Welcome to EGamersWorld.
The CSGO autumn marathon continues. The ESL Pro League Season 18 returns to our screens with the play-offs.
The main stage of the championship will show the battles of 16 teams, 8 of which will start their way to the trophy from the first round of play-offs.
In one of the matches of the first round of ESL Pro League play-offs we will see a match between Virtus.pro and 9z Team. The winner of the match will advance to the next round of the main stage where they will play against Movistar Riders.
Let's find out which team will be stronger and will be in the race for the main prize of $200,000 and a trip to two top tournaments: IEM Katowice 2024 and BLAST World Finals 2023.
Let's go.
Virtus.pro uniforms
Let's open the match analysis with an analysis of Virtus.pro's form. In this match, they play the first number one.
Esports betting sites are confident in the success of Vp. The odds for their victory are at around 1.2.
Such a figure did not come out of nowhere. Vp had a rather questionable year in terms of performance, and yet they look more confident against 9z.
Vp played in three TIR tournaments at the beginning of the year. These were BB Playlist. Urbanistic, BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023: European RMR A, and also BB Playlist. Freeddom. At the two "home" championships from BB Vp were in the top 8, but at the European RMR everything was even less happy - top 14.
Then Vp made a breakthrough by winning at ESL Challenger Katowice 2023. The victory there allowed them to qualify for ESL Pro League Season 18.
Among the victories, CCT Online Finals #2 is also worth mentioning. They beat Team Spirit in the grand finals and earned $100,000, which is pretty good.
- Vp lineup: Jame, FL1T, fame, n0rb3r7, mir.
Before ESL Pro League Season 18 Vp visited Gamers8, where they didn't get further than the top 8, and Dunav Party LAN, where in the grand finals they got revenge for their defeat at CCT by Spirit.
In the first match of EPL Season 18, Vp's opponent was Team Liquid. The match, as expected, ended in a full-fledged, fighting Bo3 with Vp winning 2-1.
In the match to qualify for the EPL S18 play-offs, Virtus.pro defeated G2 Esports. The Eastern European team gave battle to the "samurai", but was limited to one map, from what and in the lower grid.
There Vp defeated Eternal Fire 2-0, and then Team Liquid 2-1. That's how they found themselves in the play-offs, which is true in the first round.
Vp Mapple
The best map for Vp remains Ancient, where Vp won 3 maps out of 3 played. The most frequently played map is Overpass - where Vp played 11 maps and won 9 of them.
In the pool there is a good Anubis (3-1 on maps), Mirage (6 wins in 9 matches) and Inferno (7 wins in 11 games).
The worst choice for vp is Vertigo. It has 44% wins with 9 matches.
Form 9Z Team
We continue the match analysis with the analysis of 9Z Team's form. In this match they play second number.
And the second with a reserve. Bookmakers do not believe in the success of the Latin American club, and therefore the odds for their success is at 4.4.
You should not be surprised by such a pre-match state of affairs. 9Z Team is a smaller team than Vp, and getting to the play-offs is more of a coincidence than a pattern.
The Argentine club spent the whole year at all sorts of championships. Most of them were regional tournaments like CCT South America, where at one of the championships 9Z Team took TOP-1.
They have also made appearances at prestigious international events. For example, in March this year they visited Intel Extreme Masters Dalls 2023, where they even managed to beat Fnatic, but still didn't make it past the group stage and finished in the top 12.
- 9Z Team: dgt, max, dav1deuS, buda, try.
Prior to the ESL Pro League Season 18, the Argentinians played at a number of "medium" level championships. These were CCT North Europe Series 7, where 9Z Team finished in the top 16 and Thunderpick World Championship 2023: Europe, where the team finished in the top 8.
At ESL Pro League Season 18, 9Z managed to qualify for the play-offs by going the longest way possible - the last chance grid. 9Z got there by losing to FaZe in the beginning and then to Imperial. Then a very solid comeback down the stretch: clean wins against M80 and Apeks and a 2-1 win against 5cyclone.
Mappul 9Z Team.
The Argentinians' best map is Inferno. 9Z have played there 11 times and have a statistic of 8-3. Next comes Nuke (8-4) and Ancient (4-2).
Things are not much worse on Mirage and Overpass. On the former, which is true, only 3 games, but 2-1, but on Overpass it's already 5-3.
Neutral map is Anubis. 9Z has a score of 2-2 there.
They do not play on Vertigo.
History of head-to-head meetings
Previously the teams played at ESL Challenger Katowice 2023 and FiReLEAGUE Battle 2023. Both times Vp won with a score of 2-0.
Predicted result of 9Z Team vs Virtus.pro at ESL Pro League Season 18
9Z Team are certainly good. After hitting the net in the last chance, they managed to make a good comeback and eventually made it to the play-offs of the prestigious championship. However, as far as I'm concerned, that's where their path to ESL Pro League Season 18 will end. Vp look much more serious and will definitely be able to give Movistar Riders a fight in the next stage of the championship.
Considering the history of head-to-head meetings, I don't see how the Argentinians will be able to take at least a map. Perhaps the wide pool will contribute to this, but it's hard to believe.
Bottom line: 2-0 victory for Virtus.pro.
