Match Prediction: Virtus.pro - fnatic | CS2 (CS:GO)
ESL Pro League Season 19Welcome to EGamersWorld.
We continue our look at the group stage of ESL Pro League Season 19. We talk about the group stage of the longest tournament in Counter-Strike 2.
We discuss the group stage, and more specifically the match Vp - Fnatic. The winner will advance to the next round, where he will play against the winner of the 3DMAX/Cloud9 pair.
Let's see who will be stronger and move on to the upper grid, and who will have to continue their way to the play-offs in the lower grid of Group A at EPL S19.
Let's go.
Virtus.pro uniforms
Let's open the match analysis with an analysis of Vp's form. In this match, they will play as favourites.
At the beginning of last year, Vp played in three TIR-A tournaments. 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, electronic.
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 on 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, combative Bo3 with Vp winning 2-1.
Next up, VP played G2 Esports and legitimately Ledgeili, though they fought back and took the map. The defeat sent Vp to the lower grid, where they first beat Eternal Fire and then outplayed Liquid again, thus reaching the EPL play-offs.
Vp did not manage to play in the main stage. Vp lost their first match against 9z Team, which was a rather unexpected result. At the end of the EPL S18 Vp finished in the top 16.
Things are going well at the Roobet Cup. Vp won the first match against their compatriots from Spirit with a score of 2-1. Next up was a battle with Movistar Riders to qualify for the Roobet Cup 2023 play-offs, which ended 2-0 in favour of Vp, a solid 2-0.
The Roobet Cup 2023 itself was the pulse of Vp's triumph. They beat Monte 2-1 in the grand final, earning their first major win in a long time. Later there was Thunderpick World Championship 2023, where Vp also reached the final, but failed to beat FaZe and as a result - 0-2.
Before playing at BB Dacha Vp played at ESL Challenger Winter. There they reached the top 4, losing in the semi-finals to the future champions from Monte. BB Dacha itself was a very successful event for Vp: there they reached the finals and lost to Spirit 2-3 in a close series.
Just before the BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2024, where Vp were partnered with BLAST, they played the ESL Challenger at DreamHack Atlanta 2023, where they won the championship, beating Apeks 2-0 in the Grand Final.
On their way to the Group D finals, Virtus.pro defeated BIG and Cloud9. The former 2-0, the latter 2-1. In the grand final of their group at BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2024, Vp beat BIG again and again with a score of 2-0, thus earning themselves a place at the spring finals. Next up was IEM Katowice 2024, where Vp failed, finishing in the top 20.
Vp made it to PGL CS 2 Major Copenhagen, finishing in the Top 2 at PGL Major Copenhagen 2024: European RMR A. In addition, they made it to IEM Dallas 2024.
Directly at the World Championship Long Competed from the Elimination stage. First lost to Imperia, but then beat paiN and Heroic, which brought them to 2-1. Next, they lost to Eternal Fire and G2 Esports, which led to Vp's elimination from the Major tournament.
IEM China 2024 Vp are doing quite well. In the top set of Group B, they took turns beating American teams Wildcard (13-1) and then FlyQuest (2-1). In the play-offs seeding match, Vp lost to the best team in the tournament, Astralis, 2-0.
In the main stage of IEM China 2024, Vp played against G2 Esports and lost, thus finishing in the top 6 at the end of the tournament.
Mappul Vp.
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.
Fnatic Form
We continue the match analysis with the analysis of Fnatic's form. Here the European club plays in the status of a clear outsider.
Fnatic started the year with a shaky top-12 at IEM Masters Katowice 2023 and top-16 at CCT North America Europe Series #4. There was also a 16th place finish 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, afro, bodyy, matys, kyuubii.
Prior to the Long Round of the tournament, fnatic had a significant re-structuring of 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 it is clearly not something to boast about. There was also IEM Sydney 2023, where Fnatic finished top-12.
In 2024, Fnatic's focus was to qualify for the first CS2 World Championship, but they failed to do so, finishing top-11 at European RMR A and top-6 at Decider. There were qualifications for other, less titled tournaments as well, but were unsuccessful everywhere else.
Fnatic Mapple
The ideal map for Fnatic is 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.
History of head-to-head meetings between Fnatic and VP
The teams have not played each other in the updated squads.
Predicted result of the match Vp - Fnatic at EPL S19
In this match my bet is on Vp. They are much more stable than Fnatic in the season, and the recent arrival of Electronic should only strengthen the already fighting roster of the team.
Bottom line: Vp win.
Bookmakers & Statistics
Virtus.pro are listed as the favorites of the match in the majority of bookmakers and odds on them are equal to 1.458. fnatic, in turn, are the outsiders of the match. Odds on their victory are about 3.305.
How did the participants perform in the last matches
Last Matches | Virtus.pro | fnatic |
5 matches (wins) | 2 | 3 |
10 matches (wins) | 5 | 6 |
The statistics of personal battles between teams is also important for successful bets. The competitors have held 28 matches. And Virtus.pro won 14 times while fnatic correspondingly became the winner 14 times.