IEM Cologne 2021 betting predictions – Tuesday, July 6

ESB’s free Counter-Strike: Global Offensive betting tips for Tuesday focus on four bouts in the Intel Extreme Masters Season XVI Cologne Play-In event. Here are our best bets and top odds for Team Spirit vs MiBR, Ninjas in Pyjamas vs Team LDLC, Bad News Bears vs mousesports, and Sprout vs BIG.


Team Spirit and MiBR will clash on Tuesday for the first time in their history. Team Spirit enter the match as bookie’s favourites, which makes sense since they are one of the top 15 teams in the world, whereas MiBR are outside of the top 50 (54th) in the world rankings.

Regardless of what that would suggest, the offered odds on MiBR are a bit too high for a best-of-one (Bo1) fixture. Bo1s are highly volatile, and it doesn’t help that Spirit have never met with MiBR before.

MiBR might have struggled against other S-Tier teams over the last few weeks, but they have enough talent to put up a fight on Tuesday. Spirit seem a bit overrated by the bookies, seeing how they have dropped at least one map in all of their last seven outings, which includes matches against 100PingGods, K23, and Entropiq, who are not that much stronger than MiBR.

Take MiBR to cause an upset at +200 or better. Alternatively, you can pick the Brazilians with a 4.5 round advantage at -123.46.


Bad News Bears enter this bout priced as high as +329, which gives them a mere 23.3% chance of winning, and that’s a bit low.

Mousesports are undeniably a more stacked squad, but they shouldn’t be priced as low as -526.32 to win a Bo1 series. They’re 8-2 in their last 10 outings, albeit 2-2 since the start of June, with losses to ENCE (0-2) and BIG (1-2).

At the offered CS:GO betting odds, it’s reasonable to take a shot with the underdogs with a 5.5-round advantage. Although we don’t believe BNB are good enough to cause an upset, they should at least reach double digits.


Team LDLC are 4-2 in their last six, with wins against Nemiga Gaming (2-1), SAW (2-1), Team GamerLegion (2-1), and BIG (2-1). Their two losses during that stretch came against AGO (1-2) and forZe (1-2).

Ninjas in Pyjamas are 3-3 in their last six, with wins against Evil Geniuses (2-0), BIG (2-0), and MiBR (2-1), as well as losses to G2 Esports (1-2), ENCE (1-2), and mousesports (1-2).

NiP had to face more challenging opponents, but that doesn’t explain the latest CS:GO betting odds. At -500, the esports bookmakers suggest that NiP should win this match 83.3% of the time, which is way too high for a team that hasn’t achieved much of late.

At this price, there is no value in siding with NiP, and we wouldn’t recommend a bet on NiP to cover the round handicap either. You could take LDLC with a 6.5 round advantage, but we’re going all-in on the French side to cause an upset.


BIG have been far more successful than their country rivals on the international stage, but that doesn’t mean much for this bout. BIG and Sprout last met at the end of May, when BIG won 2-1, with 16-8 on Train, 17-19 on Dust II and 19-17 on Vertigo.

Before that, Sprout and BIG clashed in January, when Sprout reverse-swept BIG with 25-22 on Dust II and 16-10 on Nuke, after losing the series opener 16-19 on Vertigo.

As these results would suggest, BIG and Sprout usually produce very close affairs, so it’s hard to explain why the esports bookmakers have BIG priced as such big favourites. They might have better players, but they’re more than capable of losing one map against Sprout – and in a Bo1 series, that’s enough to lose the match.