The V4 Future Sports Festival looks to be a two-horse race, with the other participating teams merely looking to prove themselves on a larger stage.
FaZe Clan favourites once more
FaZe Clan are the obvious favourites, given their current position as number one team in the world. Ever since the formation of this squad no team has looked even remotely as dominant, with FaZe continually reaching Grand Finals. However, concerns are now growing about their inability to perform when the lights shine the brightest. FaZe have faltered in Final after Final, falling to the likes of Cloud9 and Fnatic in recent memory.
Despite this, the ability to reach Finals consistently, no matter the field they play, is quite impressive, hence their status as the best team in the world, even with constant second place finishes leading some to question whether or not line-up changes are needed to get over the hump. The one consistent factor for FaZe in these recent Finals losses has been the star power of GuardiaN, who has been the best player in the server for many of these Finals despite the defeats. Given the overall lack of top tier teams at this event, FaZe should have no problem reaching the Finals once again, although it will be instructive to see if they fall short.
All eyes on mousesports
Clearly the second-best team at this event is mousesports; ironically the last team that FaZe defeated in a Final, which was much closer than people thought it would be. Mousesports are currently a top five outfit, with a deep pool of talent complimented by an ever-evolving tactical side as chrisJ continues to improve as an In-game leader.
The concern for mousesports is that they play in a similar style to FaZe while having weaker overall players in each role, although their players are obviously still world class. Playing primarily a loose style while having a few dedicated intricate strategies on their core maps, Mirage being the most obvious example, mousesports typically fall short in terms of raw ability, making this a nightmare scenario.
The good news for mousesports is that a team with the exact same problems recently beat FaZe; Cloud9 during their run at the ELEAGUE Major. The bad news is that all five Cloud9 players had to perform at their peak and still they only narrowly took away the win due to FaZe making a few poor decisions at the very end. The key for mousesports will be just how much in form the trio of oskar, ropz and suNny are, as they will need to be just as good if not better than the core of NiKo, GuardiaN and rain. As recently as Thursday these two teams squared off against one-another, with FaZe securing a 2-0 win in the ECS including a one-sided 16-2 on Mirage.
Two more to watch
The other two well-known teams at this event are HellRaisers and Virtus.pro, with HellRaisers looking much better than VP as of late. Virtus.pro have continued their poor form even after replacing long-tenured player TaZ, with the team having abysmal pistol statistics in particular. VP have continued to look out of sorts, with probable roster moves on the horizon leading to little hope of a successful event. A reasonable hope for VP is to take care of the lesser teams and build some momentum moving forward.
HellRaisers are also not expected to make waves, but the team have generally been decent as of late. Bondik’s re-addition to the squad has been a fairly positive move, with Zero joining one of the other squads at this event; GameAgents. HellRaisers should be in solid contention for 3rd/4th place, with hopes of upsetting the likes of mousesports or FaZe being an incredible long shot.
Off to Budapest
All eyes then are on the Syma Sports and Conference Centre in Budapest for what could be a fascinating event. There’s a €500,000 prize pool on offer and with a €200,000 first place prize FaZe Clan will have more than enough incentive to end their Finals slump.
