After amazing night were we got two new Legends(FaZe and
G2) and seen two old legends drop out of the tournament(
Virtus.Pro and
North), we have another day filled with interesting matches.
All game can be watched on Twitch channel of ELEAGUE with best casters and analysts in the world.
Space Soldiers -vs-
BIG – Match LINK
Space Soldiers showed us that they can play versus any opponent. Having
SK on their toes and barely losing in the end 13:16, beating
Cloud9 16:13 and eventually fall to
Gambit again 13:16 we ca expect one more good performance from them. Their opponents
BIG started really badly with taking only 6 rounds in total vs.
Mousesports and
Liquid but eventually taking a win against
North 16:12.
Question is can BIG repeat game they had versus
North and even if they do, will it be enough to take down
Space Soldiers who has shown far better play so far.
In our opinion Space Soldiers are favorites in this match.
Quantum Bellator Fire -vs-
Mousesports – Match LINK
Russian team QBF started strong in this major by taking down
Virtus.Pro and
Gambit but eventually falling to
G2(one of two teams who qualified with 3:0 so far). Their game is very simple but effective, so we can expect the same from them.
A strong CT side and great aim is the best Russian side has. Mousesports had far harder path by playing versus
Astralis 16:2,
SK 12:16 and
Vega Squadron 16:3. With everything shown
Mousesports has to be a favorite here but Russian side has nothing to lose here so we can expect a solid performance from them.
Astralis -vs-
Cloud9 – Match LINK
Only remaining Danish team Astralis has quite hard start at the major and their next opponent isn’t gonna be any easier. After catastrophic start against
Mousesports 2:16 it appeared like they are getting back to their recognizable level after win of 16:14 versus
North, just to fall to
fnatic 16:8.
Cloud9 on other hand had somewhat less worst start but they did start with 0:2 after losses to
G2 8:16 and
Space Soldiers 13:16. Their only win so far came after win against fallen legends
Virtus.Pro 16:7. This will be very interesting match to watch as both teams certainly have quality to advance to playoffs but their current form is not showing that. In our opinion
Astralis has slight advantage against
Cloud9.
Liquid -vs-
Vega Squadron – Match LINK
North American team, Liquid had quite easy start on major by beating
BIG convincingly 16:5 but after that they fell to
G2 8:16 and
Natus Vincere 9:16 to get themselves a loss from dropping out of tournament. They do play with their coach
Wilton “zews“ Prado as stand-in so we cannot really say that they are not playing their best but his presence – or should we say lack of presence of their standard 5th
Lucas “steel” Lopes – is noticeable in some games.
Vega Squadron on other hand had great start by taking down legends team
North but after that fell to two very strong opponents –
FaZe 3:16 and
Mousesports 3:16. Even though
Liquid plays with stand-in we think that two very big losses will affect
Vega Squadron morale and they will have hard time taking this one despite their efforts. In our opinion
Liquid has slightly bigger chance to take this one simply because of more experience in these kind of matches.
Gambit -vs-
SK – Match LINK
This is definitely match of a day as defending champions Gambit is playing world best ranked team
SK-Gaming.
Gambit was one of favorites to advance to playoffs without much effort after beating
Natus Vincere 16:5 and
Space Soldiers 16:13, but their slip and loss to
Quantum Bellator Fire in overtime 16:19 cost them a lot now as they have really strong opponent to standing in their way.
SK had pretty shaky path by taking down
Space Soldiers 16:13 and Mousesports 16:12 with both matches having possibility to go other way on very small but important details in few rounds.
SK has to be considered better side here but
Gambit will not just back down so we can expect very close result in the end.
fnatic -vs-
Natus Vincere – Match LINK
Two legends in CS and CSGO history will battle for advance with renewed rosters. Both teams showed good and bad sides and by now their IGL’s and coaches should have solved most of the problems they experienced in previous matches. fnatic started in hardest way possible by having
FaZe as their first opponents who ended up being far to strong 8:16 but then they’ve recovered fast and had two very solid wins against
Virtus.Pro 16:6 and
Astralis 16:8.
Natus Vincere started their journey against defending champions
Gambit and fell hard 5:16. It looked like that was a wake up call for CIS team as they destroyed both
BIG 16:1 and Liquid 16:9 after that. It will be very hard to say who is favorite here but if we are to compare opponents and scores we would say that
fnatic has slight edge in this one.