In June of 2018, Ex6TenZ finally stepped back into the top tier of French CS. He joined shox and kennyS on G2, and they were heralded as the “French Superteam”.  Armed with a solid support player SmithZz and a third fragger bodyy, they looked poised to make waves in the international scene.

In come Lucky and JACKZ, from the team 3DMAX, which is the fourth best French team. (I think. It probably goes Vitality, LDLC, G2, then 3DMAX). 3DMAX is 11-5 in EU MDL and have looked pretty good since adding JACKZ in July of this year. They’ve taken maps off of ENCE, Sprout, Kinguin. They seem to be a solid tier 2-3 team, although likely not for much longer.

JACKZ has been a solid hybrid player for 3DMAX and should hopefully pair well with Kenny. Lucky just needs to continue providing firepower, as that’s something G2 is in desperate need of. I’m not terribly hopeful for JACKZ continuing his success as an AWPer, simply because I don’t think G2 will be able to get him the AWP. Shox likes to secondary AWP, and he also likes to buy pretty aggressively. Whether JACKZ gets the AWP in his hand as often as he likes is a question G2 will have to answer moving forward.

As far as betting on G2, now is the time to put money on them as an underdog. Presumably they are going to start playing a much looser style, which teams aren’t going to be able to prepare for. Shox is going to be unleashed and allowed to play his style. There will likely be a small honeymoon phase after the addition of the new players, and I could see G2 upsetting someone like FaZe or BIG or someone like that. So if you can get them as an underdog, I’d recommend putting some money down.

Now that the dust has settled after IEM Chicago’s exciting conclusion, I want to take a look at the fallout. I’m going to go through some of the standout teams, good and bad, and what we’ve learned from the tournament. I’ll be treating the teams like stocks and telling you guys who you should be buying and selling.

Buys – Teams to Bet On

Astralis

To nobody’s great surprise, Astralis won IEM Chicago, thereby claiming their sixth title in five months. They kept their Nuke winning streak alive, a record they’ve held on LAN since December 2017. Their lowest map win rate is 66.7% on Mirage, and they have a 73% win rate on CT side Nuke, which is unbelievable.

Before this tournament, I didn’t think it would be possible for their stock to rise any further, and yet here we are. Not only did they take this tournament in dominating fashion, they had two massive comebacks over Fnatic and Team Liquid. That Fnatic best-of-three was exactly the kind of game old Astralis would have lost.

Instead, they buckled down and won 6 rounds in a row on T Side Inferno, after losing a crucial 2v1 no less.

There are only a handful of CS teams in all of CS:GO history that could have won that game. The 87-0 NiP, 2015 Fnatic, 2017 SK Gaming. This performance enshrines Astralis into that prestigious tier of teams.

Astralis show no sign of slowing down, which is why you should be buying. They’re a safe bet to win pretty much every tournament they attend. This does, however, mean that you should never, ever bet against Astralis. They’ve shown that no game is unwinnable.

Liquid

Liquid’s showing at this tournament was par for the course. They’re the perfect bridesmaid team and continue to finish in a strong second place after getting demolished by Astralis. If they didn’t have a statistical standout, there wouldn’t be much to say about them. But they did, and there is, so here we are.

Twistzzz posted a 1.19 rating over 16 maps at IEM Chicago, and he absolutely caught fire after the first two maps of the event. He decimated Mousesports 66-45 with 85.9 ADR over three maps. Then he carried Liquid over LDLC with a 30 bomb in an elimination game, pulling out a 16-14 victory over the surging French.

As good as that was, his defining performance of the event came against FaZe in the semi-final. He went 23-3 in a 16-1 victory over FaZe, with 127 ADR and a 100% KAST over 17 rounds.

This is the statline of a superstar, no doubt about it. Unfortunately, Twistzzz was unable to get much going against Astralis in the grand final, going negative in the last two games of the best-of-three. While it seems Liquid still haven’t gotten over the hump, I wouldn’t say they’ve hit their ceiling yet. You should be buying Liquid and looking for them to take their first tournament with this core soon.

