Match Prediction: fnatic - Cloud9 | CS2 (CS:GO)

Welcome to EGamersWorld.

IEM Sydney 2023 is just around the corner. The first major tournament in CS2 starts on the 15th of October with the group stage.

We're talking about Group B, which has a very serious linup of participants. Among them are Cloud9 and Fnatic, who will open Sydney 2023 with a face-to-face meeting. We will talk about this match in more detail.

We are trying to figure out which of the pair Cloud9/Fnatic will be stronger and win in the debut Bo1 in the new version of Counter-Strike - CS2.

Let's go.

Cloud9 Form

Let's open the match breakdown with an analysis of Cloud9's form. In this match "Americans" will play the first number, which, in fact, is not surprising at all.

C9 had a very good half-year. "Cloud9 made it to the ESL Pro League Season 17 Grand Final and won the BLAST Premier: Spring European Showdown 2022.

In addition, the team won the commercial BB Playlist. Urbanistic. In April, C9 seriously stumbled: they lost two qualifications at BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 and missed the only Major of the season.

Next up was a top-4 finish at IEM Rio 2023 and a win at Brazy Party. Before IEM Cologne 2023, C9 failed IEM Dallas 2023 (top-8) and BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2023 (top-8).

• Cloud9 line-up: H0bbit, electroNic, Ax1Le, sh1ro, Perfecto.

Before Gamers8 Cloud9 attended another major summer tournament - IEM Cologne 2023. The most prestigious event went well for Cloud9: not good, but not bad either.

A very difficult Long Corner in Cologne forced Cloud9 to mobilise all their resources in order not to drop out at the group stages, and these resources were enough until the first round of play-offs, where C9 were defeated by Vitality.

Next, C9 visited Gamers8, but even there everything was not so good. At the TOP-8 stage the team faced ENCE, and they were unable to do anything against the overclocked Finns. And that's how they ended up in the TOP-8.

In their debut match at EPL Season 18, Cloud9 played against Eternal Fire. The Turks, being a cheerful team on paper, failed to outplay C9 on at least one of the cards: the match ended 2-0 (16-11 Vertigo, 16-12 Eternal Fire).

In the play-offs match C9 faced Complexity. Being the absolute favourite of the match, Cloud9 failed to give CoL a fight and lost 0-2.

Cloud9's failures didn't end there. After getting into the net of the last chance of EPL Season 18, Cloud9 lost 1-2 to Liquid in a rather lacklustre manner, thus failing to qualify for the play-offs of the prestigious tournament. At the end of EPL S18, C9 finished in the top 20, which, to put it mildly, is weak for a top-tier team, which C9 was called by literally everyone who could not help themselves.

However, before the IEM Sydney IEM Long Convergence, C9 managed to rehabilitate themselves a bit for their mediocre performance at the last TOP tournaments. C9 won the BLAST Premier: Fall European Showdown 2023, earning them a slot at the BLAST Autumn Finals.

Cloud9 Mappool.

C9's best map is Vertigo. It has 2 wins in 3 matches.

Next is Inferno. On Inferno Cloud9 played 5 times, of which they won 3 matches.

Minus winrate on 4 maps at once: Ancient (42% wins in 7 matches), Overpass (33% wins in 3 matches), Anubis (3 matches, 33% wins), Mirage (2 matches, 0 wins).

Fnatic uniforms

We continue the match analysis with the analysis of fnatic's form. In this match, the European club will have to play as the number two.

Fnatic started the year with a shaky top-12 finish at IEM Masters Katowice 2023 and a top-16 finish at CCT North America Europe Series #4. There was also a 16th place at EPL Season 17.

A qualitative breakthrough happened at BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023: European RMR A. There Fnatic finished in the top 2, which opened the way for them to BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023.

The only Major in 2023 went well for Fnatic. The team finished in the top 11, which is a decent result.

The last tournament before IEM Cologne 2023 was IEM Dallas 2023. Fnatic was not allowed to play in America: 9z Team knocked the "orange" out of the tournament at the TOP-16 stage.

• Fnatic roster: KRIMZ, dextre, roej, mezii, afro.

Prior to the Long Round of the tournament, fnatic had a significant reshuffle in their roster. Dexter and afro joined the club during the Big Reshuffle. The Australian played for MOUZ for the past two years, while the Frenchman afro played for LDLC.

With a new roster, Fnatic made a very good debut at iEM Cologne, advancing to the group stage through Play-In. And things were going great in the groups. That is, until they fell to the bottom set after losing to ENCE.

"Orange" Ledgeili raw GamerLegion and wiped out all their efforts as IEM Cologne progressed. The tournament in Cologne ended with KRIMZ and company in 9th-12th place.

After IEM Cologne 2023 fnatic attended 2 more top championships. These were Gamers8 and ESL Pro League Season 18, where the "orange" showed, to put it mildly, a weak game: in Riyadh and Malta took the TOP-16 and this is clearly not something to brag about.

Fnatic Mapple

The perfect map for Fnatic stunned Ancient. "Orange" played it 4 times and won all matches.

A hundred per cent winrate also on Nuke with Anubis, but fnatic has only 1 match there.

Fnatic has the worst record on Overpass and Vertigo, where they have one win each in 3 matches.

Head-to-head history

During the year fnatic and cloud9 played each other two official matches: at IEM Cologne 2023 and Gamers8 2023. Fnatic won in Cologne (2-1), while Cloud9 won in Riyadh at Gamers8 (2-0).

The predicted result of Cloud9 vs Fnatic at IEM Sydney 2023 is as follows

Given the bo1 roulette, you can take a chance and bet on Fnatic, but otherwise C9 look chipper. Especially after their performance at BLAST Premier: Fall European Showdown 2023.

Bottom line: C9 wins.