HellRaisers and Winstrike will clash on the battlefield this Thursday in the closed qualifiers for the Rio 2020 CIS Minor Championship. The qualifiers will feature 16 CS:GO esports teams who will duke it out for eight tickets to the Minor tournament, where the top two teams will be awarded New Challenger Status for the Major and the third-placed squad will earn a spot in the play-in stage.
HellRaisers are entering qualifiers billed as one of the favourites to pocket a top-eight finish, however, luck was not on their side in the draw, as they are set to face Winstrike in round one, and possibly forZe in round two.
HellRaisers rebuilt their CS:GO roster back in September when they signed Vadim “Flatich” Karetin, Igor “crush” Shevchenko and Alexander “scoobyxie” Marynych, who teamed up with ?ygimantas “nukkye” Chmieliauskas and Kirill “ANGE1” Karasiow, who is set to celebrate his six-years anniversary with the team on Saturday, March 7. In October 2019, HellRaisers also signed Alexander “Lk-” Lemeshev as their head coach.
Since acquiring a new roster, HellRaisers appeared in several tournaments, but without much success. In October, they crashed out of both WePlay! Forge of Masters Season 2: Online Stage and SECTOR: MOSTBET and later in November had unsuccessful ventures at Qi Banja Luka 2019: European Qualifier and ESL Pro League Season 10 – Europe, finishing 17th-20th and 11th-12th respectively.
ANGE1 and company picked up the pace towards the end of the year, however, when they finished fourth at WESG 2019 CIS and second at DreamHack Delhi Invitational, although they failed to make much noise at IEM Katowice Open qualifiers where they finished fifth-eighth and ended the year by dropping out of LOOT.BET/CS Season 5 due to “unforeseen circumstances” despite securing a playoffs berth.
In January HellRaisers parted ways with scoobyxie and replaced him with former pro100 AWPer Ivan “AiyvaN” Semenets. Shortly after, the Ukrainian squad appeared at DreamHack Open Leipzig 2020: European Open Qualifier, but failed to make it past hREDS in round one, to which they added yet another disappointing run at FLASHPOINT Season 1: European Qualifier in mid-February, finishing at a 25th-32rd place.
Winstrike are entering this bout with an incomplete roster, as they have only three permanent members in Vlаdуslаv “bondik” Nеchуроrchuk, Aleksei “El1an” Gusev and Viktor “Lack1” Boldyrev, who are joined by Aidyn “KrizzeN” Turlybekov as a stand-in player and Abay “Hobbit” Khasenov, who arrived at the team in October 2019 as a loanee from HellRaisers.
Earlier in November, Winstrike also parted ways with their coach Ivan “Johnta” Shevtsov, who left to coach a stack dubbed ProjectX, which later got signed by CR4ZY. As his replacement, Winstrike brought in an experienced Counter-Strike pro Dmitrii “hooch” Bogdanov.
Since signing Lack1 and acquiring Hobbit and KrizzeN, Winstrike produced a mixed bag of results, which include second-place finish at WESG 2019 Central Asia: Kazakhstan, seventh-eighth at WePlay! Forge of Masters Season 2, as well as a silver medal at LOOT.BET/CS Season 5 back in December. In the last two months, however, Winstrike failed to see much success outside top finishes at European Open Qualifiers for DreamHack Open and FLASHPOINT Season 1.
HellRaisers and Winstrike have met once before, back in April 2019 during WePlay! Forge of Masters Season 1: Regular Season, when HellRaisers came out ahead with a commanding 16-5 win. However, we can’t look at that result for this betting preview, considering a lot has changed since. In fact, the only three players who were involved in that fixture and are still with the teams are ANGE1 and nukkye at HellRaisers and bondik at Winstrike.
Comparing the two rosters, Winstrike are in a significantly better form and it’s also worth noting that Winstrike members are averaging 0.11 higher rating compared to HellRaisers. Based on the map pools of the teams, we might see Overpass, where HellRaisers hold a 75% win rate over eight games, while Winstrike won 67% of their six games played on it, but are on a four-map win streak, which suggests they should enjoy a slight advantage.
