Another great night of esports action coming up this Wednesday night and into Thursday morning! We have you covered with a full preview and betting tips for some of our favourite matchups from the CS:GO and DOTA2 titles below.
Esports Betting Tips: Wednesday, May 13th
Astralis vs G2
CS:GO ESL One: Road to Rio – Europe
Astralis once again reclaimed their throne as the number one team in the world thanks to an amazing run through RtR, where they lost only one match against Fnatic, but managed to overcome Complexity, Vitality, NiP, Heretics, Dignitas and ENCE. They are definitely not the juggernaut they once were, but Astralis are still a very strong team with plenty of potential and quality. Their next opponents, G2, can hardly be seen as a confident team, at least not in the current state they’re in now. The online format was not kind to them as they have only managed to defeat a few lower-ranked teams such as GODSENT, Copenhagen Flames, Movistar Riders and c0ntact. But when they faced even a slightly stronger opponent, G2 fell flat on their backs. FaZe, mousesports and even North, who were playing with their coach instead of their star player Kjaerbye proved to be too strong to G2 and that is not something you would like to hear as a G2 fan ahead of this match.
Astralis and G2 have met for a total of three times so far, with Astralis winning on all three occasions. The last time they met was at the ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals, where G2 won the first map, Dust2 (16-13) but were outmatched on Inferno (15-19) and on Train (14-16). The trend has been set and I expect Astralis to continue it with their fourth win against G2. The French are in much worse shape as they were back when they won one map against Astralis, I would not shy away from backing Astralis to win here with a clean swoop.
Apeks vs FATE
CS:GO BLAST Rising 2020
Apeks have lost all of their BLAST Rising league matches, which includes a 14-16 loss against FATE, 8-16 against Japaleno and 13-16 against Movistar Riders. They placed first at the Telia League Sping 2020 with two wins against Nordavind NO and Riddle and also locked in fifth-eighth place finish at the Home Sweet Home Cup 3, where they defeated AVEZ and Virtus.pro but lost against BIG and VP. Their next opponents, FATE, were also present at the Home Sweet Home Cup 3, but they only finished 13-16th with two loses against Nordavind and Complexity. They won a close 16-14 match against Apeks at the BLAST Rising a couple of days ago, but they followed it up with two loses against Movistar Riders and Japaleno.
Neither of these two teams looks to be in shape and considering this is an online match between two teams that are nothing more than a low-ranked squad, there is no telling what can happen. FATE defeated Apeks before, but it was a close match, so I would not be surprised to see Apeks come away with a win. Nonetheless, there is no real reason to side with the favourites here, especially in an online match. Go for better odds and trust FATE to deliver. Value bet on FATE.
Reality Rift v Team CR
DOTA2 ESL One Birmingham 2020
Reality Rift and Team CR will meet in the upper bracket finals of Southeast Asian ESL One Birmingham Online qualifiers, which will be their second meeting of the year. Team CR and Reality Rift last met at BTS Pro Series: Southeast Asia in late April, when Reality Rift came away with a 2-0 win. The match was very one-sided, so it may seem like this match will end no differently, but there is one thing that should not be ignored. Back at BTS Pro, CR played with Lee "X1aOyU" Qian Yu, who has returned back to ViCi Gaming Potential and has been replaced by Roger "Roddgeee" Tan, who is in my book an upgrade and should help Team CR remain at least somewhat competitive.
In the previous round, where CR decimated Motivade.Trust, Roddgeee played well, but it's not him that Reality Rift should look out for here. Instead, Reality will need to keep an eye on Cheng "vtFαded" Jia Hao who has been extremely deadly in his recent showings. He ended game one against Motivade with 19/1/18 on Razor and singlehandedly carried his team to victory. One more thing that makes me believe the odds offered on Reality are not justifiable is the fact that they struggled against Flower Gaming (2-1), who are not a team that should be able to take Reality to three maps, at least not the Reality Rift we are used to seeing.
Reality Rift are still a strong team, but their performance against Flower has left me concerned. They might still come out ahead, but with CR's surge in form and this being an online match, a bet on over 2.5 maps makes much more sense. Expect a close match with all three maps played.
Execration vs 496 Gaming
DOTA2 Cyber.bet Cup: Spring Series
In their third fixture of the tournament, Execration will meet with 496 Gaming, who will enter the match as the only undefeated team of their group, but since they have played only one match so far, this "title" does not mean much. So far this tournament, 496 defeated Neon Esports by completely stomping them in game one (31-11), but had to put in much more work in game two (30-22). Execration, on the other side, lost their opening match of the tournament against LGD.Int in a very weird fashion. Execration narrowly lost the opening map, outclassed LGD.Int in map two (25-8), but suffered the exact same fate in map three (7-31).
Looking at that match, I came to a conclusion Execration can either have a good day or a bad day, which is not something you would like to see from a team you consider betting on. And it's not only that one match that has left me wondering about their consistency. The Filipino squad have been putting up similar results for the most part of April and early May, so it's obvious they need to find some stability going forward. That is not to say 469 are a perfect team. They also tend to have their ups and downs, but there were more downs in the last couple of weeks, so I can't trust them to win here either. With that in mind, the best bet for this match is over 2.5 maps, as these two teams seem to match up nicely, yet lack the consistency to produce a clean sweep.
