www.grivaschess.com returns with another set of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive betting predictions and tips for BLAST Premier: Global Final 2020. Today we take a look at the opening two fixtures of the USD $1 million tournament featuring Astralis, Evil Geniuses, G2 Esports and FURIA playing in the upper bracket quarter finals.

Evil Geniuses return to the battlefield on Tuesday when they will clash with Astralis in the opening round of BLAST Premier: Global Final 2020. It will mark their first official match since November when Peter “stanislaw” Jarguz and his team lost against Chaos Esports Club in the semi-finals of IEM Beijing-Haidian 2020 North America.

Astralis, on the other hand, attended three tournaments in that stretch and won two of them, including the Intel Extreme Masters XV – Global Challenge and DreamHack Masters Winter 2020: Europe.

Astralis are the no.1 team in the world and objectively the stronger team here, but since they are entering this match fresh off a break, we expect a bit scrappier performance from them. We are giving EG little to no chance of defeating the rusty Danes, but they should steal one map.

G2 Esports and FURIA will lock horns in the second fixture of the day in what promises to be a fairly easy win for the French-Balkan roster. G2 Esports are 8-1-5 up in the head-to-head and boast a 2-1 record against FURIA from 2020.

These teams last met in December, when FURIA won the first map but suffered a reverse sweep with G2 edging out a win with 19-17 and 16-11. FURIA have since parted ways with Henrique “HEN1” Teles and replaced him with Paytyn “Junior” Johnson, but since he is unable to travel to EU, FURIA will have to use the services of their academy player Lucas “honda” Honda.

Even though G2 have not looked too sharp in December, they’re individually far stronger than FURIA and should win this match with ease.