IEM Season XVI Summer betting picks – Thursday, June 3

ESB’s free Counter-Strike: Global Offensive betting tips for Thursday, June 3 focus on the opening four matches of the Intel Extreme Masters Season XVI Summer tournament. Here are our best bets for those games, with top odds courtesy of BetOnline.


Team Vitality haven’t won a single tournament in 2021 and haven’t managed a deep run in any of the last five attended. Their only notable tournament run of 2021 so far is a third-place finish at the BLAST Premier Global Final in January.

Vitality enter IEM Summer with a 46.7% win rate across the last three months and a 5-5 record from their last 10. That run includes only one victory against a top-10 rated team (BIG).

Complexity have lost six out of their last 10 fixtures (4-6), all of which ended in 0-2 sweeps. On a more positive note, they are 2-1 on the year in the head-to-head with Vitality.

Given how hit-or-miss these two sides are, it’s hard to call out a winner. We’re taking the plus money on Complexity.


Astralis are not nearly as good as they once were, but having them priced at -151.52 against a team like FunPlus Phoenix is quite disrespectful. The Danes enter IEM Summer still ranked no.5 in the world, which is far above FPX in 17th.

Astralis are 2-3 in their last five, with three back-to-back losses against mousesports, Heroic, and BIG. FPX are 2-2 in their last four, with losses to Vitality (1-2) and Ninjas in Pyjamas (0-2) and victories against Complexity (2-0) and Sprout (2-1).

On paper, FPX look like a decent pick, but it’s easy to forget that they’re facing the core of players that won all of the last three CS:GO Major Championships. At this price, it is hard to ignore Astralis.


Opening matches of any tournament – particularly online best-of-one games – are notoriously coin-flippy, so it’s interesting to see Evil Geniuses priced as high as +187. And it’s not like EG are a bad team, but you can’t deny that Team Spirit have been far more successful over the last few months.

One big issue we have with EG is their lack of games, seeing how they have only two fixtures on their record since April. EG also have not involved in a top-tier tournament since March when they crashed out of ESL Pro League S13.

Regardless of EG’s struggles, this is still a solid roster, and they’re playing a one-off bout where anything can happen. Until IEM Summer enters best-of-three fixtures, it only makes sense to side with the favourites if they are both individually much better and more consistent. Spirit are hardly any of that.


While we don’t want to overreact to stretches of good form, you have to give Ninjas in Pyjamas some praise for their showings this month. The Swedes enter IEM Summer with a silver medal from Flashpoint Season 3 and a 5-2 record in their last seven that includes wins against Anonymo Esports, FunPlus Phoenix, BIG, Heroic, and G2.

OG have not been nearly as convincing with their recent performances, nor were they particularly active in May. They have only two games on their record in the last month, losing against Astralis and Vitality. What’s more, OG have played only seven matches since March 12.

NiP seem to be in great form and will enter IEM Summer warmed up and ready to go, while OG are the complete opposite. Take the Swedes at -142.86 odds or better.