🕹️ Esports 🎮 Prediction & Discussion Thread

[Avirunes]

I'm starting to feel like Hunden might move to Astralis, I remember reading some news about their coach zonic potentially leaving the team since his contract is about to expire as well. If that's their actual plan in the near future then things might get interesting once again.

sure about that? cuz things are about to get really interesting https://www.hltv.org/news/32112/heroic-announce-legal-proceedings-against-hunden-following-clear-breach-of-contract .

That came down as a bit shocking as well. It was quite surprising when he left heroic in the middle of the ESL campaign without any kind of announcements or so. Guess this was the reason. Even Hunden to Astralis is just a rumour I feel. Anyway that also wouldn't happen now with such taint.

Astralis is a bit different chapter. All of the players and coaches there are legend and I don't think that org would like to lose all of them after device left. I think the org behind would fix this all in the end.

[1715013094]

1715013094

[1715013094]

1715013094

[1715013094]

1715013094

[1715013094]

1715013094

[Trofo]

As the saying goes there is "no bad exposure", every media exposure can be turned into working for your team in the end with clever PR managers. I like to see a bit drama as well. The scene has been too quiet lately so we need something like this to stir it up a little. Can't wait for some serious tournaments and to think that before covid restrictions I had no clue about eSports.

See you can find something good even in disaster like covid pandemic. I got fired at the beginnings but than landed a job with better company, got to spend a lot more time with my family and discovered eSports. Now if only I could get into LoL as well  

[batang_bitcoin]

Just came back from rest days, not that many exciting games for Dota 2 but there are few little tournaments that are happening and upcoming but this tournament got my attention. The OGA Dota Pit Season 5 China: https://liquipedia.net/dota2/Dota_Pit_League/Online/5/China
5 China qualified teams for TI are going to clash on this tournament and I guess it would be a lot of experiments that will be made on this tournament that they can use in TI.

[ralle14]

sure about that? cuz things are about to get really interesting https://www.hltv.org/news/32112/heroic-announce-legal-proceedings-against-hunden-following-clear-breach-of-contract

That's brutal, but good thing they caught him doing it since it's frustrating to see others get away with these type of behavior.

Giving LEC a go later today, I have SK Gaming@1.93 their performance these past couple of weeks seems better (winning 3/4 plus it's against Fnatic and Mad lions) compared to Astralis and they have side selection as well as Astralis was given priority during their last meeting.

[tomahawk9]

Astralis is a bit different chapter. All of the players and coaches there are legend and I don't think that org would like to lose all of them after device left. I think the org behind would fix this all in the end.

they certainly have the cash to sign good players if they ever decide to start from scratch and build a new roster, but for now it looks like they want young and promising players?  https://www.hltv.org/news/32101/astralis-reestablish-extended-roster-with-lucky-signing

Just came back from rest days, not that many exciting games for Dota 2 [...]

it's been a super boring month in dota world...Dota PIT, so close yet so far

Giving LEC a go later today

Same here. I'll be backing the main favs, these odds are just too good


gonna be a couple of very, very close games

[Avirunes]

Astralis is a bit different chapter. All of the players and coaches there are legend and I don't think that org would like to lose all of them after device left. I think the org behind would fix this all in the end.

they certainly have the cash to sign good players if they ever decide to start from scratch and build a new roster, but for now it looks like they want young and promising players?  https://www.hltv.org/news/32101/astralis-reestablish-extended-roster-with-lucky-signing

gla1ve signed a new contract but other members of the team have contracts till the end of the year so I think that also is gonna resolve at that point. The new Awper is a young and danish player so I think they were looking for someone to communicate easily and get along quickly. Let's see how it turns out to be in upcoming ESL Pro League 14.

[ralle14]

Hopefully i'd break my losing streak today as I have OMG@1.76 after this win i'm not sure if they're guaranteed in the playoffs but their chances are high since the next team is JDG and they're 2 series behind which means tiebreakers is the best scenario they could hope for.

Adding Team WE@1.55 as a side pick, if their momentum goes on until the end of the season they could still contest one of the top seeds and I doubt IG could pull off a miracle run after that loss against BLG.

