Big night of esports coming up this Thursday night and into Friday morning with a variety of different events on the card! Today we take a look at some of the key matchups from the BLAST Premier Fall 2020 Finals as well as the DreamHack Open December 2020.
ESports Betting Tips: Thursday, December 10th
Team Vitality vs Natus Vincere
BLAST Premier Fall 2020 Finals
Team Vitality and Natus Vincere last met in November when Vitality reverse swept the Ukrainian side in the grand finals of IEM Beijing-Haidian 2020 Europe with 3-2, after being 0-2 down. Despite the disappointing finish of the series, NaVi's star player Aleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev once again proved why he is regarded as one of the best players in the world with 118 frags and 1.47 HLTV rating.
On the side of Vitality, it was s1mple's main contender for the title of the best in the world Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut, who did his part and locked in 88 frags and 1.23 rating. At this point, it's worth mentioning the performance of ZywOo's teammate Nabil "Nivera" Benrlitom, who ended the series with 45 frags and 1.30 HLTV rating even though he played on only two maps.
For this match, there are no valid reasons why NaVi should be priced as underdogs. Sure, they lost to Vitality last time out, but we can't forget they were 2-0 up before they choked which is in my book not an indication of Vitality's superior quality but rather something that will fire up NaVi even more to grab a revenge win.
Natus Vincere enter this match off a 2-1 win over Astralis, so they should be high on morale and ready to hand the French squad a long overdue loss. Back Natus Vincere to get their revenge!
forZe vs Espada
DreamHack Open December 2020
ForZe and Espada last met at the IEM New York 2020 CIS about two months ago when Espada claimed a 2-1 reverse-sweep win with 16-8 on Dust2 and 9-16 on Mirage after they lost the opening map on Inferno with 17-19. Robert "Patsi" Isyanov was the best-performing player on the day with 79 frags and 1.45 HLTV rating, while Evgeny "FL1T" Lebedev did his best to help forZe win but his 65 frags and 1.09 HLTV rating was not enough to turn things around.
Regardless of Espada's win last time out, I expect a close match mainly because players on both teams know each other well - which is usually the case when two CIS squads clash. Espada have definitely looked more stable as of late, but I would argue forZe have a higher ceiling, so if things go their way from the start, they might even walk away with a 2-0 sweep.
The match looks like a complete coin toss so it's best to play the odds here. 2.02 on forZe looks like a great value bet!
Gambit Esports vs Movistar Riders
DreamHack Open December 2020
Gambit Esports enter this match off a loss to Astralis which ended their 19-game winning streak. While most of those wins came against tier2 squads, their run also included triumphs over Spirit, Complexity, Virtus.pro, forZe and other fairly decent teams. Gambit also hold an 85.3% win rate across the last three months which should be a good morale booster as they look to return to their winning ways.
Movistar Riders have won 70% of their games across the last three months. During that time, they won four iterations of One Tap League 2020 Cup (5-8) and the ESL Masters CS:GO Season 8, as well as finished second at SEA Advanced Season 35 Europe which is not too shabby for a team of their calibre.
The last time these two teams met was in February when Gambit won 2-1, however, since there were many changes on both sides since then, we shouldn't put too much weight on that result.
Despite what the odds might suggest, I believe this match can turn out to be very close, especially if we consider that the online era of CS is notorious for upset wins. Gambit are objectively a better team, but I can't agree with the odds offered on Movistar Riders who shouldn't be priced as high as they are. At these odds, siding with Movistar Riders to win one map is definitely worth a try. Bet on Movistar Riders to keep this one close!
Movistar Riders +1.5 Maps
$2.21
