Natus Vincere vs Team Liquid – BLAST Premier Global Final 2020 Betting Preview
Natus Vincere and Team Liquid will clash in the final BLAST Premier Global Final 2020 Upper Bracket quarter-finals match on Wednesday, January 22, when we will see Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo make his debut for the North American side. Here is our free Counter-Strike: Global Offensive betting preview and prediction.
This bet was already posted on our BetMarkets profile and on our premium membership yesterday.
Natus Vincere never really got their wheels spinning in the online era of CS and won only two events which come with an asterisk. Gamers Without Borders was a showmatch event with an experimental MR12 format, whereas WePlay! Clutch Island featured only local CIS opponents, so it’s hard to value NaVi’s achievements too highly.
On a more positive note, NaVi came close to winning the ESL Pro League Season 12: Europe but had to admit defeat to Astralis (2-3) and the same story repeated itself in the grand finals of Intel Extreme Masters XV – Beijing Online: Europe where NaVi held a 2-0 lead against Vitality, but fell apart and lost 2-3.
Team Liquid did not achieve much in the online era of CS either and played second fiddle to the likes of Evil Geniuses and FURIA. During their EU campaign, Liquid played 10 games and won half of them against the likes of MAD Lions, MIBR, Heroic, BIG and FURIA. They, however, made it to the finals of the IEM Global Challenge 2020, but it’s hard to praise them too much for that since they ended up getting swept (0-3) by Astralis.
The last time these two sides met was in December at the IEM Global Challenge 2020, where the Ukrainian squad justified their tag as the favorites (priced around 1.57 at Pinnacle) and won 2-0.
Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev was the best player on the server that day with 54 frags and 1.41 HLTV rating. On the side of Liquid, Keith “NAF” Markovic and Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski were the best performing players with 1.16 and 1.15 HLTV rating respectively, but even that was not enough to carry their team to victory and compensate for Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken’s disastrous performance (22 frags and 0.64 HLTV rating), although it’s fair to say he did not have the motivation to perform since he already knew is is leaving the team.
Twistzz eventually got replaced by ex-MiBR IGL and AWPer Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo, who is exactly what Liquid needed. With FalleN taking over as Liquid’s new IGL, Jake “Stewie2K” Yip can finally go back to playing his preferred role, which is undeniably a positive change.
NaVi enter this match priced as favorites (around 1.43) which might seem a bit too big, but we have to consider this will be their first match after the month-long hiatus on top of the fact that NaVi are known to struggle with their performances after taking a break. There, however, should be no internal issues and they should enter the match in good spirits.
There is no knowing how will Team Liquid play with FalleN, which makes it hard to predict how this game will go. NaVi are the stronger team, but since they are known for dropping maps in games like this, we expect something a 2-1 win for s1mple and his crew. Bet on TL to keep it close!
Odds on Liquid have been dropping for quite some time and are now priced at 2.84 to win the match and 1.584 with the 1.5 map handicap. We have already sent out a premium bet on TL on +1.50 maps at the odds of 1.746, so if you wish to follow us with betting on CS:GO and other esports titles and get your hands on better odds, join our premium membership or follow us at BetMarkets.
Prediction: Team Liquid +1.50 Maps