Fnatic

Fnatic had a great showing this tournament. They were the second highest rated team over the event and won a best-of-three against Liquid, a best-of-one against BIG, and almost made the grand finals. Unfortunately, they ran into Astralis and lost a close best-of-three.

Brollan is the standout player of the event from Fnatic, posting a 1.11 KDR over nine maps. His defining performance came against Liquid, where he went 27-13 to pull Fnatic over the finish line in map three, earning them a semi-finals berth.

Fnatic showed enough at this event that I can trust them to be a contender for the next couple of months. I would be buying as much Fnatic stock as I can, and betting on them whenever the odds are good, especially as an upset team. They’ve already shown they can take series off of the top five in the world, and we should trust that trend to continue.

Sells – Teams to Bet Against

MIBR

This one hurts me. I’ve been a fan of this core for a long time, but I think it’s finally time to sell. MIBR have been trying to break into the top five for a long time now, and I just don’t see it happening. I used to adore watching this core on Train, especially because it’s one of my favorite maps.

Now, watching MIBR’s CT side collapse to NRG is just heartbreaking. Their coordination is gone. No one seems to know what their role is. It’s a sad state of affairs. Their best showing with this lineup is a second place finish at Blast Pro Series Istanbul, where they took a map off Astralis.

I’m not sure if this team can get any better. I would be selling all my MIBR stock until they make a roster change. I’d love to see them go back to an all Brazilian lineup, focus more on letting Coldzera do his thing, and figure out how to get Fallen back to all-star status with the AWP.

There’s still potential to be a top-five team in the Coldzera-Fallen-Fer core, and I hope that they make it happen.

Natus Vincere

I’ve never really been sold on this team. S1mple has amazingly good aim, yes. But this team isn’t deep enough or consistent enough to be one of the world’s best. That might be a hot take, but you can’t go out in last place without taking a game off BIG, and still expect to be talked about in the same breath as Astralis and Liquid.

Natus Vincere is a highly volatile team. In my mind, that makes them a stock not worth holding. I wouldn’t blame you for holding on, but I’m out.

Beyond the Summit finally announced the first-round matchups for cs_summit 3. It looks like this:

compLexity (+120) – OpTic (-167)

NRG (-286) – Ghost (+195)

Kinguin (+130) – Heroic (-182)

BIG (-182) – G2 (+130)

I’ll give my picks for the first round and the overall winner at the end, but first, let’s go over the teams.

Team (Odds to win the event)

BIG (+325)

A cs_summit favorite at, tied with NRG at +325 to take the whole thing. BIG has a strong case to win this tournament. They have one of the strongest teams, one of the longest standing rosters, and likely the best IGL at the event. Summit events tend to give these tactical teams a little something extra, as they can hear better and communicate easier. I think they have a strong shot to take the whole tournament.

It wouldn’t hurt to put some money on these guys.

NRG (+325)

NRG is the other event favorite, also at +325. They have one of the top players at the event, Cerq, their 18-year-old Bulgarian import. He’s the only player on the team with an HLTV MVP, for IEM Shanghai 2018, plus he has a 1.16 rating over 611 career maps.

He spearheads a team led by Daps, who provides enough direction to allow them to hang with the anyone at this tournament. They played well at StarSeries this month, beating North twice, but they lost in the Semifinals to Vega, 2-1.

I don’t doubt they’ll make noise at this tournament, but I don’t think they should be a favorite.

OpTiC (+450)

OpTic is a bridesmaid team. They haven’t been able to get over the hump to a first-place win. They played well at StarSeries and the GG.BET Shuffle, racking up wins over BIG, Mousesports, Renegades, EHCE, and Vitality, before finally falling short to ENCE at StarSeries and LDLC at GG.BET. OpTic smashed BIG at StarSeries, but BIG played terribly anyway. OpTic are likely to do some damage, but I’m not a fan of this +450 line.

They feel too volatile.

G2 (+550)

G2 have been one of the more dysfunctional “super teams” in recent CS history. This shouldn’t’ come as a surprise if you’re familiar with the French scene.

They’ve been struggling. At a tournament with any further Tier 1 competition, I wouldn’t feel good about their chances. Luckily for them, this tournament doesn’t have much Tier 1 competition.

