🕹️ Esports 🎮 Prediction & Discussion Thread

[ralle14]

the other day, fnatic @2 vs cloud9, now Rge @2.5 vs drx... people were underestimating EU, glad i was able to grab those odds. Unfortunately though I didn't trust G2 tonight and they absolutely crushed EG, kills handicap would've been easy money. But now it's time to change the script, FNC v T1, hopefully it'll be another 22 minute game for T1 *edit  huh, ironic

I didn't expect that loss from T1 but Fnatic is on a roll right now and i'm looking forward to their game against EDG later since T1 was able to beat EDG on the first day so more or less it'd be close than the odds suggest.

SEA teams will have a tough matchup since they are against the top seed of each bracket. T1 is going against NAVI in the first game tomorrow, while Polaris will go against Team Liquid. With a very short time to prepare, SEA teams may be knocked down to the lower bracket tomorrow.

I agree with Polaris losing since Team Liquid looked solid so far but I think the Navi-T1 match should be close even though Navi topped the groups, T1 can still put up a surprise. Also, the over 2.5 maps might be the best play for now since every other match feels like a tossup aside from Team Liquid.

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[Wapfika]

SEA teams will have a tough matchup since they are against the top seed of each bracket. T1 is going against NAVI in the first game tomorrow, while Polaris will go against Team Liquid. With a very short time to prepare, SEA teams may be knocked down to the lower bracket tomorrow.

I agree with Polaris losing since Team Liquid looked solid so far but I think the Navi-T1 match should be close even though Navi topped the groups, T1 can still put up a surprise. Also, the over 2.5 maps might be the best play for now since every other match feels like a tossup aside from Team Liquid.

I still believe that Polaris can beat Liquid on upper bracket since they are solid too by getting a draw result against Navi and Secret. Team Liquid is not that strong anymore, They just look unstoppable because the team on there bracket is not that strong. Polaris has a better run on this qualifier compared to T1 that keeps showing inconsistency on all of there matches. They can’t even manage to get a sweep on weakest team on there bracket that is only a sign that they can’t maintain there performance in long game run.

[jakelyson]

SEA teams will have a tough matchup since they are against the top seed of each bracket. T1 is going against NAVI in the first game tomorrow, while Polaris will go against Team Liquid. With a very short time to prepare, SEA teams may be knocked down to the lower bracket tomorrow.

I agree with Polaris losing since Team Liquid looked solid so far but I think the Navi-T1 match should be close even though Navi topped the groups, T1 can still put up a surprise. Also, the over 2.5 maps might be the best play for now since every other match feels like a tossup aside from Team Liquid.

T1 is quite shaky even though they manage to beat xtreme gaming which is quite a favorite to win. But they lose a map against Wildcard which most think is the weakest in Group B.  I do not get what is with Venomancer? They always pick it. I think they are the only team that is using Venomancer. They were able to get some wins but most of the time it is a lose with veno. So if they still force this veno pick against Navi, they may be punishd with it. They should not take Navi lightly and should go full force at the start. I too think that +2.5 maps is a safe bet. T1 and Polaris should be able to get at least one map against the top seed of their groups.

[sunsilk]

Secret is far from being eliminated on the next day because of the scores of the other teams on their bracket, Tempest and nouns.

While on the bracket B, the crowd favorite T1 is in danger of getting eliminated later on the day 2 of the LCQ and after that if they ended up being at the top 5 or 6, they're out.

No one is getting eliminated yet. The group stage is to determine if you are upper or lower bracket in the playoffs. Those who finish top 4 in the group stage will go to the upper bracket and the last two of the group will go to the lower bracket. It is better to be in the upper bracket because you have two lives to stay in the tournament. While lower bracket teams will have to play elimination game throughout the playoffs. But it is not like they cannot win it. We've seen a lot of lower bracket teams in DOTA make it to the finals. Anyway, the winner of Upper Bracket Final and Lower Bracket Final will qualify for TI.

Team Secret can still end up top of Group A. They have Polaris on their First match today, which I think they can beat. Then NAVI on the 2nd match. If they can beat NAVI, they will be top of Group A. That is a good position.

Thanks for the correction. It was a mistake on my end and I stand corrected. You're right that it's not yet the elimination but since this day has already passed for the last day of the group stages.

