Preview of BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen 2019

General information

The championship will be held from 1 till 2 November in the capital of Denmark, Copenhagen. The tournament will be happening in the classic format in two days. On the first day, the matches of two rounds will be held while the second will be having battles of the rest of the rounds along with BLAST Pro Standoff and the grand final. We should mark that matches of the group stage will be held in the Bo1 format, and the grand final will be taking place up to two wins. As usual, BLAST Pro Standoff matches are duel battles with five kinds of weapons: M4A1/M4A1-S, Desert Eagle, AK47, CZ75, and AWP.

Analysis of the participants

Astralis (HLTV rating position — #2)
Win odds: 2.00

According to the statistics, Astralis has the biggest chance of winning and is the main favorite of being the winner at this championship. Now the Danish hold second place in the world HLTV rating and pose considerable risks at the championship. In our opinion, this team deserves to be called the strongest in the world despite EG, who climbed up to the top of the list of the best CS:GO rosters according to HLTV. If we consider each participant, we can notice that no one can provide good competition for gla1ve and his teammates. Liquid has a weakness while playing Astralis, Natus Vincere cannot stabilize their state as well as FaZe Clan. Meanwhile, NiP is not as strong as the Danish and there is nothing to say about Cloud9’s chance of winning matches against Astralis — the team is much worse than the Danish by the game level.

We should not forget about the fact that BLAST Pro Series will be taking place in Copenhagen and it means that the home arena will give Astralis energy and motivation. It is another advantage for Astralis.

In a word, the Danish team is the main favorite for a reason and the odds of their victory are so low that it is useless making an outright bet on the Danish.

Astralis roster and rating of the players:

Nicolai ‘dev1ce’ Reedtz — 1.24
Peter ‘dupreeh’ Rasmussen — 1.08
Andreas ‘Xyp9x’ Højsleth — 1.08
Lukas ‘gla1ve’ Rossander — 1.03
Emil ‘Magisk’ Reif — 1.10
Danny ‘zonic’ Sørensen — coach

Team Liquid (HLTV rating position — #4)
Win odds: 3.00

Team Liquid was in a good gaming shape for a long time in 2019 and even managed to break Astralis’ earned prize record and Twistzz showed the best results at pistol rounds in half of a year. Nevertheless, their perpetual problem of playing Astralis still exists. The Danish are a true kryptonite for the Americans, and taking into account gla1ve’s good gaming shape, the level of the preparation for the tournament and the factor of playing at the home arena, Liquid cannot be pleased with their chances of winning the championship. In the best case, the Americans will make it to the grand final and take second place. It is likely to happen this way if NAVI players don’t pull themselves together and don’t put on a clinic.

Team Liquid roster and rating of the players:

Nicholas ‘nitr0’ Cannella — 1.05
Jonathan ‘EliGE’ Jablonowski — 1.20
Russel ‘Twistzz’ Van Dulken — 1.08
Keith ‘NAF’ Markovic — 1.14
Jacky ‘Stewie2K’ Yip — 1.07
Eric ‘adreN’ Hoag — coach

Natus Vincere (HLTV rating position — #10)
Win odds: 5.80

Making predictions and suppositions about the team is quite risky. NAVI in interviews for esports issues and NAVI at tournaments are absolutely different teams. In the interviews, the players usually say that they respect and always support each other and there is a friendly atmosphere in the team, but seeing what happens at the championships, one gains absolutely opposite impression. If we remember that in 2019 Zeus told in one of the interviews that the team had not prepared for the tournament but the players performed very well in practice, we can say that the things said by the players do not correspond to reality. Then he, by the way, frankly told that he gave false information on purpose to put it across his opponents.

This time we will rely on our own observation. At the previous StarSeries i-League CS:GO Season 8, NAVI played worse that the other participants and became one of the first to leave the championship taking the 13-16 place in the tournament bracket. While playing, we could see that s1mple who is responsible for the morale of the team, influenced the players not so positively. Meanwhile, GuardiaN who showed the worst performance in the last four years had not adapted to the team or he had just lost his gaming shape. Nevertheless, we can pay attention to G2, who took the 5-6 position at StarSeries i-League CS:GO Season 8 with the new members of the team who had just joined it. So, it means that being motivated and having achieved good teamwork, you can adapt in a short span of time.

