of great esports action to enjoy this Monday night and into Tuesday morning inlcuding big matchups in the CS:GO DreamHack Masters and DOTA2 ESL One Birmingham! See our best bets for the night below.
Esports Betting Tips: Monday, May 25th
OG vs FlyToMoon
ESL One Birmingham 2020 - Online: Europe & CIS
FlyToMoon and OG will meet for the second time this month and for the third time in history. The last time OG played against FlyToMoon was less than a week ago, during OGA Dota PIT 2020 Online: Europe/CIS, where FTM caused a huge upset and won a map off OG. The fact that FTM's one map win was considered as a massive upset speaks volumes about the balance of power here.
OG will enter this match with a 7-3 record from their last five and a two-game losing streak. They lost their last two fixtures at OGA Dota PIT 2020 Online: Europe/CIS against Secret (0-2) and Team Liquid (0-2), but I would not be so quick to say OG are in a bad shape. In fact, this upcoming match is one of the most exciting matches for OG in a while. As revealed by the European squad, their star player Topson has finally returned to Europe and if that tells us anything it's that he will likely participate in this match.
With Topson on the team, and possibly Ceb as a replacement for MidOne, OG will be playing with three out of five members that won TI8 and TI9, while FTM's roster has combined total of zero medals from The International. It goes without saying OG are the superior team and with Topson on the team, I can't see how they will lose a single map against FTM, who have yet to win a match against a team of the same quality as OG.
Nigma vs Natus Vincere
ESL One Birmingham 2020 - Online: Europe & CIS
The Nigma versus Natus Vincere clash will likely be the closest fixture of the day. Both teams have some very talented players on their roster, yet both failed to achieve anything memorable in recent months. Nigma are entering this match with a 3-7 record, while NaVi are 6-4 in their last 10. Although the slightly better record is not enough for me to see NaVi as an overall better team, it's Nigma's obvious struggles that does.
Nigma are one of the biggest laughingstocks in the Dota2 community currently, which is quite unfortunate. Based on the individual quality Nigma have, they should have easily contested a TI title, but as we have come to realise the online format of Dota2 competitions does not suit them. Since the start of April, Nigma have won only six games out of 16 played. Their only wins came against Cyber Legacy, B8, HellRaisers, Vikin.gg and OG.Seed (twice). Natus Vincere, on the other side are in a similar position, as they failed to find any consistency against stronger teams, albeit they did defeat OG (2-1) about a week ago.
It's hard to call out a winner here. Nigma arguably have more quality in their roster, while NaVi look to be in better form. NaVi also recently replaced CemaTheSlayeR with so bad, which will improve their communication and will likely result in better performances. I, however, am still not ready to bet on them on the outright market. So bad is a very good leader, but until we see how well will he will fit in with the team, betting on over 2.5 maps bet is the way to go here.
Evil Geniuses vs Cloud9
DreamHack Masters Spring 2020 – North America
The last time these two teams met was back at the ESL One: Road to Rio – North America, where Cloud9 managed to upset Evil Geniuses and won 2-1. C9 started the series with a close 19-17 over-time win on Dust2, suffered an 8-16 loss on Nuke, but bounced back with an authoritative performance on Overpass, where they took down EG 16-9 to seal the series and walk away with the win. Sonic and oSee were two of the best players at C9 in their match against EG, both with 64 frags and 1.18 HLTV rating, while Bhreze ended the match with 71 frags and 1.21 HLTV rating.
Evil Geniuses ended RtR with only two wins against no-name teams like Orgless and Triumph and lost to C9, 100 Thieves and Gen.G. C9, had a much better time at the tournament, winning five games out of eight played, against Orgless, Evil Geniuses, Gen.G, Envy and the NA giants, Team Liquid.
It is quite obvious that Evil Geniuses are having some internal struggles and are badly out of shape. While I feel like Cloud 9 are overrated quite a bit, they are in a much better form than EG and have looked fairly decent in their recent fixtures. Value bet on Cloud9!
