Another great night of esports action coming up this Saturday night and into Sunday morning! We have a full preview and betting picks courtesy of our esports expert Michael Lee below.
Esports Betting Tips: Saturday, May 16th
Hard Legion vs Winstrike
CS:GO ESL One: Road to Rio
The lower bracket semifinals of the ESL One: Road to Rio – CIS will serve us with an exciting match between Hard Legion and Winstrike. I am sure not a lot of bettors were expecting to see these two teams making it so far, especially when you have way better teams like forZe, pro100, Natus Vincere in the race,… but here we are anyway. Hard Legion have topped Group B with three wins out of five played. They defeated Syman, Virtus.pro and Natus Vincere, but lost to pro100 and Espada, who were arguably the worst team this tournament. Winstike won three matches against Unique, Nemiga, Gambit Youngsters and Syman, but lost to forZe and Spirit.
There are no previous fixtures between these two teams and considering Hard Legion have taken bigger scalps (Virtus.Pro and Natus Vincere) than Winstrike, it makes little sense for Hard Legion to come into the match priced as underdogs. Value bet on Hard Legion.
Vikin.gg vs OG Seed
DOTA2 Cyber.bet Cup: Spring Series
OG Seed and Vikin.gg are slated to clash in the semi-finals of Cyber.bet Cup: Spring Series - EU, which will mark their fourth meeting of the year. Their most recent clash came at WePlay! Pushka League Season 1: Europe Qualifier in April, where Vikin.gg came away with a narrow 2-1 win. That win came shortly after Vikin.gg's remarkable run through the ESL One Los Angeles 2020 - Online: Europe & CIS, where they finished third. Viking.gg extended their strong form into May and claimed the WePlay! Pushka League S1: Division 2 title. Their strong run, however, came to an end at OGA Dota PIT 2020 Online: Europe/CIS, where Vikin.gg lost to FlyToMoon (1-2) and Alliance (1-2). Most recently, Vikin.gg defeated Team Heroic (2-1) at Cyber.bet Cup: Spring Series - EU, and while a win is still a win, losing a map against a no-name team like Team Heroic fails to convince me Vikin.gg are as strong as they were a month ago.
OG.Seed, on the other side, are entering this bout following a 13th-14th place finish at Pushka League. There they won only one match out of six played albeit their sole win came against OG (2-1). OG.Seed also took one map off Alliance, NiP and Nigma, which are decent results for this team, so it's only fair to say that OG.Seed are not as weak as they seem to be.
OG.Seed are rightfully priced as favourites here. While they have failed to impress at Pushka League, they were forced to play much stronger teams than themselves and since Vikin.gg have visibly hit a slump, siding with OG.Seed to defeat Vikin.gg for the third time this year is the best bet to take.
CDEC Gaming vs PSG.LGD
DOTA2 China Professional League Season 2
The final fixture of China Pro League will see CDEC Gaming clash with PSG.LGD in what is expected to be a one-sided affair, but there is more to this match than meets the eye. CDEC have already guaranteed themselves a spot in the playoffs after they shook the world and won seven out of eight games played. Going against all the odds, CDEC defeated ViCi (2-1), IG (2-1) and even forced RNG to play a three-map series (1-2). Now the only Chinese Dota2 giant CDEC have to face are PSG.LGD, who have left a lot to be desired with their 1-2 loss to Aster and 0-2 loss to RNG in Week 1. PSG.LGD are entering this match with a 5-1 record in their last five which might seem very promising, but the only win they put up that is worth mentioning is their 2-0 against IG on Thursday. Besides that, PSG.LGD only defeated weaker sides in Keen Gaming, EHOME and picked up a forfeit win against Newbee.
CDEC and PSG.LGD have not met since December 2019. This adds another layer of unpredictability to this match, which on top of that is played online. PSG-LGD might field better quality players overall, but they're very overrated at these odds. CDEC have been playing surprisingly well recently and quite frankly, they are not as weak as the odds suggest. Side with CDEC to win at least one map.
CDEC Gaming +1.5 Maps
$1.58