Odds suggest HellRaisers should be the favourites, but we would like to think otherwise. Not only are Winstrike in better shape and boast with higher rating of their members, but they also field former HellRaiser member in Hobbit, which should give them the needed advantage to edge out a win.
CIS Minor Championship London 2018 is a qualifier tournament that’s part of the upcoming FACEIT Major: London 2018. The top 2 teams at this event will be granted a spot in the New Challenger phase of that prestigious event. The competition has a prize pool of $50,000 and is scheduled to take place between July 10th – 13th in London, UK.
This is a fairly weak team compared to the other participants, having achieved almost nothing in 2018. Its only notable performance was a 2nd place finish in a tier 3 tournament, St. Petersburg Cybersport Festival “Defender”. There’s almost no chance for pro100 to get a top 2 finish at this event and secure a spot at FACEIT Major: London 2018.
HellRaisers is one of the main contenders for this event, having the most amount of experience the best past results. Among the team’s most notable performances in 2018 I would mention the following: 3rd – 4th place at V4 Future Sports Festival Budapest 2018, 9-11th place at StarLadder & i-League StarSeries Season 4, 1st place at Bets.net Masters: Season 1, 7th place at ESL Pro League Season 7 Europe, 2nd place at DreamHack Open Tours 2018, and 2nd place at Moche XL Esports.
Team Spirit is another fairly strong team in the CIS region, having multiple top finishes in tier 2 and tier 3 tournaments. In 2018, Spirit finished 1st at St. Petersburg Cybersport Festival “Defender”, 2nd at StarLadder & ImbaTV Invitational Chongqing 2018, 2nd at ESEA Season 27: Global Challenge and 2nd at GG.BET Majestic.
Avangar is a serious contender at CIS Minor Championship London 2018, having attended the previous Major (ELEAGUE Major: Boston 2018) back in January. The team also got important results in multiple tier 2 and tier 3 tournaments this year, including QIWI TEAM PLAY: Winter 2017 (1st place), M.Game League (1st place), CSGO.NET Cup 2 (1st place), GOCASE Challenge (1st place), esportsbetting.com Launch Invitational (1st place), Adrenaline Cyber League 2018 (2nd place), StarSeries & i-League CS:GO Season 5 (9th-11th) and X-Bet.co Invitational 2 (2nd place). Along with HellRaisers and Team Spirit, AVANGAR is the most likely participant to qualify for the upcoming FACEIT Major.
This is a complete outsider, having no notable achievements whatsoever, at any visible level (tier 1, 2 or 3 events). Subsequently, you should be betting against this roster whenever you have the chance.
Monolith Gaming
Like PLINK-TECH, this is another outsider with 0 chances of going through. Little is known about this team for now, although its recent defeats against DreamEaters, NOBO, forZe and PLINK showed quite clearly that it’s not a serious competitor, even at this level of CS.
forZe is a much stronger team than Monolith, pro100 and PLINK, but still an underdog compared to the main contenders. The odds of forZe winning a spot at the Major are not good at all.
Betting predictions
In terms of experience, recent form and past results AVANGAR is much stronger than forZe at this point. Last time they met in a direct match, AVANGAR won with a score of 2 – 0. So unless they have an absolutely abysmal day, this match should be a walk in the park for them.
Betway puts the odds at 1.30 – 3.20 in favor of AVANGAR, giving forZe a lot more respect that they’re worthy of in this matchup and creating a perfect CS:GO betting opportunity.
Betting prediction: AVANGAR to win at GG Bet
This is a total mismatch between a serious CIS team with decent past results and a provincial nobody. Team Spirit will likely smash Monolith Gaming without dropping more than 10 rounds.
Betway puts the odds at 1.15 – 4.75 in favor of Team Spirit, and this is practically free money to be made.
Betting prediction: Team Spirit to win at GG Bet
This is a fairly even math, although I do believe that pro100 is slightly favored to win it, based on its past results.
Betway puts the odds at 1.85 – 1.85, most likely due to the lack of concrete information which can be analyzed to determine the most probable outcome. Little is known about PLINK-TECH at this point, but the data we have about pro100 clearly shows they are much better established as a team.
Betting prediction: pro100 to win at GG Bet
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