Shox and KennyS are perhaps the two best players at the LAN, making G2 a dangerous team. The only players that can go toe-to-toe with them on the server are ShahZam (on a good day) and Cerq.

Unfortunately, they drew BIG for the first round, which might make it hard for G2 to make a deep run.

Heroic (+550)

Heroic has failed to make much of an impact on the scene. They’ve made several roster moves this year, replacing a third of their team. The results continue to be subpar.

This event might (however unlikely) be their chance to prove themselves as the third best Danish team. It’s unlikely they’ll meet OpTic in the bracket, which is disappointing, but watching them play should be interesting, just to see what they’re capable of.

Their odds are too low; I’d stay away.

compLexity (+600)

CompLexity was the big surprise of the Faceit Major. They had a team rating of 1.04, falling just short of BIG’s 1.05. They beat G2 and BIG to make it through the New Legends Stage undefeated, ruining many a pick’em.

I find their odds to win suspiciously low. I like the idea of an underdog taking the whole tournament.

If ShahZam is in top form and the rest of his team pulls their weight, they’ll look pretty scary.

Ghost (+1200)

Ghost is one of the more intriguing teams at this event. The last time they played a top 30 team on LAN was last August, where they lost to both Na’Vi and NiP 2-1.

Since then they have competed in online leagues and qualifiers and are working with their new lineup (Neptune joined last month).

I would assume they’ve been studying hard for this event, and Steel is likely to come out firing on all cylinders for their opening match.

Another good underdog.

Kinguin (+1600)

Kinguin’s best win over the last couple months was a 2-0 over Ence at DreamHack Open Montreal 2018. Funnily enough, Heroic failed to make it out of groups at the same tournament.

They are +1600 to win the event. That seems pretty fair. To be honest, they’re more like a retirement home for Taz than a fully-functioning Tier 2 Counter-Strike team.

Favorites

Of the four first-round matches, compLexity – OpTic is my best bet. Getting the over on CoL is solid value, but I don’t understand why their odds are so high. OpTic barely squeaked by Team Vitality and ENCE, which aren’t bad wins, but they failed to close out the tournament over LDLC.

In all honesty, there aren’t a lot of great lines for the beginning of this tournament. G2 provides some value, but I think BIG is a heavy favorite. I would stay away from that game.

Ghost at +195 isn’t terrible but trying to shut down Cerq is going to be a challenge. Most of these games are stay-aways, I wouldn’t recommend dropping major money on any of them.

Betting the outrights, however, has some value. I like G2 at +550 and compLexity at +600. Both of those teams have a legitimate chance at taking the tournament, provided their best players are in top form.  
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It’s October 30, and we have a full slate of CS:GO over the next few days. Last weekend we saw FaZe take EPICENTER in a dominating 2-0 over Na’Vi. This week, ESL Pro League hits the halfway point. Starting this weekend we have cs_summit 3 and BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen.

To help you make a little money, we’ve lined up the best bets for ESL Pro League and the second half of EPICENTER.

ESL Pro League

It’s the third week of ESL Pro League, and the teams for the finals are starting to look pretty set. The seventh spot in the European is kind of up for grabs, but it seems likely Mousesports will hold on and make it to playoffs.

The North American standings are a little closer. There are four teams within three points of each other all vying for the last ticket to LAN. I’ve pulled a couple games off the slate this week to highlight as high-value games.

NiP (+121) – FaZe (-152)

Okay, so FaZe Clan just demolished Na’Vi on their map pick (Dust II) and beat NiP 2-0 in the quarter-final. Don’t let that distract you from the fact that they haven’t been playing very well.

Their IGL situation is in flux, they have been playing poorly, and last week they dropped a game to ENCE on LAN. Do you know what FaZe’s round differential is in EPL right now? Negative one. They have the round differential of a ninth-place team and have the only negative record in the top nine. Look, FaZe just won $150,000. If you think they’re home right now, reviewing NiP demos, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

NiP hasn’t been playing like a top team lately, but they ran FaZe close enough at EPICENTER that I feel like this is a lock. Bet $100 to win $121
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Windigo (+196) – Fnatic (-250)

Fnatic and Windigo are two more teams whose records don’t match their round differential. Fnatic is 5-9, and Windigo is 3-7, but their round differentials are almost the same, -20 and -25, respectively.

