Match forudsigelse: Team Liquid - Virtus.pro | Counter-Strike (CS2)

Welcome to EGamersWorld.

Big CSGO hasn't gone anywhere. ESL Pro League Season 18 is back on our screens, where 32 teams from around the world continue to battle it out for $800,000 in prize money and a trip to the IEM Katowice 2024 and BLAST Fall Finals 2023 title tournaments.

The group stage of the tournament is still ongoing. Slowly but surely, we are approaching its end and today we are talking about the teams from the D basket.

Group D turned out to be very competitive, with a minimum number of clear outsiders. G2, Lynn Vision, Complexity Gaming, 9INE, C9, Eternal Fire, Team Liquid and Virtus.pro are fighting for the play-offs. We'll talk more about the latter two, as they have the honour of opening Group D.

Let's see how the match between North America and Eastern Europe will end in a major international championship. The winner of the match advances to the next round where they will play against the winner of the G2 Esports - Lynn Vision pairing, while the loser goes to the lower bracket. Let's see who goes where.

Let's go.

Virtus.pro uniforms

Let's open the match analysis with an analysis of Virtus.pro's form. In this match, the team will play the first number one.

Bookmakers confirm the advantage of Vp. The odds for their victory are at around 1.4.

In the advantage of Vp can be believed not so much due to the achievements of Vp themselves, but because of the very passable performance of Team Liquid. North American CSGO is not going through the best of times, and that's why we can't expect big things from them.

However, Vp themselves show themselves quite well. It is not for nothing that the team closes the top 10 of the world ranking.

At the beginning of the year Vp played at three TIR tournaments. It was BB Playlist. Urbanistic, BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023: European RMR A, and also BB Playlist. Freeddom. At the two "home" championships from BB Vp were in the top 8, but at the European RMR everything was even less happy - top 14.

Then Vp made a breakthrough by winning at ESL Challenger Katowice 2023. The victory there allowed them to qualify for ESL Pro League Season 18.

Among the victories, CCT Online Finals #2 is also worth mentioning. They beat Team Spirit in the grand finals and earned $100,000, which is pretty good.

• Vp lineup: Jame, FL1T, fame, n0rb3r7, mir.

Before ESL Pro League Season 18 Vp visited Gamers8, where they didn't get further than the top 8, and Dunav Party LAN, where in the grand finals they got revenge for their defeat on CCT by Spirit.

Vp Mapple

The best map for Vp remains Ancient, where Vp won 3 maps out of 3 played. The most played map is Overpass, where Vp have played 11 maps and won 9 of them.

In the pool there is a good Anubis (3-1 on maps), Mirage (6 wins in 9 matches) and Inferno (7 wins in 11 games).

The worst choice for vp is Vertigo. It has 44% wins with 9 matches.

Team Liquid's form

We continue the match breakdown with the analysis of Team Liquid's match form. In the debut match at the EPL S18 "liquid" in the role of catching up.

Bookmakers do not believe in the success of Team Liquid. The odds on their victory is at around 2.2.

The gap is completely non-critical, but it is there. This is due to the chaotic, erratic and frankly weak game Liquid at the last championships.

The first half of the year went even more or less. There was TOP-4 at two top championships: IEM Katowice 2023 with TOP-4 and BLAST Premier: Spring American Showdown 2023.

But there were some glaring failures as well. For example, BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2023 and ESL Pro League Season 17, where they took TOP-12 and TOP-16 respectively.

At American RMR, Liquid finished top-3, which allowed them to qualify for the BLAST.tv Paris Major. Liquid finished the Paris Major on the 8th line after being eliminated by Apeks.

After the Major, Liquid played at IEM Dallas 2023 and BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2023. Both tournaments are below average: top-12 and top-9 respectively.

The last tournament before Gamers8 was IEM Cologne 2023, where Liquid showed a disgusting CSGO. So much so that they failed to make it past the Play-In stage.

• Liquid lineup: NAF, oSee, YEKINDAR, Patsi, Rainwaker .

The failure at IEM Cologne can be attributed to Liquid's recent Reshuffle, but it's no excuse.

Prior to the ESL Pro League Season 18 ESL Pro League Long Convergence, Team Liquid visited Gamers8. The $1,000,000 title tournament ended before it even started: NAF and company lost to ENCE in the first round and left the championship in 9-16th place.

Liquid's Mapple

Vertigo and Anubis were the most frequent Liquid mappers. Both have been played 3 times and two of them have 2 wins and 1 loss.

Mirage is also looking good, where Liquid has played 5 times, of which they won three times. The last "plus" winrate is Inferno. TL has 3 wins and 3 losses there.

The worst is on Overpass and Nuke. On Overpass there are 8 matches, but 5 defeats, on Nuke - only defeat.

History of head-to-head matches

The last time the teams played each other was back in 2021, so their match in ESL Pro League Season 18 can be called the debut face-to-face match.

Predicted result of Liquid vs Virtus.pro at ESL Pro League Season 18

Despite Team Liquid's downfall, I expect at least a fight from them in this match. Vp look better, but they were few at the title tournaments this year and not enough experience.

I'm cautiously taking +1.5 on Liquid.

Bottom line: +1.5 on Liquid.