[tomahawk9]

@ralle14  OMG at those odds was good value. LGD have been dogshit in this split
And Team WE are off to a good start but IG are putting up a good fight in game 2...TheShy is getting bullied in top lane...pfff, how the mighty have fallen, probably his worst performance in a LPL season. EDIT* IG got 2-0'd...crazy stuff

gla1ve signed a new contract but other members of the team have contracts till the end of the year so I think that also is gonna resolve at that point. The new Awper is a young and danish player so I think they were looking for someone to communicate easily and get along quickly. Let's see how it turns out to be in upcoming ESL Pro League 14.

huh, i did not know about the contracts. I wouldn't be surprised if a couple more players decide to leave or get benched (dupreeh, xyp) to bring in new blood

[Avirunes]

gla1ve signed a new contract but other members of the team have contracts till the end of the year so I think that also is gonna resolve at that point. The new Awper is a young and danish player so I think they were looking for someone to communicate easily and get along quickly. Let's see how it turns out to be in upcoming ESL Pro League 14.

huh, i did not know about the contracts. I wouldn't be surprised if a couple more players decide to leave or get benched (dupreeh, xyp) to bring in new blood

It was mentioned in that link. They made the signing as gla1ve is about to become dad and thus decided to switch to 6-man roster so that they can tackle this in future. Also possible that they might bench dupreeh. He kinda gets aggressive in game sometimes similar to flamie.. I am thinking of same treatment how Navi treated flamie there. Good thing is that he gets aggressive on himself. 

They needed and Awper urgently and they found one. Let's see how he delivers.

[STT]

Hunden didnt have the reputation to join Astralis, the coach can be called up to be an actual player in extreme outcomes and Hunden is famous for being one of the lowest ranked pro players though he did far better as IGL and now coach.  Richard Lewis did a video on that but apparently he didnt share team strats just his own which he says makes it ok.   Dev1ce leaving for Sweden was surprising as Astralis should stay together at least one more year in normal LAN competition they might return back to number 1 and its not a good idea to walk away from that amount of money making in your career whatever minor disagreements might occur.
   Mibr play Friday not seeing much before that I  can recognize.

[ralle14]

It feels nice to win both picks yesterday, taking Suning@1.69 vs Rare Atom this match will probably decide the round 2 seed as both of their next games are against weaker teams. In terms of the teams they've faced so far i'm giving the small edge on Suning just because they're able to take down RNG. Over 2.5 is also likely to hit in this series as Suning's last three match results ended up going in the distance and Rare Atom rarely lose in a 2-0 fashion.

[tomahawk9]

gla1ve signed a new contract but other members of the team have contracts till the end of the year so I think that also is gonna resolve at that point. The new Awper is a young and danish player so I think they were looking for someone to communicate easily and get along quickly. Let's see how it turns out to be in upcoming ESL Pro League 14.

huh, i did not know about the contracts. I wouldn't be surprised if a couple more players decide to leave or get benched (dupreeh, xyp) to bring in new blood

It was mentioned in that link. [...]

huh, i must've missed it

btw, more transfer news, i just read that BIG are not planning to renew Xantares' contract https://www.hltv.org/news/32120/xantares-transfer-listed-in-big  

KennyS, Xantares, such good players that are inactive right now, pretty sad...there's gotta be an org trying to form a super team with big names or something, no?  

Over 2.5 is also likely to hit in this series as Suning's last three match results ended up going in the distance and Rare Atom rarely lose in a 2-0 fashion.

i booked this one but i took a big hit in the odds cuz Sportsbet website is broken at the time of writing and esports are not loading, so rather than 1.98 odds (without boost) i got 1.86 odds from betsy, ffs! time to move some funds i guess   anyway, GL!

[Avirunes]

btw, more transfer news, i just read that BIG are not planning to renew Xantares' contract https://www.hltv.org/news/32120/xantares-transfer-listed-in-big  
KennyS, Xantares, such good players that are inactive right now, pretty sad...there's gotta be an org trying to form a super team with big names or something, no?  

Yeah that also came as a surprise actually. Xantares have been performing quite badly recently and that is affecting BIG's performance. I can see why they are deciding that but still thought would give a chance given how good of a player he is. He is a good frager and is very aware.

There should be teams keeping an eye on them given the players they are. Its just that when will the teams will make a move on them. To me it seems gonna be probably when they bench some players or a players takes a break. Fnatic have a free spot, Faze also has with coldzera leaving and olofmeister kinda seems like a temporary replacement given he has been on and off since he first announced retirement.

[Trofo]

btw, more transfer news, i just read that BIG are not planning to renew Xantares' contract https://www.hltv.org/news/32120/xantares-transfer-listed-in-big  
KennyS, Xantares, such good players that are inactive right now, pretty sad...there's gotta be an org trying to form a super team with big names or something, no?  

