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Winstrike Team and Hard Legion Esports will clash for the second time in history this Saturday in the seventh-place decider match at WePlay! Clutch Island.
Despite receiving a direct invite to the third stage of the tournament, Winstrike’s performances have left a lot to be desired. They started with a 0-2 loss to Nemiga Gaming and followed up with a 1-2 defeat to ESPADA, thus finishing bottom of Group A and failing to progress to the playoffs.
The latter of those results was especially disappointing, as Winstrike squandered two golden opportunities to close out the match. Having sealed a comfortable 16-10 win on Dust II, they threw away a 14-7 lead on Mirage and then butchered a 9-6 advantage on Overpass. Both of those maps were notable for Winstrike’s awful performances on T-side.
Viktor “Lack1” Boldyrev ended the series against ESPADA with an impressive 1.40 rating, which was easily the top mark of all players on both sides. His teammates, however, were well below their best, as none of them neither to put up higher than a 1.09 rating.
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Like Winstrike, Hard Legion Esports have underperformed after receiving a direct invite to stage three of WePlay! Clutch Island. In the group stage, Sviatoslav “svyat” Dovbakh and his crew lost to Virtus.pro (1-2) and were trounced by Natus Vincere (0-2). They won only seven rounds against the IEM Katowice champions, finishing 2-16 on Train and 5-16 on Overpass.
Igor “Forester” Bezotecheskiy was the best-performing player on the team with a 0.73 rating against NaVi, while Dmytro “rAge” Bolotov managed only 0.50 for the series and an astounding 0.17 on Train – one of the lowest ratings ever seen in a professional play.
Hard Legion looked somewhat decent against Virtus.pro, although it was Forester was doing most of the work in that clash as well. He ended the series with the highest rating on the server (1.28), while his teammates Vladislav “Krad” Kravchenko (0.91), Semyon “kinqie” Lisitsyn (0.89), rAge (0.86) and svyat (0.77) all struggled.
As above, Hard Legion mostly rely on Forester to do all the work. Although they showed some progress in May, their 50% win rate across the last 10 games is not too promising, especially considering they only managed to defeat HellRaisers, Wisla Krakow, Quantum Bellator Five and AGF, twice.
Winstrike, meanwhile, have an 80% win rate across the last 10 games. Most of those wins came in the ESEA Season 34: Advanced Division – Europe: Regular Season, where they faced semi-amateur teams such as Budapest Five, Kaban Gaming, Nevermind, Orgles5 and Wygers. They also defeated hREDS, sAw and AGF, but even that is not something to write home about.
The last time these teams met was in May at ESL One: Road to Rio – CIS, where Winstrike won 2-0. But while it makes sense to have them priced as favourites, we would not be so quick to side with them on the outright market.
Hard Legion might have slipped against NaVi, but that’s to be expected when facing one of the strongest teams in CS:GO esports. They have a lot of issues to work on but should at least win on Overpass, where they hold a 56% win rate over 25 games compared to Winstrike’s 0% in four games.
Over 2.5 maps is paying more than $2.00 at most online bookmakers, so we don’t have to think twice about this one.
The third stage of the US $50,000 WePlay! Clutch Island tournament will kick off this Tuesday when Nemiga Gaming and Winstrike Team clash in the opening match of Group A.
Anton “boX” Burko and his crew started their journey into WePlay! Clutch Island in Group A, where they seeded alongside ESPADA, HellRaisers and Moscow Five Academy. After reverse sweeping M5 Academy (2-1) in the opening match, Nemiga stumbled against ESPADA (0-2) but bounced back with a commanding 2-0 win over HellRaisers in the decider match.
Having finished the group stage in second place, Nemiga entered phase two, which featured a double-elimination best-of-three (Bo3) format. There, they faced Group B winners forZe in a thrilling bout which saw Nemiga seal the series with a 16-7 win on Nuke in the third map.
Nemiga’s solid form at Clutch Island reflects their improved performances since signing Anton “speed4k” Titov from Hard Legion Esports in January. The Russian pro has maintained a 1.09 average rating and helped his new team climb 22 spots in the CS:GO global rankings. At the last update, Nemiga were ranked 30th in the world and seventh in their region.
Some of the team’s most notable achievements since January include second place in the WINNERS League – Season 3: Europe Invite Division, fourth at OGA Counter PIT Season 5 and a fifth at ESL One: Road to Rio – CIS.
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Winstrike Team have also been on the rise since the CS:GO esports scene transitioned to online play. Although they have not made any roster changes since the turn of the year besides the acquisition of coach Dmitrii “hooch” Bogdanov in February, Abay “Hobbit” Khasenov and co. managed to break into top 30 teams in the world after starting 2020 at 57th in the rankings.
Their success in recent months, which includes a second-place finish at ESL One: Road to Rio – CIS in May, has awarded Winstrike with 1,500 Regional Major Rankings (RMR) points, which earned them a direct invite into the third phase of WePlay! Clutch Island.
At the end of May, Winstrike attended BLAST Premier CIS Cup but failed to show anything noteworthy. They joined ESPADA, Nemiga and Syman Gaming as one of the first teams to crash out of the competition after Hobbit and his crew lost to ESPADA (1-2) and Natus Vincere Junior (1-2).
However, Winstrike regained some momentum in the ESEA Season 34: Advanced Division – Europe: Regular Season, where they have won seven out of their last eight games.
Additionally, Winstrike are on a five-game winning streak after they took down hREDS (16-10), Budapest Five (19-15), Kaban Gaming (16-8), Nevermind (16-3) and sAw (16-14). Most of those teams, however, were amateur or lower-tier squads, so we should not put too much weight on those results.
These teams last met at the start of May at ESL One: Road to Rio and LOOT.BET/CS Season 6. The fixtures were played only one day apart and Winstrike won both of them, 2-1 and 2-0 respectively.
Neither side have made any roster changes since their recent bouts, so the individual quality will remain mostly the same here. Winstrike enter this bout as massive favourites, which seems fair, but the odds at some esports bookmakers seem a bit lopsided.
Although Nemiga did not look as sharp as expected throughout the first phase of WePlay! Clutch Island, they still picked up wins against forZe and HellRaisers. Furthermore, they defeated Sprout (16-12), AGO (16-11) and CR4ZY (16-11) just over a week ago, so it’s hard to justify their high price.
It’s also worth noting that the ESL One: Road to Rio clash between Winstrike and Nemiga was very close. Nemiga even held an 11-4 lead by the end of the first half on the final map but lost the game with a terrible 2-12 record on T-side.
Considering how close their recent bout was and the fact these two rosters know each other well, we can expect to see another close affair, so betting on the underdogs at $2.29 is an obvious pick for us. Over 2.5 maps can also be considered.