Due to the fact that NAVI did not let us see any good game from them, we do not have any right to lay great expectations on “Born to Win”. They have not been living up to the name of their tag for a long time and the odds 5.80 can be explained by the big audience in the whole world that believes in Natus Vincere’s success and makes bet on them including outrights. In the best case, NAVI will take third place thanks to their win at BLAST Pro Standoff, as this team will be chosen to play in duels by the audience for sure.

Natus Vincere roster and rating of the players:

Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev — 1.21
Egor ‘flamie’ Vasilev — 1.08
Denis ‘electronic’ Sharipov — 1.16
Kirill ‘Boombl4’ Mikhailov — 1.05
Ladislav ‘GuardiaN’ Kovács —0.96
Andrey ‘B1ad3’ Gorodenskiy — coach

FaZe Clan (HLTV rating position — #21)
Win odds: 17.00

A month ago the Brazilian legendary player Marcelo ‘coldzera’ David and Helvijs ‘broky’ Saukants from Latvia joined the team. Their debut turned out to be a failure and FaZe Clan took the 7-8 place at ESL One New York 2019. After that, the team was performing at ECS Season 8 Europe Week 3 and Week 4. In the first case, they lost right the first match and at the second one, they reached the semifinal which means they won only one match. It would be fair to say that at Week 4, they lost a battle with Astralis they cannot oppose to. In fact, the Europeans have had difficulties in setting the game the way they could show worthy results. That is why we think that the team is more likely to gain fifth place.

FaZe Clan roster and rating of the players:

Håvard ‘rain’ Nygaard — 1.01
Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovač — 1.04
Olof ‘olofmeister’ Kajbjer — 1.08
Marcelo ‘coldzera’ David — 1.10
Helvijs ‘broky’ Saukants (trial) — 1.11
Janko ‘YNk’ Paunović — coach

Ninjas in Pyjamas (HLTV rating position — #12)
Win odds: 26.0

After twist joined the team, it got untracked and at the previous StarSeries i-League CS:GO Season 8, it had enough time to surprise us beating Evil Geniuses, the champions of the tournament. At present NiP keeps twelfth in the rating bracket and their gaming shape is better than FaZe Clan’s in our opinion. We do not agree with the odds for FaZe which are equal to 17, while this figure for NiP is 26. We think that the Swedish must climb higher than fifth place outdoing FaZe Clan and Cloud9.

Ninjas in Pyjamas roster and rating of the players:

Patrik ‘f0rest’ Lindberg — 1.09
Fredrik ‘REZ’ Sterner — 1.03
Jonas ‘Lekr0’ Olofsson — 1.07
Nicolas ‘Plopski’ Gonzalez Zamora — 1.12
Simon ‘twist’ Eliasson — 1.08
Faruk ‘pita’ Pita — coach

Cloud9 (HLTV rating position — #37)
Win odds: 51.0

C9 must be the main outsider at the tournament and here is why: on 20 October the roster got a bit changed. TenZ got benched leaving the roster and his place in the team was taken by Subroza who joined the team on trial. So, he can also leave Cloud9 due to unsatisfactory results which are to happen. C9 has not been able to get in a great gaming shape for a long time and constant changes of the roster do not benefit it. If C9 can defeat anyone at the championship, these are likely to be either NiP or FaZe Clan. In total, if the team gets placed on the fifth position in the tournament bracket, their performance should not be treated as a failure.

Cloud9 roster and rating of the players:

Timothy ‘autimatic’ Ta — 1.05
Damian ‘daps’ Steele — 0.92
Oscar ‘mixwell’ Cañellas — 1.08
Kenneth ‘koosta’ Suen — 1.03
Yassine ‘Subroza’ Taoufik — 1.07
James ‘JamezIRL’ Macaulay — coach