The ELeague Championship will take place Saturday, July 30, at Cobb Energy Center in Atlanta and there are four teams left in the race to see who will win $390,000. Each team has proven it deserves to be here and now we look at each team’s chances to win it all.
eSports Odds at BookMaker.eu
Fnatic -210
Natus Vincere +170
Fnatic may not be the best team in the world anymore, that is increasingly looking like SK Gaming, but the Swedes have looked like the top team remaining in this tournament. This team dominated CS:GO play in 2015 and is once again back on top after some hiccups early on this season and some issues in majors. Fnatic finished group play with the third best record of the 24 teams taking part and ended up drawn against the team with the second best record in the quarterfinals.
It’s a shame that Fnatic and EnVyUs had to meet up so early in a tournament like this, but the bracket is weird sometime and Fnatic showed why they are the favorites with a 2-0 victory over EnVyUs. Fnatic is playing at a very high level right now and a lot of team chemistry and will be very hard to knock off.
Natus Vincere, NaVi, earned one of the byes directly into the playoffs after winning its group during the regular season and didn’t have to go through the rigors of a Last Chance Bracket or Last Chance Tournament. The Eastern Europeans have won almost $1.3 million of prize money since forming as a squad in December 2009.
NaVi has two of the older players in CS:GO on its roster in Zeus and Edward. It’s weird calling people in their late 20s old, but that is a seasoned age in competitive gaming these days. Both Zeus and Edward have been on the pro circuit for a decade and both have played for their potential opponent in the finals, Virtus Pro. The squad had the easiest match of the quarterfinals to get here, drawing an outmatched Cloud9 team.
Virtus Pro -240
mousesports +190
Virtus is seen as one of the best eight teams in the world and frequently gets automatic bids into tournaments as such. However, Virtus had trouble in getting to this stage since it had the misfortune of being paired in the same group as EnVyUs. EnVyUs dispatched of Virtus in the group finals and sent them tumbling into the Last Chance Qualifier. Virtus fought its way through that and then surprisingly pulled off a victory against favored NiP in the quarterfinals.
This team has won plenty of tournaments, but it has been a while since Virtus has won a top tier tournament. Virtus last won a major in 2014, but did perform well at ESL One: Cologne this season, making it all the way to the semi-finals. If they win here, they will be an underdog to whoever they play in the finals, but will have guaranteed themselves a six-figure payday.
The Cinderella story of ELeague has been mousesports. No team has had to battle back from as much adversity as mousesports in this tournament and is now in the semi-finals after an epic run of play. This team finished the regular season with a 4-4 record and had to come through the Loser’s Bracket to continue on before facing Astralis in the quarterfinals. mousesports pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the tournament then, stunning Astralis 2-0 to make it to the semi-finals.
mousesports has been a great story, but it’s hard to imagine them going further than this. Astralis has frequently shown cracks late in knock-out tournaments and aside from that, the team has no signature win. Virtus Pro should make quick work of this side.
eSports Odds at BookMaker.eu:
Fnatic -210
Virtus Pro -240
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