Fnatic is in roster turmoil. They added Twist on October 2 and Brollan on October 17. Windigo just signed AWPer Valentin “poizon” Vasilev from BPro Gaming. Poizon has a 1.28 rating over the last three months and will hopefully add some firepower to Windigo.

Also, Windigo’s only wins have been against G2, Heroic, and AGO. Fnatic dropped a game to all of those teams. Granted, that doesn’t really mean anything, but 2.96 are solid odds for this game, so this is a lock as well. Bet $100 to win $196
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compLexity (-189) – Rogue (+150)

Rogue is currently tied in a best-of-three against Bravado, and they’re losing 1-6 on Mirage. They picked up MSL today, and their roster history on Liquipedia is longer than Game 3 of the World Series.

I wouldn’t be surprised if MSL helps Rogue but changing your IGL two days before a game is not a recipe for success. Besides Rogue’s roster revolution, compLexity is one of my favorite teams at the moment, and I think this line should be lower.

So that’s my only lock for North America this week. There’s not much value in the North American slate of games this week unless you believe in EnVyUs or INTZ, which I do not. Bet $100 to win $53
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BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen

This event already looks like an Astralis victory lap. In the last six months, they’ve had more tournament wins than most teams have top fours. In that same six months, they’ve won more tournaments than Na’Vi won rounds on Nuke in the major finals. Realistically, I would not bet against Astralis.

If you’re feeling frisky, MIBR is +600 to win the event. They’ve played Astralis pretty close in recent history, and have the best value of attending teams. Unfortunately, there’s only one bet that provides real value at this tournament. Bet $100 to win $600
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FaZe (+121) – Na’Vi (-152)

Na’Vi has had an edge in this matchup historically, but the matchups between these two teams tend to be close. FaZe defeated them in a best-of-three at EPICENTER, which is especially important because FaZe beat Na’Vi 16-3 on Na’Vi’s map pick.

This could affect Na’Vi’s vetoes in this best-of-one and hopefully provide a morale booster to FaZe. If they can focus on shutting down S1mple, FaZe has a real chance to take this game. I like those odds. It’s the bet with the best value at the tournament unless you’re really excited about MIBR or Cloud9. Bet $100 to win $120
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cs_summit 3

cs_summit is one of my favorite tournaments of the year. The selection of teams doesn’t include anyone exceptional, so the tournament seems fairly open for the taking. Unfortunately, Beyond the Summit has yet to release the first round matchups, so the most we can do is try to pick the winner.

BIG are the favorites at +325, which seems like a solid bet. These kinds of tournaments are good for tactical teams, due to the lack of crowd noise. The teams, at least in past tournaments, sit together in a room and play in complete silence. This makes it much easier to execute Gob B’s preferred pristine style of play. Bet $100 to win $325
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You can get G2 at +550 as well. That’s not terrible. I’m not a huge fan of G2, but Shox and KennyS are two of the most talented people in the tournament. It’s entirely possible for them to turn it out and dominate this group of mostly tier-two competition. Bet $100 to win $550
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My final pick is compLexity at +600. They’re my dark horse pick and might be worth a flyer. They made noise at the FACEIT Major, beating G2 and BIG handily in the New Legends stage. Stanislaw is a legitimate IGL, and ShahZam has shown that he can stand toe-to-toe with players like KennyS, although his consistency leaves a bit to be desired. Bet $100 to win $600
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Parlay of the week

How about a parlay? Just for fun. We’ll pick NiP over FaZe in EPL at +121, compLexity over Rogue in EPL at -189, and at BLAST we’ll go with Astralis over FaZe at -303. Altogether, that’s a $100 bet to win $349.

The locks for the major tournaments are pretty obvious. Unfortunately, nothing stood out to me in the ECS. I’ll let you know how my picks turned out next week.

To review, my picks are:

EPL

NiP (+121) – FaZe (-152)
Windigo (+196) – Fnatic (-250)
compLexity (-189) – Rogue (+150)

BLAST Pro

FaZe (+121) – Na’Vi (-152)

cs_summit

compLexity (+600) to win the event