Another great night of esports action coming up this Thursday night and once again, Michael Lee has you covered with his best bets for the night! In this slate, he focuses heavily on the China Dota2 Pro Cup Season 1 event and the CS:GO ESL Pro League Season 12 Europe.
Esports Betting Tips: Thursday, October 1st
LBZS vs EHOME
China Dota2 Pro Cup Season 1
LBZS and EHOME have never met before this Thursday when they will clash in the China Dota2 Pro Cup Season 1 playoffs. EHOME earned their spot in the second stage of the competition with a somewhat disappointing run through the group stage, where they lost to Royal Never Give Up (0-2) and Phoenix Gaming (0-2), but managed to take games off Team MagMa (2-0) and ViCi Gaming (2-1).
LBZS, on the other side, won all four games in Group A, which includes triumphs over Aster (2-1), Invictus Gaming (2-1), Sparking Arrow Gaming (2-1) and even PSG.LGD (2-0). LBZS's strong performances shocked me quite a bit since this is a stack of players that has two amateurs on the roster. Nevertheless, LBZS have proven they're the real deal and possibly one of the main favourites to challenge the title.
LBZS are priced as the underdogs, which I don't find fair. It seems like the bookmakers set the odds according to the brand value alone instead of how well the teams have performed so far and even though EHOME deserve some praise for their win over ViCi, their overall showings were mediocre at most. Bet on LBZS to win!
Natus Vincere vs Complexity
ESL Pro League Season 12 Europe
The last time we saw a clash between Natus Vincere and Complexity was the end of August during the ESL One Cologne 2020 Europe, where Complexity secured a comfortable 2-0 win with 16-9 on Dust and 16-8 on Nuke. That match marked their fourth H2H bout of the year and the second time in a row Complexity defeated NaVi.
The man of the match in their previous fixture was Benjamin "blameF" Bremer who secured 37 frags and ended the series with 1.39 HLTV rating, while his teammate Kristian "k0nfig" Wienecke did not disappoint either with 45 frags and 1.35 HLTV rating. On the side of NaVi, Aleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev was once more the best-performing player with 35 frags and 1.07 HLTV rating.
Despite Complexity's dominance of NaVi last time out, I expect to see a completely different result here. Since Complexity parted ways with Owen "oBo" Schlatter, this team lost a lot of firepower and are not as strong as they were in August. Nevertheless, Complexity still put up quite a show against ENCE, so perhaps they're not as bad as it may seem.
NaVi have shown some issues against mousesports a couple of days ago in a match that seemed like it could easily end with mouz claiming a 2-0 win. Considering mouz are in some ways going through similar roster issues as Complexity, we can expect a similar result here as well. NaVi are still the most likely victors, but since they were not looking too good against mouz, the best bet to take is over 2.5 maps. Bet on the series to go the distance!
Team Spirit vs Astralis
ESL Pro League Season 12 Europe
Astralis and Spirit met only twice in 2020 and it was Astralis who emerged supreme on both occasions with 2-0 sweeps. The last time these two teams played was just a few weeks ago during the EPL when Astralis won 16-10 on Nuke and 16-7 on Overpass.
The best-performing player that day was Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander with 36 frags and 1.36 HLTV rating. Even Astralis' newest addition Patrick "es3tag" Hansen had a phenomenal performance and ended the series with 37 frags and 1.23 HLTV rating. On the side of Spirit, all five players severely underperformed seeing how Artem "iDISBALANCE" Egorov was their best player with 31 frags and 0.94 HLTV rating.
Team Spirit deserve some praise for making it so far this far at ESL Pro League, but I firmly believe their road ends here. While Spirit proved to be good enough to defeat Ninjas in Pyjamas, Vitality and FaZe, they usually to struggle against more tactically better teams and it does not get much better than Astralis.
Astralis severely underperformed against Heroic yesterday, so we can be sure the Danes will be hungry to get back on track with another commanding win against Spirit. Bet on Astralis to win 2-0!
