by BLAST Premier Fall Groups 2023 kicks off on Thursday, July 13, with the opening matches of Group A featuring Team Vitality, Evil Geniuses, Ninjas in Pyjamas, and Complexity. Here are our free Counter-Strike: Global Offensive betting picks for the first pair of games.
TEAM VITALITY vs EVIL GENIUSES CS:GO BETTING & MATCH DETAILS |
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|---|---|
| Best Odds: | Vitality -2500 at BetOnline | EG +943 at BetOnline |
| When: | July 13, 2023 | 15:00 CEST |
| Watch Live: | Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/BLASTPremier) |
Despite winning the BLAST.tv Paris Major and finishing second at the BLAST Premier Spring Final, Team Vitality decided to make an offseason roster change by signing Shahar “flameZ” Shushan as a replacement for Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen. While the change is unlikely to affect Vitality negatively, we need to see them in action before drawing any conclusions.
Evil Geniuses made significant roster changes in June, promoting their entire academy side to the main squad. This move won’t weaken EG, but there are some questions about how the former Evil Geniuses Black squad will do at the highest level.
On paper, Vitality look significantly stronger than Evil Geniuses. However, we have to consider that neither team has played a professional match in a month, so ring rust will be a factor – as it has been after every summer break in the history of CS:GO.
This is not a good enough reason to back Evil Geniuses, but betting on the underdogs with a map advantage at +220 is hard to pass on. Vitality are rusty and playing with a new member, so we shouldn’t expect them to be as dominant as before the break.
Evil Geniuses +1.5 maps
NINJAS IN PYJAMAS vs COMPLEXITY CS:GO BETTING & MATCH DETAILS |
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|---|---|
| Best Odds: | NiP -227.27 at BetOnline | Complexity +162 at BetOnline |
| When: | July 13, 2023 | 18:30 CEST |
| Watch Live: | Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/BLASTPremier) |
Ninjas in Pyjamas parted ways with Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen at the end of June and reinstated Hampus “hampus” Poser as in-game leader. So unlike most other Counter-Strike teams, NiP have kept their roster largely intact.
Complexity also made just one change, adding the star power of Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski to a core that has struggled to accomplish much this year. Without more roster changes, Complexity are expected to linger around the top 20 in the global CS:GO rankings, but it’s easy to underestimate how much EliGE can help this team as a leader.
Whether EliGE’s arrival will be enough for Complexity to upset Ninjas in Pyjamas is debatable, but we have to adjust the teams’ respective rankings to include the unavoidable rust brought on by the summer break.
This looks like a 50-50 match, so we have to take Complexity at plus money.
