Last month, 00 Nation parted ways with their entire Brazilian CS:GO lineup in favour of a European roster led by former Copenhagen Flames in-game leader Thomas “birdfromsky” Due Frederiksen. The new squad quickly proved its worth and won Pinnacle Cup V at the end of August, jumping 53 spots on the CS:GO world rankings to no.34.

Team Singularity have not made any changes since February 2023, although the team did lose in-game leader Tomasz “freo” Wolski, who left a month ago. Singularity have since played with a couple of stand-ins, winning European Pro League Season 10: Division 2 and placing second at HATOR Series #1, but they’ve yet to find a permanent replacement.

Team Singularity are in a tough spot, missing an in-game leader, but it’s not like this team would have a realistic chance against 00 Nation, even with freo. 00 Nation’s new European lineup has played just one official tournament but looked very good, so it’s hard to doubt their chances to crush Team Singularity on Friday.

9z Team were in excellent form in July, winning KaBuM! Legends and CCT South America Series #8. But since the start of August, Maximiliano “max” Gonzalez and co. have failed to find as much success.

An early exit from TG Masters Fall 2023 followed by a 9th-16th finish at CCT North Europe Series #7 puts a huge question mark over 9z Team and their ability to deliver in the ThunderPick World Championship. However, most CS:GO bookmakers are projecting the South American side will do well in this matchup.

MASONIC have won just one tournament in 2023 – MistGames Heroes of Lofoten in April – and they haven’t looked good over the last two months. In the first Thunderpick World Championship 2023 qualifiers, they crashed out in 25th-40th place and have since exited CCT Central Europe Series #7 in 23rd-24th and HATOR Series #1 in 13th-16th.

Besides the Danish squad’s poor results, MASONIC are also struggling with roster stability, having lost five players since May. They signed a new squad in July, but even that project didn’t last long, with Andreas “Hansi” Hansen leaving the team to join Alpha Gaming five weeks after his arrival.

9z Team haven’t looked amazing lately, but they’re in a good spot to win this series. 9z Team to sweep is a bit of a bold pick, but at $2.60 with top esports betting sites, it’s a solid value bet.

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MASONIC and Prospects both enter their first series of the tournament with an opportunity to kick off in winning ways. MASONIC will begin the Elisa Invitational Fall Contenders event as the 61st ranked team in the world, whilst Prospects will begin as the 103rd ranked team.

MASONIC have added three fresh new faces to their CS:GO roster, Anton “Anlelele” Huynh, Sebastian “Tauson” Lindelof and Christian “Buzz” Anderson, who will play in their first upper-tier event for MASONIC in this series against Prospects. After winning their first four series in the FiReLEAGUE 2022: Europe Open Qualifier, the boys from MASONIC will be playing with an elevated level of confidence when they begin their Fall Contenders Elisa Invitational campaign.

Prospects will also have a relatively new roster when they face off against MASONIC with four of their five players only having been with the organisation for just under a month. Over the mid-season break Prospects participated in the WePlay Academy League Season 5 event and finished in 11th-12th place after they didn’t manage to qualify for playoffs.

With a young team and such a relatively new roster, the boys make take some time to gain some momentum and move up the rankings.

MASONIC will be heavy favourites in this series over Prospects and given the ranking difference it is easy to see why. Some esports betting sites are giving us $2.30 for MASONIC to take this series out 2-0 with a -1.5 map handicap, and we see that as the best play for this series.

The second and final match of day three will bring us a best-of-three series between the world no.66 Eclot and the unranked SKADE X who will make their competitive CS:GO debut.

Eclot finished off the first half of the 2022 season losing two of their last three series in the ESEA Advanced Europe Season 41 and the ESL Challenger League Europe Season 41 Relegation. Since their return from the mid-season break, Eclot have won their first series in the ESEA Advanced Europe Season 42, whilst also winning their first three series’ in the SDTV International Series #2.

Eclot looks like they have come back from the break invigorated and primed to start the second half of this year and will be looking to extend their win-streak here against SKADE X.

SKADE X will be making their debut in the Elisa Invitational Fall Contenders, with well-known CS:GO analyst Halvor “vENdetta” Gulsetol taking control of the roster as the coach.

SKADE X will have five brand new players on their roster, with all five of them looking to impress the coach and the rest of the CS:GO world with an encouraging debut at the event.

Given that this will be SKADE X’s very first competitive CS:GO series and Eclot are in red-hot form right now, it is hard to see the outsiders getting the win here. We would suggest taking the favourites at the map handicap of -1.5, as they should be getting another solid 2-0 win over the debutants.

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777 Esports made it past KOVA (2-0) last week with 16-11 on Nuke and 16-4 on Overpass, which was a very unexpected result, knowing that 777 lost against KOVA (0-2 and 8-16) just a week prior. However, even though it’s nice to see a team claim a revenge win, that performance doesn’t suggest that 777 Esports are now any better or more capable than they were throughout March.

It’s hard to be overly excited about 777, but you can say the same for MASONIC, who are nothing more than a second-tier team. Still, they’re in excellent form and enter this bout with an 8-2 record across their last ten outings and an even more impressive 26-6 record since the start of March.

Admittedly, MASONIC have not beaten a single good team over that stretch, but if you can hold an 81% win percentage over +30 outings, you have to be doing something right. Talent-wise, these two teams are evenly matched, so we have to side with MASONIC, who have shown better form.

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Into the Breach are not the most consistent team, but they showed some flashes of greatness last week when they won against KOVA (2-1), 00Nation (2-0), and took a map from AVANGAR (1-2). It’s very evident that ITB have a lot of work ahead of them before they’ll form a strong synergy and start producing good results, but they have Owen “smooya” Butterfield, and that’s (sometimes) enough to win at this level of play.

Young Ninjas are 3-3 across their last six outings with wins against 00 Prospects (2-0), 00 Nation (2-1), and x-Gamer (16-13) and defeats against Copenhagen Flames (0-2), MAD Lions (1-2), and Endpoint (1-2). That’s hardly an impressive record, but Young Ninjas deserve a thumbs up for stealing a map from MAD Lions and Endpoint.

Into the Breach are still a bit shaky and Young Ninjas are not as bad as they seem, but at the offered CS:GO betting odds, we have to side with the Brits. Not only do they look better, but Into the Breach also have an ace up their sleeve in smooya, who can go on a rampage and solo carry this game.

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