Yeah that also came as a surprise actually. Xantares have been performing quite badly recently and that is affecting BIG's performance. I can see why they are deciding that but still thought would give a chance given how good of a player he is. He is a good frager and is very aware.

There should be teams keeping an eye on them given the players they are. Its just that when will the teams will make a move on them. To me it seems gonna be probably when they bench some players or a players takes a break. Fnatic have a free spot, Faze also has with coldzera leaving and olofmeister kinda seems like a temporary replacement given he has been on and off since he first announced retirement.

Damn, those are some quality fraggers without contract at the moment. Must be some ORG keeping an eye on possible bargain galacticos squad. Would be fun to see anyway.

I am expecting them to be snatched up by some existing org looking to expand their rooster or add a bit quality on some position.

[finaleshot2016]

Try Valorant! Stage 3 challengers are happening right now and I'm wondering why VALORANT isn't included in the OP because it's the mainstream game right now and a lot of tournaments happened recently. Even the popular streamers of twitch are playing Valorant and having watch party on VCT Challengers 2 and now I'm waiting for VALORANT Champions Tour 2021: North America Stage 3 Challengers Playoffs. and next is the VCT Berlin Masters! A lot of tournaments are waiting so I hope that those popular platforms mentioned have VALORANT bettings.

Valorant is a potential big sport that's going to be hopefully be on par with the success of CS:GO but I still have this inkling feeling that Valorant in my opinion is just a rip off of Overwatch which has a pretty good tournaments but Blizzard is just too stupid to keep up the hype and take care of the game now it's not popular.

Well, it's still pandemic; wait for Riot to step up when the pandemic is over, and you'll notice significant changes in the game and even the professional eSports scene. Riot is pretty popular, if you know how long League has been running for, and their world championship, Worlds, has so much hype that you'll definitely watch it and be curious about the game if you haven't played. Valorant encourages precise gameplay, similar to CS:GO, but with skills; Overwatch's physics are a little different and more like an RPG style, so I don't think it's a ripoff. But Valorant is still a must-play game; it's been a year and counting, but look at how large the community is; it's bound to go big and conquer eSports soon.

[ralle14]

Unfortunate loss on Suning but the over came through as expected

RNG vs Team WE this is one of the most interesting matches this week as both teams have a good win streak and were able to grab a 2-0 win from EDG. I'd want go for the over but I have to back RNG's -1.5 handicap since they kept sweeping every team they meet. Not that i'm underestimating Team WE but I have to give some respect on the MSI champs.  

Faze also has with coldzera leaving and olofmeister kinda seems like a temporary replacement given he has been on and off since he first announced retirement.

Hopefully they'd continue playing with olofmeister a bit more since their performance during the IEM was promising at the very least.

[tomahawk9]

Alright, guys! i've finally updated the Calendar in the OP! Dota fans, we finally eating!

oi, does anyone follow competitive COD? i just found out that the top tier event of the month, CDL championship, will have a 2.5 million prize pool!!    that's more than the csgo Stockholm major later this year!

also, Quake world champions starting mid-august...i'm pretty excited about this one

[Avirunes]

Damn, those are some quality fraggers without contract at the moment. Must be some ORG keeping an eye on possible bargain galacticos squad. Would be fun to see anyway.

I am expecting them to be snatched up by some existing org looking to expand their rooster or add a bit quality on some position.

There are lot of players on bench or are in transfer list. If reached out by teams then they can also join them but I am wondering why haven't any team made a move yet. There are players like - naawk, allu, coldzera, ISSA, NBK~, kennyS, ChrisJ and so but so far they are without any active team.

Also now I am wondering that when device went to NIP, why didn't they tried to get naawk from them? He is also a good awper and would have certainly helped them as well.

Hopefully they'd continue playing with olofmeister a bit more since their performance during the IEM was promising at the very least.

olofmeister is ok now IMO. He is doing decent but they certainly need someone who need to fill up the coldzera role. BTW that reminds me, coldzera couple of weeks ago announced about playing from a new team in this upcoming CS tournament.

[Trofo]

also, Quake world champions starting mid-august...i'm pretty excited about this one

Wait what? Quake? Isn't that game more than 20 years old and looks and feels like shit right now? It was one of the first FPS games I played on PC. I guess they are playing some sequel or whatnot.

Looking forward to some good DOTA, still my favorite eSport by far.

[tomahawk9]

I guess they are playing some sequel or whatnot.

yeah the Quake Pro league is playing the latest game in the quake series called quake champions. Pretty fun and fast paced game to watch. Too bad only a handful of bookmakers offer quake markets, but it's a niche videogame, so...