Welcome back, Fam! Today we have a lovely three-match DreamHackMasters Spring 2020 slate with a few big- name teams on the docket! These all will be best of threes as they open up group play. This tournament will be played essentially the same way the Road to Rio was played, as all of the group play will be round-robins with the top 1 and 2 teams advancing into the upper bracket, with the 3 and 4’s going into the lower-bracket to then will be a double elimination best of three for the playoffs with the last two squads entering the Grand Final best of five. I am stoked to have another nice tournament starting merely as soon as the Road to Rio ended! LET’S GO!
***Have you tried Monkey Knife Fight yet?? Play & Win CA$h on Monkey Knife Fight. Just use PROMO CODE: ALARM for your first deposit for a special offer!! à www.fantasyalarm.com/monkeycsgo.
**TOP MONKEY KNIFE PLAYS:
FREE PROMO PICK: More/less (first map of Sprout/Nord)
-dycha Over 19.5 Kills
-H4RR3 Under 18.5 Kills
GOOD LUCK!
Game 1
Astralis (Ranked 1st in World) vs Heroic (Ranked 30th in World)
As much as I would like to strive for some thoughts here on why I would every consider Heroic over Astralis is just leaving me with nothing to be honest. I’ve said it a couple times before and Astralis once again showed their dominance after winning the crown at the Road to Rio. They are the best team in the world, and at the moment it’s not really that close. Astralisripped through the RtR tournament, only losing one match, being to Fnatic. They have won all their previous five matches, four of the five by a sweep. Heroic has faced some weaker talent, and the one team I could even put into contention as having somewhat of a talent level of competition to Astralis was Dignitas, who they lost to in a 1-2 result. Other than that, they beat some sub-par teams. Obviously, there has been no prior head-to-head matches between the two teams here, as we know that Heroic will come in as quite the under-dog. Quite the under-dog they are, as the books have them as a +585 dog on the money line, with Astralisbeing a 10-to-1 favorite. This should be a pretty easy 2-0 sweep for Astralis. Let’s see if the maps do any justice.
Looks like the first banned maps for these two squads will be on Dust2 for Heroics, and Mirage for Astralis. Astralis is pretty good on picking Nuke as their first map choice, and so is Heroics. Heroics have won 5 of their last six here, while Astralis have won 7 of their last eleven. I could also see Astralis going with Inferno if Heroic go with Nuke, a map they have dominated on lately winning seven in a row, and nine of their last 11 there as well. Heroic have only won one of their last four here. Let’s see who is performing on these maps, as I feel these could be the two map choices. Another map I could see Astralis utilizing is Overpass, a map they have won seven of their last ten, while Heroic has not payed in recent memory. For Astralis on Nuke (10 map sample) – No shocker here as Device leads the charge with a hefty 1.26 rating, 0.81 KPR, 1.43 IMP, and 83.0 ADR, followed up by Magisk at 1.12 rating, Xyp9x at 1.11 and dupreeh at 1.10. Even Gla1ve sits at 1.07 as well for this map. On Inferno (11 map sample) Device at the top again with a 1.22 Rating, 0.78 KPR, 1.29 IMP, 82.6 ADR, followed closely by Dupreeh at 1.20 rating, 0.76 KPR, 1.23 IMP, 77.5 ADR. Xyp9x and Magisk both have a 1.16 rating, with gla1ve sitting close behing at 1.11. For Heroics on Nuke (4 map sample) – niko (not the FaZe NiKo) sits with a hefty 1.35 rating, 0.91 KPR, 1.55 IMP, 95 ADR. Followed up by two others above a 1.0 rating in cadiaN at 1.06 and b0rUP at 1.04. On Inferno (only played ONCE) – niko was the only player to have a rating over 1.0 and his sat at 1.05 with a 0.70 KPR. If Heroic somehow get lucky and Astralis is hung-over for Nuke or something, they may have like a 10% chance to steal Nuke, but Nuke has also been on of Astralis best maps lately and for a good while to be honest. Let’s talk options.
ASTRALIS:
ANCHOR: Device – (For all the reasons listed above, just is so dominant)
Top Stacking Options: Device, Dupreeh, Xyp9X (literally all of Astralis is in play here though)
HEROIC:
ANCHOR: niko – (Easily their top player, could he end up positive? Who knows)
Top stacking options: niko, b0rUP, cadiaN
Game 2
G2 (Ranked 5th in World) vs North (Ranked 25th in World)
The second best of three for opening group play will feature two teams that were both in the Road to Rio as well. G2 actually made it to the grand final after beating FaZe in the consolidation final and went on to play Astralis in the final where they were beat 3-0. G2 had played really damn good for the whole tournament, however, I was pulling for Faze to get a rematch with Astralis as I felt it could have been a much better match, but that is neither here nor there. These two squads did face in the RtR, with North prevailing in a 2-1 win with the match going the full distance of three maps. They did play once in 2019 in the ESL Pro League as well, where G2 swept them 2-0. All but one of the five games they played in the two matches came down to a either the final two rounds or saw the losing side have at least 12 rounds won, so I do expect these games to be quite close. How do we know G2 isn’t still down and out about losing to Astralis in the finals? They did say they felt they shouldn’t have even made it that far in the tournament, but this match should be a good test to see if they can bounce-back. We can see that North is still without a core player in Kjaerbye, but instead of Jumpy being the stand-in, they will bring in a new player for that role in Kristou. So, that does play a little into G2’s advantage here as we don’t know if they have had much time to practice and build the team chemistry. The books are favoring G2 quite heavily, which I find quite odd with North beating them in the RtR event, but they are sitting as a -400 favorite at the current time to win this match.Let’s see what map edges we can find, if any.
