ELeague Group C (Week 3) Preview and Predictions

After the second week of ELeague has passed, we move onto week 3 where Group C will be playing. But the question is, who will walk up the winner of the group? My name is Maestro and that’s what I’m here to do.

ELeague Group C Preview

First of all, let’s start off by looking at the teams taking part in the Group C. We have:

• Astralis
• Counter Logic Gaming
• SK Gaming
• NRG eSports

In my opinon, Astralis are the clear favourites to win this group. In recent times, their roster has played very strong against teams like Flipsid3 in the recent ESL games; and teams like Flipsid3 are the sort of tier that they will come up against in this group. Astralis are on a winning streak too; winning all 3 of their last games. Luckily for them, there are no giants in this group and I believe Astralis have the best roster talent wise too. For example, dev1ce completely shut down Flipsid3 with his AWP ability, and his constant change in style of play will send the other teams in panic as they won’t be able to contain the awper. If they don’t contain dev1ce, they will lose the match, he can make that much of an impact. Another man who can make or break their game is the new man kjaerbye. In a recent trade with cajunb, kjaerbye joined Astralis and has had some recent solid games, further improving the talent within Astralis. Astralis should really take this one.

However, I believe there is one team who could beat them, Counter Logic Gaming. They have the talent to give Astralis a run for their money, but their recent form has shown that they aren’t quite with it right now, losing 4 of their 5 most recent games, one of these losses coming from Team Solomid, a team I believe CLG should be beating. Yes, they did beat Solomid for their 1 win in the most recent 5, but I believe they should have made it 2 wins out of 5 with 2 wins over Solomid. Their talent can help, star player tarik who is #4 in the HLTV American Player ranking can make a big impact when entry fragging and I think he’ll really help out the team to make them come 2nd in the group; but I still don’t think that they will topple Astralis.

Next up in 3rd place I place NRG eSports. Ranking in #8 in Best American Team on Gosugamers, the Americans have won 2 of their last 5 games, putting them ahead of CLG in terms of form. However, I don’t think they will be able to outplay CLG or Astralis in games, but they should get a nice W over SK. Player ptr should help out in these winning efforts, as in his last game he got a 1.04 rating on HLTV, the same rating as JW and KennyS received in their last games too. That doesn’t really mean much, but ptr can hang with the big boys. I put NRG in 3rd here.

Finally, we have SK Gaming in 4th. Although they are ranked #35 in the world according to Gosugamers and NRG are ranked #36, I just don’t see SK doing anything in this tournament. SK Gaming have lost all 5 of their 5 previous games, and that includes losses against ENCE, Epsilon and Orbit, teams which aren’t on the higher level that play tournaments like ELeague. SK shouldn’t be losing to teams like that and for their recent poor form I don’t see them doing anything in this tournament. The only player who could potentially help them alone would be Magiskb0Y who has had some good ratings recently, but I still don’t see their talent doing anything in this tournament.

So there are my predictions and preview for Week 3 of ELeague Season One. Hopefully I’m right. I probably won’t be.