Another night, another round of esports betting tips coming your way! The Huya Dota2 Winter Invitational continues this Tuesday night and Michael Lee is back to preview some of his favourite matchups of the night here!
ESports Betting Tips: Tuesday, December 22nd
Team MagMa vs Neon Esports
Huya Dota2 Winter Invitational
Neon Esports have helped us secure a perfect 3/3 for our Monday predictions with a phenomenal performance against the shaky Invictus Gaming. The first map of the series was somewhat close for the first 30 minutes, but in their style, IG choked and allowed Neon to lock in the series lead, which gave them the needed momentum to secure a 2-0 sweep.
Neon's next match against Team MagMa likely won't be as easy as their last one, but that does not mean they don't stand a chance. Team MagMa enter this match with a somewhat uninspiring 1-2 record, which includes only one win against Execration (2-1) and two losses against Phoenix Gaming (1-2) and Invictus Gaming (0-2).
Since their loss against Execration, MagMa went on a 3-1-4 run and enter this match on a three-game losing streak with losses against LBZS (2-3), Ink Ice (0-2) and Team Sirius (0-2). Individually, MagMa are still a very solid team, but I have said the same thing about IG yesterday when I also noted the individual quality is hardly worth putting too much weight on when the team is struggling with their form.
Neon and MagMa last met last Wednesday, when MagMa edged out a 2-1 reverse-sweep win. The match, however, was very close and I would even argue that Neon deserved to win with 2-0. Nevertheless, they will have a good chance to prove they are the better team on Tuesday and based on what they have shown on Monday, I don't see why they can't defeat MagMa.
Sparking Arrow Gaming vs iG.Vitality
Huya Dota2 Winter Invitational
IG.Vitality suffered a 0-2 loss against Aster on Monday which marked their fourth consecutive loss after they have already dropped the ball against Royal Never Give Up (0-2), Neon Esports (0-2) and LBZS (0-2). Much like their main roster. iG.Vitality are not in good shape and unlike other low-tier teams, they don't possess the upset potential.
It's up to debate whether Sparking Arrow Gaming should be considered as the favourited heading into this match, since they are 0-4 so far this tournament. The only two games they came close to winning were against Army Geniuses (1-2) and CDEC Gaming, yet even those came early into the competition.
Seeing SAG struggle, however, is not entirely shocking, since they had to replace Wang "J" Wenjun and Su "Flyby" Lei with Lai "Fonte"' Xingyu and Lin "June" Shiyang Huya Winter Invitational, which is not optimal and harms their synergy.
On a more positive note, SAG have never before lost to iG.Vitality (11-0) and hold a perfect 7-0 head-to-head record this year. Regardless of their perfect H2H record, I am not convinced with SAG will manage another clean sweep. Without Flyby and Fonte, they seem weak enough for iG.Vitality to steal at least one map and force a three-map series. Bet on over 2.5 maps.
Sinners vs Nexus
Vulkan Fight Series 2020
The last time these two sides met was in November when Sinners secured a comfortable 2-0 victory with 16-11 on Dust2 and 16-4 on Vertigo. Sebastian "beastik" Daňo shone the brightest that day with 38 frags and 1.47 HLTV rating, however, it's worth noting that his teammates were not too far behind, since none of them ended the series with a rating lower than 1.15. On the side of Nexus, all five members failed to reach the 1.00 rating line.
At the time, Sinners were still playing with Hubert "CaNNiE" Ludwig, who got replaced by an experienced ex-mousesports player Tomáš "oskar" Šťastný. Although the Czech AWPer joined Sinners just over a week ago, I don't fear about any lack of synergy since he has already proved his worth with a 1.325 average HLTV rating across the last six maps played.
Both sides enter this match with only two games at the Vulkan Fight Series under their belt. Sinners secured two victories against Lilmix (16-12 on Inferno and 16-12 on Train) and Lyngby Vikings (16-2 on Mirage and 16-2 on Inferno, whereas Nexus managed two Ws against ex-ETHEREAL (19-17 on Nuke, 12-16 on Mirage and 16-14 on Train) and NaVi Junior (16-13 on Mirage and 16-10 on Dust2).
Even though these online fixtures are no stranger to upset wins, I still have to side with Sinners to close out the series with two maps. They have been performing exceptionally well so far this tournament and with oskar in the lineup, they should be a tough nut to crack for Nexus. Bet on Sinners to win 2-0!