For the ban picks, G2 is not a fan of Overpass and have banned this map at roughly 80% lately, while both Mirage and Train have been split as the first bans for North lately around 40% a piece. The first map picks for these two have been Dust2 for G2 close to 60% of the time lately, with North going with Vertigo. I do believe these two will be the map picks, as G2 is totally fine with going to Vertigo, a map they have won close to 70% of in their last nine tries, while North has actually been better on Dust2 (62% win over last eight tries), which is G2’s typical first map choice. This should be very interesting, and I don’t really give a huge map edge here to G2. Think there could be a little value on North here, as I think they can win one of these maps to be honest. Let’s see who performs on each. For G2 on Dust2 (12 map sample) – Nexa leads the way with 1.14 rating, 0.68 KPR, 76.1 Kill-Asst%, 74.6 ADR, followed by huNter- with 1.09 rating, KennyS with 1.08, and AmaNEk at 1.02. For Vertigo (8 map sample) – KennyS is typically very good here with a 1.36 rating, 0.87 KPR, 1.37 IMP, 85.8 ADR, followed by nexa at 1.19 rating, huNter- at 1.14, and AmaNEk at 1.09. For North on these two maps. For Dust2 (6 map sample) – cajunb leads the team with a 1.12 Rating, 0.69 KPR, 71.8 Kill-Asst%, 1.08 IMP, 73.3 ADR, followed by aizy with a 1.09 and no others top 1.0 rating. For Vertigo (13 map sample) – aizy tops the team with a 1.18 rating, 0.77 KPR, 1.40 IMP, 84.7 ADR, followed by MSL 1.10 Rating. AWPer’s typically do better on Vertigo. Let’s talk options.
G2:
ANCHOR: Nexa – (Been really good lately – 1.12 rating, 73.2 Kill-Asst%, 0.69 KPR, 1.08 IMP, 75.6 ADR)
Top Stacking Options: nexa, huNter-, KennyS
NORTH:
ANCHOR: aizy – (feel he is the best player on the team – 1.11 rating, 0.74 KPR, 1.16 IMP, 79.7 ADR last three months online)
Top Stacking Options: aizy, MSL, Cajunb (am very intrigued by Kristouas well for value. 1.13 rating/0.71 KPR last 3 months online)
Game 3
Liquid (Ranked 6th in World) vs Chaos (Ranked 53rd in World)
Going to level with you guys, if this isn’t the quickest and easiest 2-0 sweep for Liquid, then they do not deserve to be the 6th best team in the World. I have seen Chaos play a few times, and needless to say, it is a bit chaotic, but not in a good way. Chaos has been feeding off lower-level competition and for that reason they have won four of their last five matches, all being best of ones. Liquid has faced much tougher competition like Cloud9, FURIA, and 100 Thieves, and this is a big reason why they have only won two of their last five. However, the two wins were 2-0 sweeps. As you probably already could tell, Chaos has not faced TL anytime recently, so no head-to-head match -up data to go off of. We can go to the books though and see that Liquid is a hefty -600 favorite to win this match, I am quite surprised it is this low to be honest, but Chaos is better than say.. Heroic above, if that makes much sense. There is really no need to go into the map data, as we can see from a snapshot that Chaos is really good on a couple maps. Mirage and Inferno, in which Liquid is doing better on Mirage, and just slightly worse on Inferno. I don’t exactly see a scenario where Chaos steals a map here. Liquid is banning Train literally 100% of the time lately, and Chaos is banning Vertigo roughly 35% of the time. Chaos has selected a few different maps as their first pick lately, Dust2, Inferno (also TL first map choice), and Nuke. I think they only scenario for Chaos to do here is go with Nuke, the only other map that Liquid is winning less than 50% of other than vertigo. Let’s talk player options.
LIQUID:
ANCHOR: NAF – (Has a 1.17 and 1.18 rating on Inferno and Nuke, the two maps I think will be played. EliGe price is up there, so taking a cheaper NAF at CPT could be very beneficial)
Top Stacking Options: NAF, EliGe, Twistzz
CHAOS:
ANCHOR: Xeppaa – (over last month online total of 6 maps (weaker comp keep in mind) – 1.47 rating, 0.94 KPR, 79.9 Kill-Asst%, 1.56 IMP, 93.7 ADR) ---NOTE: These guys haven’t even played against a top 50 team in the past 3-6 months.
Top Stacking Options: Xeppaa, Steel, Jonji
***TOP PLAYS, STACKS, VALUES***
Top Plays: Device, NAF, Nexa, aizy (ranked in order)
Top Stacks: Astralis, Liquid, G2, North, Chaos, Heroics (ranked in order)
Top Values: Gla1ve, Twistzz, Steel, MSL, AmaNEk, cajunb, jonji (ranked in order)