We're now going to see the elimination of some teams in the lower bracket by tomorrow on the playoffs. It's now going to be 4 teams for sure before the day ends by tomorrow will be eliminated.

Well, I wasn't expecting that T1 will be at the top bracket but they've earned it and congrats to them.

[dothebeats]

I agree with Polaris losing since Team Liquid looked solid so far but I think the Navi-T1 match should be close even though Navi topped the groups, T1 can still put up a surprise. Also, the over 2.5 maps might be the best play for now since every other match feels like a tossup aside from Team Liquid.

Navi will surely be giving T1 a hard time. Noone is playing so good and swedenstrong is just surprising me with a lot of his pos 4 rotations that I'm starting to like him on this LCQ. If they can keep the pace going, there's no way that they'll drop to the lower bracket as the event progresses.

I still believe that Polaris can beat Liquid on upper bracket since they are solid too by getting a draw result against Navi and Secret. Team Liquid is not that strong anymore, They just look unstoppable because the team on there bracket is not that strong. Polaris has a better run on this qualifier compared to T1 that keeps showing inconsistency on all of there matches. They can’t even manage to get a sweep on weakest team on there bracket that is only a sign that they can’t maintain there performance in long game run.

Liquid's bracket may not be as stacked as bracket A but you can see on how they play that they are composed and seems like they got everything figured out. There are times that they are doing some questionable moves (I'm looking at you, mICKE) diving in deep but most of the time they just know how to take objectives and remain focused. Other teams are very explosive but very unstable too, just like T1 during the first day of LCQ. Liquid has a high chance of qualifying, and it may even be Secret and Liquid in the end. Polaris is a 50/50 team still. Discipline is what this SEA team is lacking especially in team fights. They know how to clash but they still don't know when they would do it.

[arallmuus]

SEA teams will have a tough matchup since they are against the top seed of each bracket. T1 is going against NAVI in the first game tomorrow, while Polaris will go against Team Liquid. With a very short time to prepare, SEA teams may be knocked down to the lower bracket tomorrow.

I think T1 would be fine though. They won against Xtreme Gaming which is one of the powerhouse for group B and its a BO3 games so even if somehow they messed it all up then they'll still have the chance to turn it over. Odds are pretty decent at 1.95 for T1 to win and aside from taking Navi -1.5 , there isnt any other odds in this match that is higher than 1.95 so yeah its great

[CLS63]

Vitality were really disappointing today against Heroic. The winner was going to face OG in the 3rd place decider matchup and I was feeling confident about a Vitality win. However Vitality were literally terrible on Overpass and Mirage as they lost by the same score, 16-5. They had a very big difficulty on Mirage to extend the series to the third match also as they were able to win after 2 OTs barely.

TeSeS was the most impressive player of the day by the way. He got 26 and 34 frags on the first map and the decider one. I saw dupreeh really bad today as he had some concentration problems. This caused him to miss the chance of getting many more frags. All big players have bad days of course so I guess he'd recover.

[Balmain]

IEM road to RIO B group matches today. Sangal team unluckily lost the MOUZ match which started well today. I really wonder how the Inferno map was lost. It was a huge mistake to be allowed to go to overtime. Now things have gotten worse for Sangal. Vitality took their first defeat today in the group stage against Heroic. Vitality was not effective at all in their own chosen Overpass map, they only won five rounds, whereas in this map they are a really good team. Vitality is really surprised at this result. In general, Zywoo was not good in the trio series. It's very difficult to win if Vitality's fate is not on that day, which is completely dependent on Zywoo anyway.

Currently, the OG-Heroic teams are playing the 2nd map, Vertigo. Heroic won the first map in his own selection, the inferno. In Vertigo the scores went very close but Heroic will probably win. Let's see if OG can defend well and pass the match to the 3rd map.

[Trofo]

SEA teams will have a tough matchup since they are against the top seed of each bracket. T1 is going against NAVI in the first game tomorrow, while Polaris will go against Team Liquid. With a very short time to prepare, SEA teams may be knocked down to the lower bracket tomorrow.

I think T1 would be fine though. They won against Xtreme Gaming which is one of the powerhouse for group B and its a BO3 games so even if somehow they messed it all up then they'll still have the chance to turn it over. Odds are pretty decent at 1.95 for T1 to win and aside from taking Navi -1.5 , there isnt any other odds in this match that is higher than 1.95 so yeah its great

NAVi showed much more so far in the tournament but real things starts now and I don't expect them to win easy against T1. I see this going the distance and my bet will be over 2.5 maps at 1.98. Seems like a lot of value to me. Same bet on Team Secret - Extreme gaming with similar reasoning.

