ESL Pro League Season 16 betting predictions – Thursday 22/9/2022

ESB returns with free Counter-Strike: Global Offensive betting picks for three games in the second round of ESL Pro League Season 16 Group D. Check out our selections for Cloud9 vs Eternal Fire, Movistar Riders vs FURIA, and Team Liquid vs Evil Geniuses.


Cloud9 enter this match as -625 favourites with BetOnline, which is an insane price for a team that hasn’t played a single official match since July. Cloud9 might be significantly more talented than Eternal Fire and have a vastly higher ceiling, but all that doesn’t justify the offered CS:GO betting odds.

Despite their lack of achievements in the higher echelons of the CS:GO scene, Eternal Fire are a capable team. They might rely a bit too much on İsmailсan “XANTARES” Dörtkardeş and Özgür “woxic” Eker playing well, but when the Turkish duo is on, Eternal Fire are very tough to stop.

Admittedly, Eternal Fire’s chances to defeat Cloud9 will depend on the map selection and whether EF’s star players will be in good form. But even though there are many questions above Eternal Fire, we can’t pass on an opportunity to back them with a map handicap at even money.

It’s been a while since Cloud9 played their last match, and even though they will have played the opening ESL Pro League game before they clash with Eternal Fire, this is the time to take advantage of the generous odds.


These two squads look pretty evenly matched if we compare their accomplishments in 2022. Movistar Riders reached the semis at Global Esports Tour Dubai 2022 in June and pocketed another top-four finish at Intel Extreme Masters Cologne a month later. On the other side, FURIA made the knockout stage of PGL Major Antwerp 2022 and added a top-four finish at IEM Dallas.

Moreover, both teams have not achieved much in recent weeks, struggling to perform in bigger events. Notably, FURIA’s dry streak spans far longer than Movistar Riders’, yet the Spanish squad is still rightly considered the weaker team.

The departure of Alvaro “SunPayus” Garcia to ENCE has downgraded Movistar Riders’ quality quite a bit, and as seen in their recent outings (1-2 vs Dynamo Eclot, 12-16 vs EC e-sports, 13-16 vs Sashi esports), Movistar are not nearly as strong as they were in July.

Esports betting sites have priced Movistar Riders as +137 underdogs, and even though we don’t have high expectations for FURIA, that figure seems a bit too low. FURIA to win the series with at least five total rounds to spare is the right play, in our book.


Team Liquid are the second favourites (+175) to win Group D on the outright betting markets, while Evil Geniuses are priced as the biggest outsiders at +6600 with BetOnline. Although it’s fair to assume that Evil Geniuses will not win top the group, we would argue that their chances of doing well against Team Liquid are much higher than the latest CS:GO betting odds suggest.

The public’s perception of Team Liquid is very high following their strong performance at BLAST Premier Fall Groups 2022, but we can’t ignore that Liquid have achieved very little this season. This is a very popular team, which explains the overreaction, but looking at Liquid’s past results, there is no reason to believe they have a 90.9% chance of winning this bout.

That’s not to say that Evil Geniuses have looked good recently, but this is a regional derby which has rarely been one-sided. In April, Team Liquid won 2-1 after losing the first map, while they needed overtime to edge past Evil Geniuses in January (19-17).

Liquid have looked better lately, but that’s mainly because other top teams (Ninjas in Pyjamas, Heroic, Natus Vincere) have been struggling. This is the same team that lost against Movistar Riders (1-2), Imperial (10-16), and paiN Gaming (1-2). Take Evil Geniuses to win a map at -125.


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