It's a massive night in esports coming up this Tuesday with some fantastic matchups involving some of the top teams in the world from the IEM New York event! Michael Lee is back with another round of best bets for the key games below.
Esports Betting Tips: Tuesday, October 6th
Vitality vs Fnatic
IEM New York 2020 Europe
Neither team has impressed me with their recent performances. While Vitality had some success in the online era of CS and even managed to claim no.1 spot in HLTV ranking, their second-place finishes at ESL One Cologne 2020 Europe, cs_summit 6 Europe and BLAST Premier Spring 2020 Europe don't inspire much confidence.
To add salt to the wound, Vitality recently finished in ninth-10th place at the ESL Pro League Season 12 Europe which was a disappointing result to say the least. There, the French squad managed to pick up wins only against NiP, Faze and Fnatic, but lost to Spirit, Astralis, Complexity and mousesports.
Fnatic are not the same Fnatic we saw before the CS scene transitioned to online play. They have won only 40% of their matches in the past three months and produced a disastrous 11th-12th place finish at ESL Pro League Season 12 Europe.
Like Vitality, Fnatic struggled to win games and managed to only defeat Spirit, FaZe and Ninjas in Pyjamas, but lost to Astralis, Vitality, Complexity and mousesports. On a more positive note, some of their losses were very close, so it's not fair to say Fnatic are a bad team.
This match seems like a complete coin-toss. While Vitality are looking like a better team, the odds offered on them are not too appealing. At the same time, I'm not too keen on backing Fnatic either, especially after their iffy results in recent months.
The best bet we can take here is overs. Vitality should still come out ahead, but considering how close their series against FaZe and Spirit were, I believe Fnatic should win at least one map and keep the match close.
Value: Vitality 2-1 ($3.05)
Heroic vs FaZe
IEM New York 2020 Europe
Heroic have met with FaZe once in 2020 and won 2-0 with 16-9 on Mirage and 16-10 on Nuke. On that day, we saw Johannes "b0RUP" Borup have one of his best performances in a long time as he ended the series with 44 frags and 1.39 HLTV rating, while Helvijs "broky" Saukants was the only player on FaZe who showed up with 38 frags and 1.12 HLTV rating.
As the score would suggest, the match was very one-sided, which only further proves that you don't need a lot of fire-power to defeat FaZe and their weak tactics. For that reason, I expect another blowout to happen this Tuesday.
There are also some rumours about a possible departure of FaZe's IGL Nikola "NiKo" Kovač, who is looking to join his brother over at G2 Esports, but so far nothing has been confirmed yet. Nevertheless, there should be some truth in those speculations, which leads me to believe NiKo's motivation to perform might not be at 100%.
That only further convinces me Heroic are the team to beat, since they should have a fairly easy time against FaZe even without the “motivation handicap”. FaZe are simply not playing at the level expected of them, whereas Heroic are looking better with each passing tournament. Bet on Heroic to win 2-0!
G2 vs Complexity
IEM New York 2020 Europe
G2 Esports' performances across the last couple of weeks were a complete disaster. They finished ninth at the cs_summit 6 Europe, third-fourth at the ESL One Cologne Europe and most recently 11th-12th place finish at the ESL Pro League Season 12 Europe, where they managed to win only two games against OG and GODSENT, but lost five straight against the likes of Heroic, ENCE, BIG, AGO and Natus Vincere.
While it's true that a few of those teams are quite good, I have a hard time understanding G2's loss to AGO and ENCE. What's more, the recent rumours of NiKo's arrival of FaZe also don't help G2 and their morale.
Complexity, on the other side, are dealing with their own issues, namely the abrupt departure of Owen "oBo" Schlatter, who singlehandedly destroyed Complexity's chances to win the ESL Pro League Season 12 Europe. As his replacement, Complexity acquired Niels-Christian "NaToSaphiX" Sillassen, who is trying his best, but he's not at the level of oBo, which is seen in Complexity's results in their last five, where they won only against ENCE, but lost to SJ, sAw, Natus Vincere and Astralis.
Both G2 and Complexity are in terrible form and are dealing with internal struggles. I still expect G2 Esports to prevail, but due to their poor showings, I don't like the risk of backing them. Instead, I find the over 2.5 map bet a far more appealing option since I still believe Complexity can take one map off their French adversaries. Bet on the series going into the distance!
