ESL One: New York 2018 Playoffs Preview
ESL One: New York 2018 is entering its Playoffs stage today and only 4 of the initial 8 teams are left in the tournament. They will be competing for a prize pool of $225K and the chance to add a pretty important trophy to their past achievements.
The Playoffs stage of ESL One: New York 2018 is scheduled to take place this weekend, between September 29th – 30th and will provide 3 solid matches and great CS:GO betting opportunities.
Semifinals predictions
Arguably, the teams that have qualified for the Semifinals are not the ones that were expected to get here. With the exception of Team Liquid, which was expected to perform as well as it did and maybe even better, everyone else has had a pretty incredible tournament so far. Gambit Esports, mousesports and NRG Esports had to outsmart and outplay teams like Natus Vincere, FaZe Clan, G2 Esports and Fnatic to get to this stage and they’ve done it with remarkable consistency.
Going into the Playoffs stage of ESL One: New York 2018, here are my predictions for how things will unravel.
mousesports vs. NRG Esports
Prior to ESL One: New York 2018, mousesports had had 3 months of mixed results, ranging from decent to poor. The team finished 9th – 12th at ESL One: Cologne 2018, 3rd – 4th at ELEAGUE CS:GO Premier 2018, 3rd – 4th at DreamHack Masters Stockholm 2018 and 15th – 16th at FACEIT Major: London 2018.
Overall, not great but not that bad either. However, being a team that used to actually win tournaments not that long ago, mousesports’ roster probably felt disappointed with these results and that motivated them to climb even higher. Their drive to succeed has only become apparent at this event however, where they smashed both Fnatic (2 – 1) and Gambit Esports (2 – 1) to win Group A and advance to the Semifinals.
On the other side, because NRG did not qualify for the FACEIT Major, people had simply lost track of just how good the team was. Looking back, you can see that NRG Esports is not exactly an average competitor. Last Summer, it won at Intel Extreme Masters XIII Shanghai and played another Grand Final against Na’Vi at StarSeries & i-League CS:GO Season 5.
These achievements might have been enough for some other teams, but not for NRG. FugLy, daps and the rest of the squad are hungry for more and they’re eager to get it here, at ESL One: New York 2018. In the Group Stage of this event, NRG Esports lost against Team Liquid (1 – 2) but then went on to beat both FaZe Clan (2 – 0) and G2 Esports (2 – 0).
In the previous 2 direct encounters between these two teams, mousesports won both times. However, NRG Esports had tougher opponents at this event and came close to beating even Team Liquid. This suggests that an upset is very likely in this match.
Betway puts the odds at 1.70 – 2.05 in favor of mousesports, counting on the superior experience and individual skill of its players. But considering its tournament form, we may well see NRG overcome these disadvantages in a Bo3.
ESL One: New York 2018 betting prediction: NRG Esports to win (50% chance of an upset).
Team Liquid vs. Gambit Esports
After owning everyone except Astralis at the recent FACEIT Major, Team Liquid went into ESL One: New York 2018 as the number one favorite to claim the title, along with Natus Vincere. But with Na’Vi out of the tournament, Liquid should in principle have an easy path to victory. Neither Gambit Esports nor the winner of the other Semifinal can do much against this CS:GO machine.
Over the past 5 months, Team Liquid played in 3 Grand Finals and got 2 other top 4 results. Right now, this is likely the 2nd best team in the world after Astralis and I don’t expect it to lose against Gambit Esports in this match.
On the other side, Gambit hadn’t done anything important prior to ESL One: New York 2018. Its only notable results came in tier 2 tournaments such as Intel Extreme Masters XIII Shanghai (3rd – 4th place), DreamHack Open Summer 2018 (3rd – 4th place), Adrenaline Cyber League 2018 (3rd – 4th place) and DreamHack Open Tours 2018 (3rd – 4th place).
It seems that Gambit’s maximum level in tournaments is the Semifinals, even in tier 2 events. So it would be a massive surprise for it to get to the Grand Final of a tournament like ESL One: New York 2018 and against a much stronger opponent than the ones it’s used to playing against.
During the Group Stage of this event, Gambit finished 2nd in Group A by beating Na’Vi twice and losing to mousesports. The victories against Na’Vi would be important under normal conditions, but s1mple and his squad looked exhausted in both matches against this opponent. The 2nd place finish at the recent FACEIT Major and the bad beating they took against Astralis has clearly left a mark on them. The disappointment of getting to the Grand Final of such a big tournament and losing the way they did is not that easy to brush off. So Gambit’s two victories against this Na’Vi squad are not relevant at all.
Betway puts the odds for this match at 1.22 – 3.80 in favor of Team Liquid, regarding this Bo3 as an almost guaranteed win for the North American squad.
ESL One: New York 2018 betting prediction: Team Liquid to win.
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