EsportsAnother night, another round of esports betting tips to look forward to from our gaming expert Michael Lee. This Tuesday, the 17th f August, Michael focuses in on the ESL Pro League Season 14 and theMalta Vibes Knockout Series 1 for his best bets.
ESports Betting Tips: Tuesday, August 17th
Team Vitality vs Bad News Bears
ESL Pro League Season 14
Team Vitality started their ESL Pro League campaign with a 2-0 victory over ENCE. Despite what the score would suggest, the match was quite close, and there were chances for ENCE to steal a map and force a three-map series, but luck was not on their side.
Unsurprisingly, Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut was the best player on the server with 48 frags and 1.38 HLTV rating, while on the side of ENCE, it was Paweł "dycha" Dycha who was the man to watch with 37 frags and 1.13 HLTV rating. All in all, the match was quite close, but Vitality were the deserving victors.
I wasn't expecting a lot from Bad News Bears, but I also didn't expect them to be this bad. They have no firepower, no tactics, and against Heroic, they were playing downright awful and lost 0-2, with 1-16 on Mirage and 4-16 on Nuke. René "TeSeS" Madsen was on another level, with 42 frags and a 1.91 HLTV rating, while on the side of BNB, not a single player broke the 1.00 HLTV line.
It is tough to make a case for BNB here, and considering how they played against Heroic, there is zero chance that they come away with a win. Anything less than a clean 2-0 victory for Vitality would be quite an upset!
Wisla Krakow vs Illuminar
Malta Vibes Knockout Series 1
We have another Polish derby on our hands, this time between the Wisla Krakow and the new roster playing under the Illuminar banner. Even though there are no previous H2H matches between these two teams, the players should know each other well since they are all from the same region and often play together in ESEA/Faceit.
The bookmakers are expecting an easy victory for Wisla Krakow and while they are probably the most likely victors, I don't think they are worth a bet at these odds. As mentioned above, these players known how each other's weaknesses, so I would not be surprised if this ends up as a close series.
Copenhagen Flames vs Imperial
Malta Vibes Knockout Series 1
Imperial have a total of two official matches on their HLTV profile, both defeats, 8-16 against Heroic and 0-2 against Spirit. The two games were played against much better teams, so the results don't surprise me.
Imperial might be weaker than CPH Flames, however, they should at least enter this match warmed up. Unlike top teams from the scene, these second-division squads rarely take proper breaks during the player break, so at least they have that going for them.
As for Copenhagen Flames, their last match was five weeks ago when they lost (0-2) against Sinners. They are not a tier 1 team, so they were playing scrims during the player break, meaning that they shouldn't be too rusty heading into this match.
The Danes won 62% of their matches for the past three months, and while they haven't played a single competitive match for a month, they have been crushing teams way better than Imperial before, so they should have a pretty easy time on Tuesday. Copenhagen Flames to win 2-0!
Copenhagen Flames -1.5 Maps
$1.71
K23 vs 4glory
Malta Vibes Knockout Series 1
This should be a very similar match to the one described above - anything else than a 2-0 victory for K23 would be quite a surprise. K23 have won just 43.5% of their matches since May, but considering they were playing agianst Spirit, Gambit, Virtus.pro, forZe, and some other tier1 teams, the results are not as bleak as they look.
K23 have a nice mixture of veterans and young stars, and while they won't compete for top spots at major tournaments, they should have no real problems against a team like 4glory.
4glory have a similar 45.5% win rate across the last three months, however, they were facing teams much weaker than K23. 4glory even struggled against the likes of ONYX, Fiend, Anlaki, and AIRLYA, which are amateur teams so, it's hard to expect much from them here.
