ESL Pro League Season 21 Stage 1 betting tips – Saturday, March 1

ESL Pro League Season 21 kicks off on Saturday, March 1, with the play-in stage, where 16 Counter-Strike 2 teams will vie for eight Stage 2 tickets. Here are our CS2 betting picks for the first day of play, with esports odds courtesy of the top bookmakers in United States.

FlyQuest enter the ESL Pro League Season 21 play-in stage following a rough showing at PGL Cluj-Napoca 2025, where the Australian outfit lost all three of their matches. It marked their third early elimination in a row, after a second-round exit from the BLAST Bounty Spring 2025 Closed Qualifier and a last-place finish at Intel Extreme Masters Katowice 2025.

M80 are on an eight-game winning streak, which sounds impressive; however, they’ve faced much weaker opponents than FlyQuest have, so their win rate does not hold much weight.

On paper, M80 look like the better team, but over the last three weeks they’ve found success only in regional events, which makes it easy to doubt their chances to make much noise at ESL Pro League Season 21.

TYLOO are priced as +550 underdogs with the top Counter-Strike 2 betting sites to defeat 3DMAX, who slipped at PGL Cluj-Napoca 2025 but showed good things last week with wins against Virtus.pro and MiBR.

TYLOO have not featured in a big international event since ESL Pro League Season 19. Nor have they found much success in recent domestic tournaments, with a last-place finish at BLAST Rising Asia Spring 2025. This is not inspiring, but 3DMAX have not been consistent enough lately to be favoured so much.

At +134, TYLOO to win a map is a solid outsider bet.

HEROIC made some noise at BLAST Bounty Spring 2025 early in the season but have since produced a few too many disappointing results, which includes an early elimination from IEM Katowice 2025. On a more positive note, last week HEROIC made it though the IEM Dallas 2025 European Qualifier with wins against BIG, Metizport, and Astralis.

SAW have not looked the same since their offseason roster shuffle, but they showed up at PGL Cluj-Napoca 2025 with a fifth-eighth finish and wins against FlyQuest, Complexity, and 3DMAX.

HEROIC are rightly billed as favourites, but they have been too inconsistent lately to take their side at this number. SAW to upset at this price is a no-brainer pick.

FURIA Esports have played just six games since the turn of the year and won half, beating Nemiga Gaming, Imperial Female, and Wildcard. Their losses came against BetBoom Team, Natus Vincere, and Astralis.

It is not the most inspiring record, but it’s hardly surprising for FURIA, who count on Kaike “KSCERATO” Cerato to do most of the heavy lifting. This approach will not work against elite teams, and sometimes it will be a problem even when faced with weaker sides.

Lynn Vision Gaming are the second-ranked Counter-Strike 2 team from China, and they’re in great form ahead of ESL Pro League Season 21. While they are unlikely to make it very far, Lynn Vision should not be priced at +375 against FURIA, who have not shown anything noteworthy since the turn of the year.

MiBR and Nemiga Gaming have both had a tough start to the year. MiBR have competed in tougher tournaments, namely IEM Katowice 2025 and PGL Cluj-Napoca 2025, but that means very little, as they did not make it far in either.

Nemiga Gaming, on the other side, recently attended CCT Season 2 European Series #17 and Series #18, managing only one top-eight finish across the two events.

There is very little to separate these two squads. MiBR might’ve had a tougher schedule since the turn of the year, but they have performed just as poorly as Nemiga. Except a close game.

GamerLegion left a statement with their seventh-eighth finish at IEM Katowice 2025 at the start of February. But they have recently made it though IEM Dallas 2025 European Qualifier, although with two easy games against Hesta and Metizport.

NRG have not featured in a big tournament this season; however, they won Launders LAN #2, CCT Season 2 North American Series #4, IEM Dallas 2025 North American Qualifier, and made the semifinals of Ace North American Masters Spring 2025, so form is not an issue.

GamerLegion are expected to win, which makes some sense due to their solid showing in Poland. But besides that, Erik “ztr” Gustafsson and co. have not won much, so it is hard to justify taking their side at -344.83. At outsider odds, there is value in backing NRG to spring the upset.

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