ESB’s free Counter-Strike: Global Offensive betting picks for Thursday, October 7 focus on two Intel Extreme Masters Season XVI Fall Europe bouts. Here are our selections for Ninjas in Pyjamas vs Movistar Riders and Copenhagen Flames vs Team Vitality.

?Movistar Riders made it through Group B with a 3-2 record and a -1 round differential. Even though they have done well, it’s hard to be overly impressed with their performances. The 16-14 win against Complexity was a fluke, while beating Sinners Esports (16-14) and Endpoint (16-12) isn’t exactly a huge achievement.

On the other hand, Ninjas in Pyjamas won all five of their group stage matches, defeating Team Fiend (16-4), FaZe Clan (16-8), SKADE (16-14), Fnatic (16-7), and Double Poney (16-12). Although NiP’s opponents weren’t that much stronger than Riders’, we have to acknowledge how dominant the Swedes were in four of five outings. Movistar Riders deserve some respect for reaching the playoffs, but they should stand no chance against the current no.6 team in the world.

?Copenhagen Flames topped Group A with a perfect 5-0 record, which indicates excellent form, but we should take their success with a grain of salt. G2 Esports and BIG were the only two teams of note in that group, and both have been in poor form of late. While we have to acknowledge Copenhagen’s 19-16 win against G2 and 16-9 against BIG, the Danes also dropped 14 rounds against AURA and 12 against FunPlus Phoenix.

Team Vitality slipped once during their group stage run, against ENCE (8-16), but they still came out with a 4-1 record and +23 round differential. Like any team, Vitality can blunder a game, but this is still the no.3 CS:GO team in the world. A lot will have to go wrong for the French squad to lose even a map on Thursday.