On the evening of May 19, a confrontation will take place, within which the first semi-finalist of the ongoing Major CS:GO championship with a prize pool of $1,000,000 will be determined. The meeting promises to be very interesting and intriguing. Many esports fans will give their preference to players from Spirit and believe that they will be able to repeat the success of Spirit from Dota 2. Another part of the audience believes that FURIA has every chance to win this event. Both of them are right in their own way, but I want to look at this situation more objectively and show what else you can bet in order to stay in profit.
Team Spirit uniform
Now the players from Team Spirit are on the 14th place in the list of the best CS:GO teams according to the HLTV portal. The team added 9 positions during their successful participation in PGL Major Antwerp 2022. It is noteworthy that the roster started its journey from the very beginning and started from The Challengers Stage. At this stage, the team beat Imperial (#18 in the HLTV top), Eternal Fire (#28 in the HLTV top) and Astralis (#9 in the HLTV top). They failed to defeat G2 Esports (#5 in the HLTV top), however, it is impossible not to notice that the battle between the teams was great and ended in a series of additional rounds with a score of 19-17.
After moving to The Legends Stage, Team Spirit showed an excellent performance in every sense. At first, they fought FURIA without any problems with a score of 16-12. This is an important fact, since it is with FURIA that the players from Spirit will have to fight. Later, the team went through strong Danish teams represented by Heroic and Copenhagen Flames.
History of recent Team Spirit meetings
PGL Major Antwerp 2022 The Legends Stage
Team Spirit 2-1 Copenhagen Flames
Team Spirit 16-12 Heroic
Team Spirit 16-12 FURIA Esports
PGL Major Antwerp 2022 The Challengers Stage
Team Spirit 2-0 Astralis
Team Spirit 16-11 Eternal Fire
Team Spirit 17-19 G2 Esports
Team Spirit 16-6 Imperial
Best Team Spirit maps
Ancient - 100.0%
Nuke - 85.7%
Dust 2 - 83.3%
Overpass - 75.0%
Mirage - 50.0%
Vertigo - 50.0%
FURIA Esports uniform
The Brazilians from FURIA are ranked 11th in the list of the best CS:GO teams according to the HLTV portal. According to the majority of viewers and analysts, they are one of the brightest representatives of the Brazilian CS:GO scene. Unlike Team Spirit, KSCERATO and his teammates started their march to victory not from The Challengers Stage, but from The Legends Stage. This can play a cruel joke on them, as the CIS esportsmen can be more “warmed up” during the tournament. In the second stage of the Major tournament, FURIA defeated Team Liquid (#12 in the HLTV top), BIG (#16 in the HLTV top) and G2 Esports (#5 in the HLTV top), but failed to defeat NiP (#7 in the top HLTV) and, most importantly, Team Spirit.
Match history FURIA Esports
PGL Major Antwerp 2022 The Legends Stage
FURIA Esports 2-1 G2 Esports
FURIA Esports 0-2 NiP
FURIA Esports 16-10 BIG
FURIA Esports 16-9 Team Liquid
FURIA Esports 12-16 Team Spirit
Best FURIA Esports cards
Overpass - 100.0%
Vertigo - 87.5%
Ancient - 80.0%
Mirage - 50.0%
Nuke - 45.5%
Inferno - 33.3%
Head to head matches between Team Spirit and FURIA Esports
The duel between the teams took place within the framework of The Legends Stage, where Spirit prevailed in a Bo1 match with a score of 16-12.
Conclusion
On the one hand, Team Spirit is the dark horse of this tournament. The team objectively does not have the highest chances of winning, but shows very good results throughout the championship. First they went through The Challengers Stage, and then they gave a light to their opponents in The Legends Stage. In addition, the fact that the team has already defeated FURIA Esports in the previous stage of the Major tournament plays in favor of Team Spirit. In contrast to this, I want to point out the format of the match in which Spirit won. Bo1 encounters are always more random. In Bo3 fights, teams measure not only their skills on one map, tactics on the battlefield and aim, but also the approach to choosing maps and are already in a mental battle at the mapveto stage, which is undoubtedly important. In addition, FURIA Esports could have time to play in The Legends Stage and have time to train well before The Champions Stage. The Brazilians have more experience playing at such events and I am sure that their approach to the match for reaching the semi-finals will be very serious. Not the least important fact is that experts from bookmakers estimate the chances of FURIA winning at 54% against 46% for Spirit.
Given all of the above, I expect an approximately equal fight, which will be determined on the third map. FURIA plays well on Overpass, Vertigo and Ancient, while Spirit plays well on Ancient, Nuke, Dust 2 and Mirage. I wouldn't be surprised if Ancient, Mirage and Nuke/Overpass are among the cards played. Spirit has a good map pool, but FURIA will have to surprise them too. Bookmakers will generously reward players who guess correctly with the number of cards on which the participants in the match will play. For the Total market more than 2.5 BC cards offer a coefficient of 1.83, which is quite profitable, given the situation.
My choice: Total over 2.5 cards with odds 1.83