by The ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals move to Jyske Bank Arena in Odense, Denmark, where we will see the top six teams duke it out for the title and the largest slice of US $600,000. Here, we will look over the two quarter-final fixtures and give our betting predictions, with odds from ESB’s top-rated esports bookmakers.
Fnatic vs Team Liquid
Friday, December 6 – 16:00 CET
The first quarter-final of the day will reunite two old rivals in Team Liquid (-232.56) and Fnatic (+181).
The odds offered by CS:GO betting sites suggest Team Liquid should have this one in a bag, but we can’t quite wrap our mind around the overly generous price on Fnatic.
The Swedes suffered an early 3-16 whipping from Evil Geniuses in the group stage, but that did not stop them from defeating Heroic (2-1), MiBR (2-1) and 100 Thieves (2-0) in the lower bracket to secure a spot in the final six. With that, Fnatic showed they can perform against some weaker teams, but there are still some doubts as to whether they can match it with the best.
Whereas Fnatic dropped out of the group stage early, Team Liquid made it all the way to the upper bracket finals by defeating North (16-12) and mousesports (2-1). Unfortunately, TL fell flat against the tournament favourites Astralis, who reverse-swept them in the upper bracket finals (1-2).
The most recent meeting between Fnatic and Team Liquid came at the end of November in the last four of the ECS Finals, where Team Liquid won 2-1. They also met at IEM Sydney back in May, when Liquid won 3-2.
TL should win this one, but the poor form of their players does raise some concerns. All five members of Liquid are putting up worse ratings this tournament than their career average. Fnatic, meanwhile, have Maikil “Golden” Selim, Robin “flush” Rönnquist and Ludvig “Brollan” Brolin to or above their usual standard.
Fnatic have chipped at least one map off Team Liquid in every bout since 2018, and there is no reason to believe this fixture will be any different.
Prediction: Fnatic +1.5 – -149.25 at BetOnline
Evil Genuises vs mousesports
Friday, December 6 – 19:50 CET
The second quarter-final will see mousesports (+107) take on Evil Geniuses (-131.58) as they push for their second S-Tier title of the year.
After losing to Team Liquid in round two of the upper bracket (1-2), mousesports went on to reverse-sweep Renegades (2-1) in round two of the lower bracket and obliterate ATK on Vertigo (16-5) and Dust II (16-6) to secure a spot in the quarter-finals. While very strong results from mouz, their true test comes this Friday when they face the no.2 team in the CS:GO world rankings.
Evil Geniuses arrived at Odense as one of the favourites to claim the title, but they have failed to justify that tag. While they defeated Fnatic 16-3 in round one of the group stage and swept 100 Thieves in round two, EG slipped in the upper bracket finals against Natus Vincere.
Since the start of October, Evil Geniuses and mousesports have met twice. Their first clash came at DreamHack Masters Malmo, where mouz won 2-0. The second meeting took place less than two weeks ago when the two sides met at CS:GO Asia Championships 2019, where mouz produced another clean sweep.
Mouz are coming into the playoffs hot, with three out of their five players putting up significantly higher-than-average ratings this tournament. It is the complete opposite for EG, with three players posting worse ratings than their season average.
EG might still come out on top here due to the importance of this match, but it is bound to go the distance and end in three maps.
Prediction: Over 2.5 maps – -111.11 at BetOnline
