Cloud9 vs G2 Esports | E-League – 10/10/17
Cloud 9 appear to come into this match as the stronger of the two sides having won 6 of their last 9 matches, however this has to be noted that of the last 9 matches all were against NA competition, so to play G2 a strong EU team may cause Cloud9 to make some adjustments to their playing style. Cloud 9 also are the strongest team on paper coming into the E-League Playoffs as they have a round difference of +24, meaning that Cloud9 have seen off other E-League competition such as NiP and Virtus.pro fairly easily in the group stages.
G2 however are the 2nd strongest team on paper having the second highest round difference (of +21) from their previous group stage matches, especially considering they lost their opening group stage match 10-16 to Na’Vi, only to play them again in the lower bracket playoff beating them 2-0 on maps to secure a spot in the LAN playoffs in Atlanta.
Autimatic and Skadoodle have the top ratings moving forward from the group stages, and have 36 & 37 kills respectively, over the course of 2 maps played. Cloud9 will hope that Skadoodle is at his peak with the AWP moving forward into the playoffs if they wish to reach the Final. KennyS the G2 AWP-er will hope to shut down a Cloud9 blitz seeing as he is also ranked in the top 8 performers of the group stages, which can be seen as even more impressive seeing as he and G2, had to play a total of 5 maps to qualify in comparison to Cloud9’s 2. Nonetheless G2 will have to hope that more than just KennyS can show up in this upcoming match, if they wish to see off Cloud9 and take a place in the semi-finals.
Dafabet have G2 as the favourites to win the match at 1.70, whilst Cloud9 are priced at 2.13 to win as things stand. With a further 7 markets available you can also fancy your chances of predicting who will draw first blood and take the pistols rounds in the upcoming Bo3 match between C9 and G2 who are arguable a top-2 side in their respective regions (NA & EU).
Astralis vs Fnatic | E-League – 10/10/17
Astralis will come up against a strong Fnatic team who have won 5 of their last 6 maps, with the most recent results being 2 strong wins against Astralis on mirage and train, where Fnatic cruised to close out the aforementioned maps 16-4 and 16-8 respectively. However we cannot forget that in recent events Fnatic have not been anywhere near their 2015 form at LANs, whereas Astralis have made many finals both this year and the last, and appear to be the stronger of the two when it comes to offline matches.
Astralis have only won 3 of their last 6 maps, and struggled against Fnatic in their most recent match (2 maps). However Astralis have managed to beat Fnatic in 4 of the last 8 meetings meaning this game should be a close call on paper, especially if Device can step up and help out Kjaerbye (Astralis’ top player of late) and the rest of the team, as he failed to make an impact in the last 2 maps against Fnatic.
Lekr0 & JW will be the two players on the Fnatic side to watch out for, as JW is always a scary prospect on the AWP having picked up 44 kills in the last 2 maps against Astralis. Lekr0 also impressed hitting some very unlikely shots against the Danes which allowed Fnatic to essentially dominate Astralis in their last 2 maps played earlier this week.
Both teams are at the top of the ESL Pro League table with Fnatic in 1st position and Astralis just behind in 2nd. So both teams should feel that they are close to the top of their games recently.
Dafabet have faith in Astralis however and the Danish team as their favourites at 1.40 to win the match and Fnatic at only 3.00 to win the match. If Fnatic can perform as well as they did in their last fixture, they could shut out Astralis and prove the bookies wrong.
Expect to see a closer result than earlier in the week, with Astralis hopefully learning from their previous mistakes and preventing another dominant performance from the Swedes.