Not so sure about other two games, seems to me like we have clear favorites there and I will probably take Liquid and VP to win.

[execijutiere]

Big eliminated k23 and took the major spot. Big's 5th player is still to be determined. It changes all the time. This was the same when xantares was in big. Really, even if 4 players play well, the 5th player always plays badly.
In the match to determine the 4th player, spirit managed to beat cloud9. In this way, spirit will continue the tournament from the legends stage and cloud9 from the challenger stage.

[blue_hurricanger]

Chart of the final 24 teams qualified for IEM RIO Major 2022. 8 teams in the Legends will move ahead to the Champion stage with 8 more teams to be selected from the Challengers Stage ( 8 Challengers and 8 Contenders). Funny how ex-G2 igl both have a spot over this Major while G2 missed this event. Aleksib with NIP team and nexa with OG team. And G2 still thinks igl was the problem. Want to bet that hooxi will eventually go to Major under a new team if G2 decides to kick him?

[Peanutswar]

SEA teams will have a tough matchup since they are against the top seed of each bracket. T1 is going against NAVI in the first game tomorrow, while Polaris will go against Team Liquid. With a very short time to prepare, SEA teams may be knocked down to the lower bracket tomorrow.

I think T1 would be fine though. They won against Xtreme Gaming which is one of the powerhouse for group B and its a BO3 games so even if somehow they messed it all up then they'll still have the chance to turn it over. Odds are pretty decent at 1.95 for T1 to win and aside from taking Navi -1.5 , there isnt any other odds in this match that is higher than 1.95 so yeah its great

T1 would like to pursue that they can manage to get at the upper bracket of the match to make tell to everyone not only fnatic can represent the team of the SEA of course we know Topson and Ana at the same time is in their team and many players are still wondering they can manage to attempt to get the Aegis even though they are not in the OG team and also with this match of Xtreme vs T1 it is already in favor with T1 but the match between the T1 and Navi is quite hard to predict both teams are strong and the odds is just quite fair so it is not profitable to me at all and make wait for another game.

[execijutiere]

It wouldn't be a brazilian major without fallen, fer and fnx. Congratulations to Imperial. The match was very stressful. I think they managed this stress well based on their experience, so they made less mistakes in overtime. It was a good match and they qualified for the major tournament. With 3 Brazilian teams I think we will watch a nice rio major.

[ILuckyGuyI]

Vitality really disappointed me by losing to Heroic in the 5th place decider already. I don't know what went wrong with them in this very important tournament. They should have been one of the teams in Legends Stage normally. They were the best team in terms of performance recently but somehow they performed poorer than expected in RMR. I don't doubt them to get past Challengers Stage without problems but they had better make some improvement in their effort again. This level wouldn't be enough to be serious for the Major title.

Cloud9 were another team that surprised me. I was expecting them to move Spirit out of their way and reach Legends Stage. But Spirit showed a really great performance. They both defeated their opponent by big gaps first. On Ancient, I was seeing Cloud9 a little more advantageous as they didn't lose any game there before. But Spirit still managed to win by 16-13 and have become one of the members in Legends Stage. magixx played big on this map by 29 frags and he had the biggest role in the win.

[ralle14]

It looks like the bookies are slightly leaning towards both EU teams in the upper bracket and that means there's a bit more value on T1 and VP since I don't think Team Secret and Team Liquid have the edge when every series went all three maps.

Chart of the final 24 teams qualified for IEM RIO Major 2022. 8 teams in the Legends will move ahead to the Champion stage with 8 more teams to be selected from the Challengers Stage ( 8 Challengers and 8 Contenders). Funny how ex-G2 igl both have a spot over this Major while G2 missed this event. Aleksib with NIP team and nexa with OG team. And G2 still thinks igl was the problem. Want to bet that hooxi will eventually go to Major under a new team if G2 decides to kick him?

That still depends on which team will pick up hooxi and if G2 will continue with their roster until the next major but for now we'll just wait and see what happens. On the bright side it's nice to see new teams like Gamerlegion and Sprout qualify all the way.

