Gen.G v 100 Thieves – ESL One: Road to Rio – North America Betting Preview and Prediction
Gen.G put up an extremely disappointing run in the FLASHPOINT league, where they flat out underperformed. I don’t blame them for the two defeats against MIBR, considering the Brazilians were on some kind of resurgence, but the losses against Chaos and Cloud9 are not something I expected to see from this team.
Looking back at their FLASHPOINT campaign, Gen.G put up two 2-0 BO3 wins against Dignitas (who were playing in the league with Ladislav ‘GuardiaN’ Kovács as s stand-in for the young star hellzerk), with Dignitas reaching double digits on all four occasions, to which they added three defeats against MIBR (Gen.G were priced as underdogs in all three matches). In their meetings with MiBR, Gen.G won only one map, but they still managed to reach double digits in five out of six maps they lost. Furthermore, Gen.G suffered a 0-2 defeat against Chaos who played without their best player smooya, which is not a result you would expect to see. On a more positive note, Gen.G still managed double digits on both maps. Similarly, they lost to C9 (a team I do not understand the hype around) where they also reached double digits with one OT.
We can probably give Gen.G some slack for their defeat against HAVU, who looked amazing in FLASHPOINT, but I would be careful betting on them after such an amazing run, as these “miracle runs” don’t last for a long time, so you will probably get value betting on their opponents in the near future.
Gen.G won their opening match at FLASHPOINT against Envy 2-1, which was their last LAN result so don’t put too much weight on the said match, and their only win after 2x against Dignitas was a 2-0 against FunPlus Phoenix, who reached double digits on both maps. If we exclude Gen.G’s loses against MIBR and HAVU, who were »on fire« in the league, the only »true« upsets loss came against Chaos and C9, so we have to ask ourselves whether the 2.73 odds are justifiable against the team like 100Thieves, who are coming into the match with similar results, although, against stronger opposition?
100 Thieves are coming into the match as the #9 ranked team in the world, but their 41.7% win rate over the last three months does worry me a little. Having said that, this tournament is played online, so perhaps it would not be wise from the organisation to panic and force roster changes over a few online results (although some players on Renegades roster do look like they would be a perfect fit for his team). 100 Thieves are being coached by Aleksandar “kassad” Trifunović, probably one of the best coaches who does his work properly and should be more than capable to prepare this teams for their first match after three weeks of break.
So far 100 Thieves played a total of five online matches, all of them in the ESL Pro League Season 11 North America, where they finished fifth, with only two wins. As mentioned, 100T won two games, 2-1 against Swole Patrol (1.17 favourites and still dropped a map, but it is an online match so that should not be seen as a big deal) and Evil Geniuses (who are dealing with their own internal issues, 2.40 underdogs). 100 Thieves also lost 0-2 against Team Liquid (2.70 underdogs), MIBR (1.40 favourites) and 1-2 against FURIA (1.70 favourites).
Looking at 100T vs Gen.G match we might see bans of Overpass and Vertigo. The teams will have a pretty similar map pool which should translate into an open match and the 2.19 on the over 2.50 maps looks a bit too high.
Gun to the head, I would say 100Thieves take the match, but due to the recent struggles both teams have gone through, there is a chance we might see an upset win or at least witness Gen.G be competitive enough to force the series to go the distance.
Prediction: 2-1 for 100 Thieves
Betting pick: Over 2.50 Maps, 2.10 at Bet365
In-play suggestion: if Gen.G win the first map, back the 100 Thieves to win the match
