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 Moon Studio Mid-Autumn League as well as the DreamHack Open Fall 2020.
ESports Betting Tips: Thursday, October 22nd
Team MagMa vs iG.Vitality
Moon Studio Mid-Autumn League
Team MagMa and iG.Vitality last met during the Moon Studio Mid-Autumn League group stage, where iG.Vitality secured a 2-0 victory. The match looked very one-sided on paper, but a closer look reveals MagMa could have forced a stalemate and came extremely close to doing so.
MagMa are a team that is (still) flying under the radar and while I wouldn’t say they are a top-tier team, this squad has put up quite a few solid results in the last couple of weeks. Most recently, MagMa defeated Team Sirius (2-0) and Sparking Arrow Gaming (2-1), and have before that swept LBZS (2-0).
That is not to say iG.Vitality's recent results are by any means worse, but they tend to be very inconsistent with their performances. They're 2-6-2 in their last 10, which only goes to show that iG.Vitality struggle closing out their games.
In most of their games - even in their bout with MagMa - iG.Vitality started strong but looked very iffy on the second map. This makes me worried about their chances to win, however, they should secure at least one map.
Royal Never Give Up vs EHOME
CDA-FDC Professional Championship
Royal Never Give Up are not nearly as strong as they used to be and their poor 4-6 record only further confirms RNG's struggles. At this point it's also worth mentioning that RNG are 0-5 since the start of October, which includes losses to ViCi (0-2), Phoenix (1-2), PSG.LGD (1-2), EHOME (1-2) and again ViCi (0-2).
EHOME might not be one of the strongest Chinese Dota2 teams, and despite their lack of consistency, EHOME are still a team that deserves some respect. EHOME are 3-2 in their last five, which includes losses to Team Aster (0-2) and ViCi Gaming (1-2), as well as wins over RNG (2-1) and two 2-0 wins against Team MagMa.
Based on what we have seen from these two teams, I would rank EHOME slightly higher, however, I can't agree with the betting odds. At 1.50, EHOME are severely overrated, especially considering this will mark their first match in almost two weeks.
RNG have played 30 games with EHOME in 2020 and won 20. While their most recent series ended in EHOME's favour (2-1), all of the previous three saw RNG come out ahead with a 6-1 aggregate score.
Royal Never Give Up
$2.37
GODSENT vs North
DreamHack Open Fall 2020
GODSENT and North last met four months ago during the ESL Pro League Season 12 Europe Qualifier, where GODSENT produced a very convincing 2-0 win with 16-6 on Nuke and 16-12 on Overpass. The man of the match was Martin "STYKO" Styk who ended the series with 57 frags and an amazing 1.84 HLTV rating, which was quite a shocking performance from a former "support" player.
Asger "Farlig" Jensen and Pavle "Maden" Bošković also had quite a solid performance with 1.36 and 1.17 HLTV rating respectively. On the side of North, their best player was Nicklas "gade" Gade with 31 frags and a rather poor 0.91 HLTV rating.
Since that bout, North parted ways with Kristoffer "Kristou" Aamand and replaced him with the former NiP in-game leader Jonas "Lekr0" Olofsson. That was in my opinion not the right move for the team that would be better off adding a bit more firepower instead of a second IGL.
Looking ahead to this bout, both teams struggled to impress in recent weeks and managed to win only two games in their last five. GODSENT have managed to defeat FaZe and sAw but lost against Astralis, BIG and Sprout, while North took down Sprout and ENCE, but lost to Heroic, fnatic and forZe.
Even though both teams hold the same 2-3 record, I am leaning more towards GODSENT. They not only played against tougher opponents – which makes their 2-3 record more valuable than North’s - but are in fact a very solid team and arguably much stronger than the current version of North. GODSENT to win 2-0!