[Trofo]

SEA teams will have a tough matchup since they are against the top seed of each bracket. T1 is going against NAVI in the first game tomorrow, while Polaris will go against Team Liquid. With a very short time to prepare, SEA teams may be knocked down to the lower bracket tomorrow.

I think T1 would be fine though. They won against Xtreme Gaming which is one of the powerhouse for group B and its a BO3 games so even if somehow they messed it all up then they'll still have the chance to turn it over. Odds are pretty decent at 1.95 for T1 to win and aside from taking Navi -1.5 , there isnt any other odds in this match that is higher than 1.95 so yeah its great

NAVi showed much more so far in the tournament but real things starts now and I don't expect them to win easy against T1. I see this going the distance and my bet will be over 2.5 maps at 1.98. Seems like a lot of value to me. Same bet on Team Secret - Extreme gaming with similar reasoning.

Not so sure about other two games, seems to me like we have clear favorites there and I will probably take Liquid and VP to win.

Not often that I hit them all so perfectly, hope somebody followed Just mad at myself for skipping on VP.


Too bad I got greedy then and rushed some more games, basically lost all those tickets. Still waiting for Polaris to see if they can turn it.

This is very close tournament and I am thinking I am playing over maps on all games tomorrow. Worked brilliantly so far so maybe that is the way to go all the way.

[emrecemsan]

It feels really different and nice at the same time to see new teams in Major now.

GamerLegion were the most impressive team among them in the group stage by the way. They made big difficulties for top tier teams like FaZe and Spirit (they can also be counted as one of these teams I think because they are 14th). GamerLegion even defeated G2 by 2-1 which was a crucial victory for them to qualify for the Challengers Stage.

Now I started wondering if they can manage to be one of top 8 teams to qualify for the main tournament. This time the opponents can be much tougher because this is the last chance for all of them. If GamerLegion qualify for next stage too then I can't even imagine how much their rank would increase in the world rankings.

[jakelyson]

Not often that I hit them all so perfectly, hope somebody followed Just mad at myself for skipping on VP.

Congratulations on the nice results on your bets. The upper bracket really has good matchups. All of them ended up going all the way to three maps. While the lower brackets are all swept.


I was quite surprised that Wildcard Gaming was able to sweep Polaris in the Lower Bracket.  The draft was wild but very effective. Davai Lama was really enjoying the game when he was focused on the cam. The way that he played Axe on game 1 was exceptional. He had a hard time early game but once he got the dagger, he was epic. He was making perfect calls every single team fights. That was fun to watch.

Tempest, Infamous, Nouns, and Polaris have bid their goodbyes to their chance for a TI slot.


We have good matches tomorrow. In the Upper Bracket Semifinals, we have T1 vs Team Secret and VP vs Team Liquid. While in the Lower Bracket Round 2, we have Navi vs Xtreme and Vici vs Wildcard. These teams have ample time to prepare for their respective matches. I expect to see epic DOTA again tomorrow. I will be taking over maps too and if handicaps is available, maybe take that action too. I expect matches to reach game 3 even on the lower bracket matches.

[dothebeats]

It looks like the bookies are slightly leaning towards both EU teams in the upper bracket and that means there's a bit more value on T1 and VP since I don't think Team Secret and Team Liquid have the edge when every series went all three maps.

Secret has the edge and the capabilities. They are known to take lots of games in a single day and still come out ahead of the competition. Team Liquid, I don't know much. They bank heavily on their precision and their ability to snowball on games that are pretty hard, but on dragged out fights and long series, the stress gets to them easily. This may be the reason why they always try their best to get the upper bracket whenever they can, because they simply cannot stand playing for extended periods of time.

T1 and Secret is a pretty even match with T1's performance yesterday. Their mentality has become somewhat strong and their teamwork is already showing. Keep the momentum and they may even drag the UB run to the grand finals, though that may even be a stretch at this point.

[arallmuus]

-snip

This is very close tournament and I am thinking I am playing over maps on all games tomorrow. Worked brilliantly so far so maybe that is the way to go all the way.

Nice hit on that ticket though, it was probably the best decision on taking over 2.5 maps especially on that T1 vs Navi games.

I took this though and now Im thinking about splitting it to a single tickets then take all of it at over 2.5 maps as well. Its pretty much win or go home at this point though especially on the lower bracket so yeah most games would probably ended up not under 2 maps most likely