BLAST Premier Fall 2020

?These sides will clash for the first time since Team Vitality swept mousesports 2-0 at DreamHack Open Fall 2020 in October. Vitality have since played 14 games and lost only against Heroic (2-3) and FaZe (0-2) in a run that includes a 3-2 reverse sweep of Natus Vincere in the IEM Beijing grand finals.

Mousesports may not be rated as high as Vitality, but they managed to top their BLAST Premier Fall 2020 Showdown group ahead of GODSENT, Heroic and Cloud9. They also reached the grand finals of DreamHack Masters Winter 2020 Europe.

Even though Vitality are the better team on paper, Finn “karrigan” Andersen and co. are not to be written off entirely. If mouz’s performance against Astralis on Sunday is any indication, this match could be a very close one.

?Astralis enter this match on a four-game winning streak which includes a 3-1 win over mousesports at DreamHack Masters Winter. While the Danes have won all four of their fixtures at this tournament convincingly, they showed some cracks against Team Liquid and G2 Esports.

Natus Vincere have left a lot to be desired with their iffy displays since the Counter-Strike esports scene transitioned to online play. That was most recently seen in their loss to Vitality in the IEM Beijing grand finals.

NaVi and Astralis usually produce close affairs, and we don’t see why this one will be an exception. That being said, NaVi are known for poor performances in the early stages of tournaments, so we have to side with the Danes.

PG Nationals Winter 2020

?Following a disastrous run through PG Nationals Summer 2020, Notorious Legion parted ways with their old lineup and put together a much improved all-French roster led by the former Team Vitality player David “sNKy” Khalfa. Notorious Legion’s new-look squad got off to a strong start this season and now enter this match with a very solid 8-2-1 record.

GoSkilla have also made roster changes, although without much improvement. They enter this match with a mediocre 3-2-6 record and a 1-5 run since their last clash with Notorious Legion (5-7) in October.

Even though GoSkilla came close to defeating Notorious Legion last time out, that hardly means anything considering they went on to lose to both MAD Wizards and Cyberground Gaming. Load up on the favourites here.

?Since their triumph over Mad Wizards on day five of the competition, Hmble have gone on a 3-3 run which includes three consecutive losses leading to this fixture. Mad Wizards, meanwhile, have managed only two wins, against Cyberground Gaming and GoSkilla.

It’s worth noting that all of Hmble’s recent defeats came against the top three teams in Mkers, Notorious Legion and MACKO Esports, whereas Mad Wizards have only managed to defeat the shaky GoSkilla and Cyberground Gaming. Expect another straightforward win for Hmble.

?MACKO Esports enter this match with an impressive 8-1-2 record where both losses came against the tournament frontrunners, Mkers. Cyberground Gaming, meanwhile, find themselves at the opposite end of the spectrum with a 2-2-7 record and 57-65 round differential.

Even though there have been plenty of upsets so far this competition, we don’t believe Cyberground stand a chance against the vastly superior MACKO. The favourites beat Cyberground 7-4 in October, and we don’t expect a different outcome this time out.