Here are our predictions for the first round of the StarLadder Berlin Major
The fifteenth CS:GO Major is almost upon us. You know the drill: the teams that made it through the gauntlet of the minors and the returning challengers from Katowice are gunning for eight spots in the second stage of the competition. The first round matchups were seeded based on the HLTV rankings and they are best-of-one so the upset potential is higher than usual – but which team are likely to get things done? Here are our betting predictions for the first round of games.
Vitality vs Syman Gaming
There’s little to suggest that the CIS side can match up to the Frenchmen who have one of the world’s best players wielding the big green gun: this is not a low-tier online league where they’re looking to throw, you know?
NRG vs DreamEaters
The removal of daps hasn’t proved particularly fruitful just yet for the North American side, at least where the matches against the big boys are concerned, but they’ve breezed through the minor without dropping a single map. Meanwhile, DreamEaters had to fight through the third-place play-in to make it this far, which, alongside the HLTV rankings, would suggest a one-sided game, but NRG’s tendency to get caught flat-footed at majors should not be discounted when the odds are this juicy.
Bet on DreamEaters to win @ 5.23
G2 vs TyLoo
This is the meeting of two extremely inconsistent teams, and the main argument in favor of the Frenchies is their much higher ceiling. Whether they can bring it to bear is a very different question with this side. Still, TyLoo is far from the complete package, and even if this goes to a brawl-friendly map like Dust 2, we’re not seeing the upset here.
Read more: Reasons to hate each of the top CS:GO teams
North vs INTZ
Memes aside, North is a pretty decent team, but we do know they can be rattled by relative unknowns when things begin to get out of hand, and there’s a big enough potential for an upset to consider a cheeky bet on kNgV-‘s side who’ll no doubt try to make a good impression before his move to MiBR.
FURIA vs HellRaisers
The fan favorite Brazilians have definitely cooled off since they announced themselves with a win over Astralis at the ECS S6 finals, but this current HellRaisers lineup is a far cry from the one that made top eight in London. While there’s no shortage of individual talent on HR, they haven’t showed too much as a team so far, making FURIA the likely winners for this one.
mousesports vs forZe
This new, karrigan-led mouz side has already shown that they can match up with the big boys and they also displayed the sort of mental fortitude the team has lacked in the past when the going got tough, bouncing back from the brink of catastrophe in the Europe minor to go and and win the whole thing. In the past, you could have argued that they may be anti-stratted by their lesser-known opponents, but there’s no way this happens under the Danish IGL’s watch.
AVANGAR vs Complexity
This game is a clash of known unknowns and unknown unknowns: Complexity failed to make much of their Cinderella run at the London major in the circuit after the fact, and it remains to be seen how effective their roster changes turned out to be. They do have an exciting young talent in the form of oBo but AVANGAR got a pretty decent pickup as well with AdreN. It’s a close one, but the historically poor showings of the CIS side on the major stage makes us vouch of the North Americans on this one.
Bet on Complexity to win @ 2.19
CR4ZY vs Grayhound Gaming
Despite the cringe-worthy rebranding, CR4ZY are showing more and more promise as time goes on: they have a fairly decent resumé from the tier 2 event circuit, not to mention the impressive scalps they’ve picked up in the minor. Meanwhile, a post-major roster swap is already confirmed on Grayhound as erkaSt is set to depart, which gives us little optimism for the side’s current prospects.
(Odds are, of course, subject to change.)
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