ESL Pro League Season 20 betting predictions – Tuesday, September 17

The ESL Pro League Season 20 playoffs will begin on Tuesday, September 17, with each of the four opening-round fixtures scheduled to take place in Saint Julians, Malta. Check out our free Counter-Strike betting tips for BIG vs The Mongolz, Virtus.pro vs Heroic, Team Spirit vs FURIA Esports, and FaZe Clan vs Complexity.

Both BIG and The MongolZ have proved to be deadly outfits on their day throughout the ESL Pro League group stage.

BIG performed very well in their lower-bracket run in Group C, defeating Rooster and Fnatic 2-0 before besting Complexity 2-1 in the lower final. In those series, Rigon “rigoN” Gashi, Florian “syrsoN” Rische, and Jon “JDC” de Castro carried this relatively new line-up, which will set them up well for this high-kill clash.

The MongolZ have experienced an inconsistent Pro League campaign, with losses to 3DMAX and Team Spirit before bouncing back with wins against KOI, 9z Team and 3DMAX to advance from Group B. Garidmagnai “bLitz” Byambasuren and co. play a frantic style of CS, as they live or die by the sword in terms of their play-calling on the terrorist side.

Given the dramatic difference in game styles, it is hard to predict a winner; however, expect to see all three maps in the opening series of the day.

Virtus.pro and Heroic have met four times during 2024, with VP taking each of those meetings. As such, it is no surprise that top esports betting sites have marked the Russians as -181.82 favourites.

Virtus.pro showed solid form throughout the group stage, winning against Team Falcons and FURIA to take out the lower final in Group D. Although this roster hasn’t faced Heroic yet, the world No.8 team seems to have found its mojo again and is firing on all cylinders ahead of the playoffs.

Heroic have slowly fallen in the world rankings over the last three months, and after some poor showings at S-Tier events, they are now 17th in the world. Losses to Ninjas in Pyjamas and Sangal Esports in the group stage don’t read well for this clash.

Virtus.pro are worthy favourites in this contest, and considering the form these two bring into the playoffs, it is hard to tip against them.

Team Spirit and FURIA Esports will clash for the second time in three weeks, following Spirit’s dominant 2-0 victory at BetBoom Dacha Belgrade on August 30.

Spirit lost to MIBR in the upper bracket of Group B but bounced back with wins over The MongolZ and 3DMAX, even though they were pushed to three maps in both series. Danil “donk” Kryshkovets seems to be Spirit’s only win condition; if he shows up and tops the server in kills, Spirit win, but if he doesn’t, they struggle.

FURIA have performed as expected. They’ve beaten the teams they should beat and lost the games they are expected to lose. However, one constant for FURIA is Kaike “KSCERATO” Cerato, who is yet to finish any of their five matches with a negative kills-to-deaths ratio and is pivotal to their chances of causing an upset.

Neither of these teams are easy to tip with confidence, but we are getting great odds for FURIA to win one map.

FaZe Clan, who are notorious for being slow starters at events, fell to Sangal Esports in the opening round before defeating FlyQuest, Ninjas in Pyjamas and Sangal en route to a top-three finish in Group A. Although FaZe have not been at their best, David “frozen” Čerňanský is the fourth-ranked player (1.40) in ESL Pro League Season 20, and if FaZe want to lift the trophy, he will need some help from his teammates.

Complexity may have qualified through the last-chance stage; however, they defeated Astralis and MOUZ twice to qualify for playoffs, which is a much tougher run compared to that of FaZe. Unfortunately for Complexity supporters, their previous meetings against FaZe have not gone their way, with the North American organisation losing each of the last four series.

With two confident yet inconsistent rosters set to clash, expect a back-and-forth series that will be played out over three maps.

Esports betting tips