Welcome to EGamersWorld.
If you were going on a summer holiday, hold your horses. Saudi Arabia continues to celebrate esports in general and CSGO in particular. Riyadh is getting ready for the biggest commercial event of this summer - Gamers8 on CSGO.
16 teams from all over the world will play for $1,000,000 in total prize money. The list is full of top clubs, including Cloud9 and Fnatic, whose face-to-face match we will talk about today.
Fnatic and Cloud9 will play in the first round of the main stage of the championship. The peculiarity of the tournament lies in its format: there are no intermediate rounds, and every match matters, because the winner moves towards the grand finals, and the loser leaves the tournament.
Let's see who from the pair of C9 and Fnatic Stunet is one step closer to the main prize of $400,000, and who will have to say goodbye to the Saudi tournament without even starting to play it.
Let's go.
Cloud9 Form.
We open the match analysis with an analysis of C9's form. In this match they will play as favourites.
Bookmakers believe in the success of Cloud9. The odds for Cloud9's victory are around 1.5.
It is quite easy to believe in the advantage of C9 in this match. They deserve it thanks to a very good IEM Cologne 2023, and also strengthened not on paper.
The 8th team of the world ranking had a very good half-year. "Cloudy" noted Passage to the grand finals of ESL Pro League Season 17 and victory at 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.
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 was dealt with Vitality.
Cloud9 mappool
The best C9 map is Vertigo. There are 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 Form
We continue our breakdown of the Gamers8 debut match between Fnatic and C9 with an analysis of the former's game performance. In this match, the Orange are playing as the number two.
Bookmakers do not really believe in the success of Fnatic, but they are not in a hurry to bury them. The odds on the victory of the European club is at 2.8.
All, again, because of the last IEM Cologne 2023. Fnatic played there, as well as Cloud9, but the result was worse. And before Cologne, the Orange had a "different" performance.
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 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.
Fnatic Mapple
The perfect map for Fnatic was 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
Fnatic and Cloud9 played each other in the group stage of IEM Cologne 2023. Then Fnatic won with a score of 2-1.
Fnatic vs Cloud9 predicted result on Gamers8
I would call this match the centrepiece of the first round, as both teams showed a decent performance during IEM Cologne 2023. Moreover, they have the experience of a head-to-head battle on a major LAN stage.
I would look at Fnatic, but I don't rule out 2-0 in favour of C9.
Bottom line: +1.5 on Fnatic.
