Another big night of esports action coming up this Saturday night and into Sunday morning with some solid matchups in the DOTA2 ESL One Birmingham and the CS:GO DreamHack Masters. See our best bets of the nigh here.
Esports Betting Tips: Saturday, May 23rd
BOOM Esports vs Fnatic
ESL One Birmingham 2020
After losing their opening match of ESL One Birmingham against Adroit (1-2), Fnatic managed to bounce back on Friday with a 2-0 win over Reality Rift, to enter the third competitive day with a 1-1 record. Although Fnatic defeated Reality Rift 2-0, their performance was not as sharp as I had expected. In both games, Fnatic had their moments, where they looked lost and confused, which makes me worried about their chances to make a deep run at the tournament. Although I had expected to see Fnatic start their journey a bit slow, since they haven't played a single competitive match for about a month before ESL One Birmingham, it's concerning to see how many sloppy mistakes Fnatic made on Friday.
BOOM Esports' journey through the opening two days, on the other side, looked completely different. They showed a lot of quality in both of their fixtures, as they managed to trash TNC Predator on day one and produced a reverse-sweep against Geek Fam on Friday. Although BOOM lost the first map against GF, they more than compensated with strong performances on the second and third map, so I don't see any reason to criticise them for their 2-1 win over an arguably weaker side.
Fnatic and BOOM met three times since the start of April, with Fnatic winning all three matches, twice with 2-1 and once with a clean sweep. BOOM's record against Fnatic does not look too promising, however, that's not enough for me to believe BOOM will lose this one without making Fnatic sweat. Fnatic looked very sloppy on Friday and if they won't fix their mistakes before the weekend, BOOM should be able to punish their mistakes and win at least one map. Bet on BOOM to keep it close!
Adroit vs Reality Rift
ESL One Birmingham 2020
Reality Rift failed to see much success in the opening two fixtures of ESL One Birmingham, where they lost to Geek Fam (0-2) and Fnatic (0-2), meaning they're entering the weekend match with the worst record of the tournament. Their next opponents, Adroit, on the other side already defeated two of the strongest teams of the tournament in Fnatic (2-1) and TNC (2-0), effectively guaranteeing themselves a spot in the playoffs.
Reality Rift met with Adroit three times since March. Their first meeting took place at ESL SEA Championship 2020, where Adroit came away with a 2-0 win. The story repeated itself a month later during BTS Pro Series: Southeast Asia and most recently at Hephaestus Cup, where Reality Rift lost to Adroit 0-2.
Adroit are entering this match as undisputed favourites and I don't believe there is anyone who disagrees with that. The fact that Adroit defeated two of the most stacked teams makes them the main favourites to lift the trophy and since they have already racked in a few very impressive tournament placements this year, Adroit are slowly establishing themselves as a top-tier team. They are still a bit off from achieving that status, however, but defeating teams like Reality Rift should not be a problem for them. Bet on Adroit to win 2-0!
Team Liquid vs MIBR
DreamHack Masters Spring 2020
Both Team Liquid and MiBR have made some changes in their rosters not long ago. Liquid promoted Stewie2k to the IGL role instead of nitr0, while MiBR recently signed trk as a replacement for meyern, who has found himself removed from the active roster. MiBR's change, however, will disrupt the flow of their game to a higher degree, since they will need to learn to play a new style of CS, which will likely see them go through a period of instability and adjustment.
Liquid and MiBR last met at the ESL One: Road to Rio – North America, where Team Liquid came away with a 2-0 win, by defeating MiBR on Dust2 (16-12) and Inferno (16-13), thanks to an impressive performance from NAF and EliGE who averaged 1.41 and 1.36 HLTV ratings respectively. Looking at H2H stats, Liquid have won four of the last BO3 meetings with MiBR without dropping a single map. Sure, some of these matches were very close, but then again, the 4-0 H2H record speaks for itself and should give TL the needed morale boost to make it 5-0. Bet on TL to win this series with a clean sweep.
Team Liquid -1.5 Maps
$1.91
