Astralis v G2 – BLAST Premier Global Final 2020 Betting Preview
We continue our free esports betting coverage of the BLAST Premier Global Final 2020 with an exciting clash between G2 Esports and Astralis who will meet on Thursday, January 21 in the semi-finals of the tournament.
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Astralis enter this match off a 2-1 victory over Evil Geniuses, where the North American squad won the opening map of the series (16-14 on Inferno), but completely fell apart on Overpass (8-16) and Vertigo (6-16), which Astralis won with relative ease. Despite their loss on Inferno, Astralis were in complete control of the match and played well, which especially holds true for Andreas “Xyp9x” Højsleth, who ended the series with 55 frags and 1.26 HLTV rating and his teammate Nicolai “device” Reedtz who managed 56 frags and 1.22 HLTV rating.
G2 Esports edged past FURIA in their BLAST Premier Global Final 2020 opener with 2-1, which is somewhat disappointing considering FURIA were playing with a stand-in Lucas “honda” Cano – even though the rookie did fine. G2 took the series lead with 16-12 on Inferno, lost 14-16 on Mirage and closed out the deal with a commanding 16-10 win on Nuke.
I was not overly impressed with G2’s performances although they deserve some slack since it’s difficult to face Brazilian teams on top of the fact that G2 were a bit ring rusty due to coming into the match right after the player break. Regardless, I have hope they will improve as the tournament goes on.
Nikola “NiKo” Kovač was the best performing player on G2 in their win over FURIA and ended the series with a 1.31 HLTV rating and 70 frags. His cousin Nemanja “huNter-” Kovač, meanwhile, had a terrible day on the first and third map, and managed only 53 frags and 0.92 HLTV rating across the series. G2 won their game, but they looked alarmingly shaky, and unless they find a way to improve and bring their A-game, beating Astralis is going to be a tall order.
Astralis and G2 have last met just over two months ago at the BLAST Premier Fall 2020 Finals, where Astralis won with 2-0. The Danes were priced at around 1.45 to win the match and they did a fine job in justifying their tag as the favorites.
It’s worth noting that the first map was extremely close, with G2 stealing 11 maps on CT-side, but they completely collapsed as Terrorists, which allowed Astralis to force the game into overtime and eventually win with 22-19. The second map (dust2) was a complete stomp, which was somewhat shocking to see considering this is the type of a map where NiKo and huNter- should shine. Regardless, Astralis were the better team and the rightful victors that day.
Astralis boast a strong map pool and seem to be in good form, so you simply have to favor them, especially considering they are facing a team that have shown some cracks against FURIA. This match will probably be much closer than what the betting odds suggest, but I can’t see Astralis losing. Astralis to win 2-1!
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Prediction: Astralis to win, 1.429 at Pinnacle
