One of the biggest events on the CS:GO calendar will take place next week. Intel Extreme Masters Season XVI will kick off on June 3, 2021 and run until June 13, 2021. It will pit 16 teams against one another with the winner earning $100,000 and a precious victory in Intel Grand Slam Season 3.
This event will be held online, but the hope is that we return to LAN formats with fans in the stands soon.
2021 IEM Season XVI Summer Betting Odds
Gambit Esports +300
Heroic +400
Virtus Pro +600
G2 Esports +700
Astralis +800
Ninjas in Pyjamas +1100
Complexity Gaming +1200
Team Vitality +1200
Team Spirit +1400
OG +1800
FunPlus Phoenix +1800
Extra Salt +2000
Evil Geniuses +2200
Fnatic +2200
Imperial Esports +2800
Wild Card Winner +2800
It’s been a good year for Gambit Esports. They earned $400,000 for winning the IEM Season XV World Championship three months ago, and they finished runner-up to Natus Vincere at DreamHack Spring in early May. They have hit their stride with a team that only came together in early October, making this team the overall favorite entering IEM Season XVI Summer.
Hobbit, Sh1ro, and Ax1Le have been three of the best five players in the world according to HLTV, and both Nafany and Interz are playing well too. Sh1ro might be set to surpass players like S1mple, Device, and ZywOo as he has a +285 kill differential over Gambit’s last 54 maps.
The second favorite at IEM Season XVI Summer is Heroic. They are coming off an impressive 3-2 victory over Gambit at ESL Pro League Season 13, earning them $200,000 for the win. Although Heroic was bounced before the finals of their last two events, those losses came against Gambit and Natus Vincere, and they were competitive losses.
Is Virtus Pro back? This team was one of the elite squads in the world during the mid-2010s, but they went almost four years without a major tournament win from early 2017 to late 2020. They finally snapped that streak with a huge victory over OG at Flashpoint Season 2, and they won January’s Summit over Fnatic. Virtus Pro finished runner-up to Gambit at the IEM Season XV World Championship too.
They completely revamped their roster in late 2019 and added YEKINDAR last year. YEKINDAR has proven to be the playmaker this team needed with the fourth highest rating in CS:GO over the last three months. Captain Jame has been playing well too with a sterling 1.25 kill to death ratio.
Many thought that G2 Esports would become one of the best teams in the world with the addition of Niko at the end of last year. G2 reportedly shelled out over $2 million to acquire one of the top five players in the world, but they have only been able to win two BLAST events since his addition.
We saw G2 make early exits at both the IEM Season XV World Championship and ESL Pro League Season 13. They lost to Gambit in the semifinals of the DreamHack Masters a few weeks ago, and that inability to make it to the finals of big events has some doubting G2 at this point.
Astralis is the greatest team in the history of CS:GO. However, the loss of superstar player Dev1ce will be hard for them to overcome in the near future. They still have four of their core players, so they will be competitive, but it’s tough to see them winning it all.
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