Our esports tipster Michael Lee is back, and today he has prepared Counter-Strike: Global Offensive predictions for three matches in Intel Extreme Masters Road to Rio 2022: European RMR B. Check out his picks for Outsiders vs Monte, Heroic vs SAW, and MOUZ vs OG.
Esports Betting Tips: Monday, October 3rd
Outsiders vs Monte - European RMR B
Outsiders and Monte will meet in the first round of European RMR B, also marking their first H2H match. Outsiders enter European RMR B following a fairly solid run at ESL Pro League Season 16, where they narrowly made it out of the group stage, defeated FURIA Esports in the first round of the playoffs, but then lost against Team Vitality.
Still, Outsiders took Vitality to overtime on Dust 2 (17-19) and had their chances on Mirage (13-16), which they would’ve won had Outsiders performed better as Terrorists. With such results, it’s hard to doubt Outsiders and their chances to defeat Monte, who are a much weaker team than any squad Outsiders had to face last month.
Monte are in good form (4-2), and they seem to do well on Mirage (85% win rate) and Nuke (64% win rate). Unfortunately, those two maps, Outsiders, don’t play, so there’s a good chance we’ll see either Dust 2 or Overpass, where Outsiders should be in a much better spot.
So not only are Outsiders individually superior to Monte, but they should also enjoy some advantage in map selection, knowing that Mote are only really decent on two maps. Betting on the favourites in BO1s is rarely a good idea, but I can’t see Outsiders losing against Monte.
Outsiders -4.5 rounds
$2 (1 Unit)
Heroic vs SAW - European RMR B
Heroic recently suffered a humiliating elimination from ESL Pro League Season 16 playoffs when they lost against Natus Vincere (1-2) despite having a chance to sweep the Ukrainian team. But unlike SAW, Heroic have made it to ESL Pro League and done it in style.
During the group stage, Heroic have suffered only one defeat, against MOUZ, but have looked very good against ENCE, HEET, Astralis, and Complexity. The Danes also had some moments of greatness during BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2022 in August, when they defeated FaZe Clan (16-10) and BIG (16-13, 16-14).
SAW’s success over the last couple of months has been limited to winning the final IEM Road to Rio European RMR qualifiers, where they defeated Astralis. But that sounds much better than it is, since Astralis aren’t playing well and need a roster change.
Besides beating Astralis, SAW have not won against a single high-rated team and have even suffered defeats against the likes of MASONIC, Sprout, 1win, and forZe. Heroic have had some games where they would struggle against weaker teams, but that has become far rarer of late.
At 1.90, I like Heroic to defeat SAW and cover the 4.5-round handicap.
Heroic -4.5 rounds
$1.90 (1 Unit)
MOUZ vs OG - European RMR B
MOUZ are 1.66 favourites to win against OG on Tuesday, which mainly has to do with their strong performance at ESL Pro League Season 16. Even though MOUZ didn’t win the tournament, they placed first in Group C, ahead of Heroic, Complexity, ENCE, and HEET.
But despite their strong run through the group stage, MOUZ failed to impress in the playoffs, losing to Liquid in the quarterfinals and finishing the competition in 5-8th place. MOUZ deserve respect for what they’ve shown, but realistically, their only notable victory came against Heroic in the first round of the group stage. And even that win should be taken with a grain of salt since Heroic entered the match rusty.
OG did not play in ESL Pro League, but they have looked good in August when they won BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2022. Then in September, OG was disappointed with a top-six finish at ESL Challenger at DreamHack Melbourne 2022, where they lost against Entropiq and Wings Up.
Results like that are concerning, but as OG players have said, the team did not practice for the event, so I wouldn’t say that it’s any indication of OG’s actual strength. I would even argue that OG are stronger than MOUZ and it’s easy to believe that if you don’t overreact to MOUZ’s run to the ESL Pro League playoffs.
Esports bookmakers have OG priced as 2.10 underdogs, which I don’t believe is a fair price. OG should be favoured, and I’m happy to get them at even odds or better.
