G2
G2 have been quite inconsistent recently, they have managed to get great wins over teams like Vitality and FaZe in the past week but they also have had some loses, such as a 2-1 loss against North, a team you would expect them to beat when North have a stand in playing for them.
This match is important for G2 as if they win they will advance in this tournament to the playoff stage, and they will also be looking for revenge after losing to Astralis in the final of the ESL Road to Rio competition. G2 have a lot of players who if they individually play well they can carry the team. They will look to find this form in this match.
Astralis
Astralis have been performing well, most recently they won the ESL Road to Rio competition, however that was with ‘Gla1ve’ in the roster. Gla1ve plays a huge role in Astralis as he is the in-game leader but he has decided to move to the bench for medical reasons as he is feeling stressed and burnout from competing. This means ‘Jugi’, Astralis’s new signing has been moved to the starting lineup. This change will impact Astralis’s current form as ‘Magisk’ has been moved to the in-game leader role, which he is quite inexperienced in this role. It will be hard for him to adjust to this change with all the new patches that have been released recently making changes to maps such as Vertigo.
Astralis have played 2 matches since making this change so they won’t be completely comfortable yet with their changes. Although they have won both matches they have played, their match against Heroic went to overtime in one map and the other ended 16-14. They also beat a North roster with a new stand in. These are not the most convincing results.
My Bet Reasoning
We've seen nothing from Astralis yet against a top tier 1 team. Although G2 haven't looked the greatest I don't think there's an arguement that G2 isn't great value in this spot.
ML is priced at 28.6% which I think is a complete joke considering the new Astralis changes and Map 1 ML (Should be their pick) is priced at 36.4%, I see great value in both of these picks regardless of the outcome today I'd take this spot 100% of the time.
Bet: G2 ML @ 3.50, G2 Map 1 ML @ 2.75
League: Dreamhack Masters
Bookmaker: bet365
Units: 2/3, 1.5/3
