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 BLAST Premier Fall Series 2020 event and the ESEA MDL Season 35 Europe.
Esports Betting Tips: Thursday, October 29th
BIG vs FaZe
BLAST Premier Fall Series 2020
These two teams met about two weeks ago at the DreamHack Open Fall 2020, where BIG secured a convincing victory over FaZe with 19-16 on Mirage and 16-7 on Nuke. Florian "syrsoN" Rische and Ismailcan "XANTARES" Dörtkardeş emerged as the top-performing players that day, both with over 40 frags and 1.35 and 1.23 HLTV rating respectively.
On the side of FaZe, Helvijs "broky" Saukants was the only individual with somewhat solid showings. He ended the series with 47 frags and 1.15 HLTV rating, while all four of his teammates struggled to reach the 1.00 mark.
BIG played 12 maps and six series with FaZe in 2020 and won five series and 10 maps. FaZe's only victory over BIG came a couple of weeks ago during the IEM New York 2020 Europe.
BIG have a very strong record against FaZe and I expect this trend to continue. To make matters worse for FaZe, it was confirmed earlier today that their IGL Nikola "NiKo" Kovač left FaZe to join G2 Esports, which won't help the team's morale.
Even though BIG are not as strong as they were a couple of months ago, they still boast a 60% win rate which is very impressive since they mostly played against the best CS:GO teams in the world. BIG to win 2-0!
Vitality vs Complexity
BLAST Premier Fall Series 2020
The last time these two teams met was just a couple of weeks ago during the IEM New York 2020 Europe, where Vitality swept Complexity 2-0 with 16-8 on Mirage and 19-16 on Dust2. Much of Vitality's success that day came down to their star player Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut who ended the series with 61 frags and an amazing 1.70 HLTV rating.
On that note, it’s worth mentioning that Complexity had to play with a stand-in player against Vitality. What's more, their replacement player Niels-Christian "NaToSaphiX" Sillassen had a disastrous performance and put together only 27 frags and 0.73 HLTV rating across the series. On the other side, Kristian "k0nfig" Wienecke impressed with 50 frags along and 1.29 HLTV rating.
Despite Vitality's success against Complexity last time out, I don't expect another outstanding performance from ZywOo, especially considering Complexity finally got their hands on a fifth player.
If we look back to June, when Complexity and VItality clashed with their full rosters, it was Complexity who came out ahead (2-1). They lost the first map 2-16 but produced a remarkable comeback with 19-16 on Mirage and 16-12 on Nuke.
The bookmakers are expecting Vitality to defeat Complexity with ease, but I believe this bout will be much closer to what the odds suggest. The main factor that led me to that conclusion is not only Complexity's winning streak, but also the fact that they recently signed a new player - which usually results in a so-called honeymoon phase. Bet on Over 2.50 maps!
ForZe vs Endpoint
ESEA MDL Season 35 Europe
ForZe and Endpoint last met at the start of October during the IEM Beijing-Haidian 2020 Europe Open Qualifier 1, where Endpoint secured a convincing win with 16-11 on inferno. Endpoint's Shahar "flameZ" Shushan put together 24 frags and 1.45 HTTV rating, which was only slightly better than his teammate Robin "robiin" Sjögren with 24 frags and 1.40 HLTV rating.
On the side of forZe, Evgeny "FL1T" Lebedev was the only player with a decent showing. He ended the series with 23 frags and 1.25 HLTV rating which was far higher than any of his teammates.
ForZe have not impressed me with their recent results, seeing how they managed only one win (against Wisla Krakow) out of last five played and lost to the likes of sAw, Gambit, Nemiga, and Virtus.pro. Endpoint's record does not look too inspiring either since they have won only two out of last five, but I have to note two of their losses came against G2 Esports and Heroic.
Even though forZe seem like the most likely victors, I believe Endpoint have enough quality to make the series interesting and maybe even edge out a win. Bet on Endpoint to win!
