Esports betting tips & odds – Tuesday, December 29

ESB returns with another set of free esports betting tips for Tuesday, focusing on two IntoTheAlphaX Trovo Rumble #2 StarCraft II fixtures and a couple of Dota 2 group stage bouts at the WCAA Winter Challenge Cup 2020.

IntoTheAlphaX Trovo Rumble #2

Shin “RagnaroK” Hee Bum is looking much weaker than how he did earlier this month and in November. Cho “Dream” Joong Hyuk’s results are not exactly praiseworthy either, although he deserves some slack for his losses since he had to face some of the strongest players in the scene including Cho “Trap” Sung Ho, Park “Armani” Jin Hyuk and Kim “sOs” Yoo Jin.

Form-wise, there is not a lot to separate these two players and it’s also worth noting that they have split their last four head-to-head meetings. Even though everything is pointing to a close match, the esports betting odds favour RagnaroK, which is likely due to Dream’s poor record (56%) against Zergs.

That, however, doesn’t convince us since RagnaroK’s record against Terran (55.91%) is not great either. Dream at $1.90 or above is a good bet.

The latest StarCraft II esports betting odds offered on Won “PartinG” Lee Sak to win seem about fair, but we can’t say the same for the price on the outsider which is way shorter than what we expected. Regardless, there is still some value in backing PartinG to win 2-0.

He has swept Lee “Bunny” Jae-seon in all of their last three meetings and lost only two out of eight clashes this year. What’s more, PartinG enters this match on a nine-game winning streak, so it’s easy to imagine another slean win for the favourite.

WCAA Winter Challenge Cup 2020

Forest and Pheonix Gaming will lock horns for the second time in history and the first time since late November when Forest forced a 1-1 stalemate during the Artisan Dota League. Phoenix have since produced a mixed bag of results and a 5-1-4 record in their last 10 outings.

That run includes a 2-1 win against Invictus Gaming and a 2-0 sweep of iG.Vitality as two of the most notable results. Forest, on the other side, have not faced any top-tier teams recently, but they’re still 4-1 across the last week.

Phoenix seem like a better team on paper, but at these odds, we have to side with Forest. They are not as bad as the betting odds might suggest and with their current form, they have a realistic chance to cause an upset.

Team Sirius enter this match with a 5-3 record and a 12-9 map differential, which is not exactly spectacular, but it’s enough to sit Federico “Rico” Ye and co. in a favourable position to secure a top-six finish. Calamity King (formerly Rising Knight) have seen slightly less success so far this tournament, however, it’s hard to be overly critical of their 4-3 record.

The esports betting odds show Team Sirius as heavy favourites, which we can’t agree with – at least not at this price. Not only have CK looked fairly solid in their recent fixtures, but it’s also important to note that Sirius field two stand-in players in Li “Corey” Ruofei and Wang “无心” Xin as replacements for captain Liu “Lww” Weiwei and Chen “harutya” Xin.

At $5.96, the esports bookmakers imply CK have only 16.8% chance of success which severely underrates them. Last week, CK came very close to defeating LBZS and if that is any indication, they can do some damage to Sirius as well.