FLASHPOINT Season 2

?Fnatic and c0ntact Gaming will clash for the first time since June, when Fnatic defeated the European mix (2-1) during the cs_summit 6 Online: Europe Closed Qualifier. C0ntact will seek their revenge with two new players in Lotan “Spinx” Giladi and Rigon “rigoN” Gashi, who were signed last month as replacements for Luka “emi” Vukovi? and Owen “smooya” Butterfield.

Even though c0ntact parted ways with a key member in smooya, they’re still facing a team who have lost four games in a row, including two 0-2 defeats to Complexity Gaming and BIG. On paper, Fnatic are still the better team and should come out victorious, but due to their shaky form, we have to trust c0ntact to steal at least one map.

MAD Lions took a map off Natus Vincere in the opening round of IEM Beijing, which may seem impressive, but it really came down to NaVi’s poor performance rather than anything else. Besides NaVi, MAD have not faced any tough opponents since August, when they were swept by Complexity during ESL One Cologne.

Dignitas made a couple of roster changes last month when they signed Haris “H4RR3” Had?i? and Ludvig “HEAP” Alonso as replacements for Christopher “GeT_RiGhT” Alesund and Richard “Xizt” Landstr?m. While we like the changes, it’s still hard to see Dignitas as a strong team – unless either H4RR3 or HEAP step up and amaze.

Nevertheless, MAD Lions’ lack of consistency should help Dignitas keep this match close and force a three-map series.

Intel Extreme Masters XV Beijing Online: Europe

Team Spirit won the IEM Beijing European Qualifier last weekend and pocketed a bronze medal at IEM New York: CIS after they were handed a forfeit win in the decider match. Meanwhile, OG won the BLAST Premier Fall 2020 Regular Season but finished only seventh at the DreamHack Open Fall 2020.

Even though OG have played mostly stronger teams of late, that does not hold any weight if they consistently underperform, so it’s hard to view them as massive favourites over Spirit. Backing the outsiders to win makes more sense in our book, as OG are very inconsistent even against some weaker sides.

OGA counter PIT Season 6

Team Secret have not played an official match in over a week and are 1-4 in their last five outings. They did, however, humiliate Nemiga (16-7) at the end of October, in most part thanks to Guy “anarkez” Trachtman (1.75 rating), which is a promising sign ahead of this bout.

HellRaisers have played three games this month, but they have won only against S2V Esports (16-11) and lost to 9INE (16-19) and Nemiga (1-2). What’s more, they lost to Secret in September (0-2) and struggled to impress in their rematch (16-14) last month.

Both teams are struggling with their form, which suggests we could be in for a close bout that could go either way. We don’t expect to see a clean sweep from either side.

Nemiga Gaming are priced as the favourites, which we don’t have a problem with, but the odds should be much further apart. Even though Nemiga’s record is not impressive (1-4), they’re still the strongest team in the field and the favourites to win the OGA Counter PIT Season 6 title.

SKADE won cyberPRO Series #2 last week, but it’s hard to praise them too much for that feat since it was a C-Tier tournament. In fact, SKADE have been playing only lower-tier tournaments and various qualifiers – with varying degrees of success – for the past month, which won’t do them any favours when faced with a decent B-Tier team such as Nemiga.

There is a world where SKADE force a three-map series, but the quality gap is too big for us to take the risk. At these odds, we don’t need to think twice before backing Nemiga to win 2-0.