ESL Pro League Season 18 Group A betting tips – Wednesday, August 30

ESL Pro League Season 18 kicks off on Wednesday, August 30, and here you can find ESB’s free Counter-Strike betting picks for three Group A bouts. See our selections for Astralis vs Ninjas in Pyjamas, FURIA Esports vs Movistar Riders, and Grayhound vs GamerLegion.

Astralis’ new roster had a slow start in July, suffering an early exit from the Gamers8 2023 Last Chance Qualifier, but then started ramping up at BLAST Premier Fall Groups 2023 (4th-6th) and made the semifinals at Intel Extreme Masters Cologne 2023 at the start of this month.

In Cologne, Astralis produced a few good games, beat Heroic (2-0) in the first round of the playoffs, and crushed Ninjas in Pyjamas (16-6, 16-6) during the group stage. Those are excellent results, and while it’s too early to draw any conclusions, this new-look roster has potential.

Ninjas in Pyjamas made a single roster change in June, when they let go of Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen and replaced the Finnish in-game leader with Hampus “hampus” Poser. The change didn’t seem like it would affect the team too much, but NiP haven’t looked too good since.

Besides winning BLAST Premier Fall Groups 2023 in July, NiP have looked mediocre at best, and their performance en route to fourth place in the Intel Extreme Masters Sydney 2023 European Qualifier last week left much to be desired.

Astralis are slowly finding their stride, and it’s fair to be cautiously optimistic about what this new-look roster can accomplish. Even though there are doubts about Astralis and how they’ll fare in big events, the Danes shouldn’t struggle against NiP.

FURIA Esports spared no expense to bring in Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo and Marcelo “chelo” Cespedes during the summer break. But the big spending hasn’t led to any notable results.

A 17th-20th finish at Intel Extreme Masters Cologne 2023 in July kicked off a dry streak that extended through both IEM Sydney 2023 European Open Qualifiers (9th-16th, 17th-32nd) and Gamers8 2023 (9th-16th). Until the Brazilians start showing something, it’s tough to feel optimistic about their chances in ESL Pro League Season 18.

Movistar Riders are in a similar spot results-wise, as they’ve come close to winning an event over the last two months. Like FURIA, Movistar Riders failed to make it through the IEM Sydney 2023 European Open Qualifiers, and they didn’t look good at CCT Online Finals #2 (13th-16th) either.

FURIA Esports are priced as favourites for this match, which makes sense as this roster has a much higher ceiling, but that doesn’t necessarily mean much. Expect a close game between two struggling teams.

Grayhound recently attended Intel Extreme Masters Cologne 2023 but didn’t make it far. The Australian squad crashed out in the first round of the play-in stage with defeats against FURIA Esports (11-16) and Imperial Esports (1-2).

Results like that don’t inspire much confidence, but it’s not like Grayhound were expected to do well in bigger events. Before the summer break, they attended BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 and IEM Dallas 2023, and in both tournaments they got crushed when faced with top-tier teams.

GamerLegion don’t look like an elite team, but they have been playing like one recently. Since their Cinderella run to the Paris Major finals, the international squad finished IEM Cologne 2023 and Gamers8 2023 inside the top eight, which are impressive results that suggest GL should do just fine in ESL Pro League Season 18.

GamerLegion have a long way to go to reach the top five in the CS:GO world rankings, but they’re up there with the best teams right now. Grayhound, on the other side, have been on a steady decline since July and on Monday reached their worst ranking (no.33) since March 2023.


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