Esports action continues this Thursday night and into Friday morning as we take a look at some of the key matchups across the CS:GO and DOTA2 titles around the globe.
Esports Betting Tips: Thursday, May 14th
Winstrike vs Syman
CS:GO ESL One: Road to Rio
Winstrike finished the sixth season of the LOOT.BET at a 5-8th place. They defeated Espada, Secret, SKADE and Nemiga but fell flat in semi-finals against BIG, where they failed to reach double digits on any of the two maps played. Their performance at LOOT.BET describes Winstrike as a team perfectly, they have no problems beating weaker teams but underperform when faced with anything that even resembles a decent team.
I didn't expect much from Syman considering they have players from all over Europe and only God knows how bad their communication must be. So far, they failed to deliver against Hard Legion and Virtus.pro but raked in wins over Espada, pro100 and one of the best teams in the world, Natus Vincere, although it was an online match and NaVi are clearly struggling to perform in this new format.
Although Winstrike produced a 70% win rate over the past three months, almost all of these wins came against much weaker teams and looking at how they perform against stronger opposition I can hardly categorise them as a good team. Nonetheless, I still can't see any valid reason for Winstrike to be priced as underdogs against Syman, who did not do anything in recent weeks besides their fluke win against NaVi. Value bet on Winstrike!
Endpoint vs KOVA
CS:GO Home Sweet Home Cup 4
The fourth season of Home Sweet Home is finally upon us with a Group C opening match between the British Endpoint and Finnish KOVA. Endpoint have won three out of their last five matches, including 16-11 against Salamander, 16-14 against Tricked and 16-11 against Sprout, but lost 0-2 against Complexity and 13-16 against ALTERNATE aTTaX.
KOVA on the other hand, are coming into the match in a slightly worse from. KOVA’s only two wins came against SJ (2-0) and LDLC (2-1), while they lost against Apeks (0-2), Secret (0-2) and Heroic (13-16). KOVA haven't played many matches so far this year, so their 43% win rate is a little misleading compared to Endpoints' 59%, who have played three times as many matches than the Finns.
These two teams have already met once at the Europe Minor Open Qualifier 3 – ESL One Rio 2020, where KOVA came away with a 16-14 on Vertigo and 16-11 on Dust2 to produce a clean sweep. Despite winning their last bout, KOVA are coming into the priced as big underdogs, which I don't get. Sure, their recent results are not exactly aspiring, but defeating a side such as Endpoint, should not be too hard to achieve. Value bet on KOVA!
Team Liquid vs Team Spirit
OGA DOTA2 PIT 2020 Online: Europe/CIS
After suffering a narrow 1-2 defeat on day one of OGA Dota PIT 2020 Online: Europe/CIS, Team Liquid will look to bounce back in a match against Team Spirit. The match seems very one-sided and quite frankly, I can agree with the provided odds. Still, this is an online match, so perhaps having Spirit priced at 2.85 is a bit too generous. Liquid have recently experienced a surge in form, but looking at their match against NiP, they looked very shaky, so maybe they have lost the momentum they have gained throughout the last couple of weeks.
I can't praise Spirit too much for their results in recent weeks, as they won only four out of 10 games played. Their most notable achievement came last week, when they took one map from VP, which shows in what a bad spot this team is. Although betting on -1.5 map handicap in any online match is rarely a good option, I don't believe Spirit can produce any meaningful resistance here. Until they improve, Spirit are a second-tier team for me, while I am prepared to see another resurgence of Liquid. Trust Liquid to win 2-0!
