?London Royal Ravens won against Seattle Surge (3-1) two weeks ago to finish the regular season in second place with a 4-1 record. On the other hand, Los Angeles Guerrillas ended the qualifiers with only two wins (2-3), so London Royal Ravens are rightly the favourites to win if we go by the teams’ results.

However, the last time these two teams clashed, Guerrillas smoked Royal Ravens 3-1. Still, that was Guerrillas’ only win besides their 3-1 victory against New York Subliners.

It’s tough to pick a side for this match. London Royal Ravens have looked better, but Guerrillas seem to be a much more tactical team with a better brain – something the London side lacks. This should be a close series, so we’re siding with Los Angeles Guerrillas with a map advantage.

?The final week of CDL Major 1 qualifiers was filled with upsets. Seven of the ten matches ended with the underdogs taking the spoils, so it’s only fair to expect the first Major of the season to see a couple of underdogs overperform. And that’s what Boston Breach need to do on Thursday if they wish to make it past the reigning champions, Atlanta FaZe.

Boston clashed with Atlanta on February 13, when FaZe won 3-1, with 250-102 on Gavutu-Hardpoint, 2-6 on Berlin-S&D, 3-2 on Gavutu-Control, and 250-188 on Boccage-Hardpoint. Boston Breach have since lost to New York Subliners (2-3) and OpTic Texas (1-3), but they were very competitive in all of their matches.

Still, it’s hard to make a case for the outsiders. They lost against FaZe on Gavutu, which begs the question of where can Boston Breach beat FaZe? Breach are solid on S&D, but not as good as FaZe. Still, Control maps can still be 50/50, so at least they have that going for them.

The coin toss will be vital for our prediction. FaZe should win 3-0, but if Boston wins the map pick and can get their hands on Berlin, we could see a 3-1. Still, without knowing which maps the teams will pick, a 3-0 seems like a more likely outcome.

?Seattle Surge enter the final week of the CDL Major 1 qualifiers with a perfect 3-0 record, including wins against New York Subliners (3-0), Toronto Ultra (3-2), and Minnesota R?KKR (3-2). However, across the two five-map series, Seattle have shown some weakness, namely on S&D and on Gavutu – a map notorious for upsets.

Florida Mutineers are 1-3 with one win against Paris Legion (3-1), and thee defeats against London Royal Ravens (0-3), Los Angeles Thieves (2-3), and Toronto Ultra (0-3). Besides their five-map series against the Thieves, Florida Mutineers have not shown anything worth talking about, so it’s fair to doubt their chances to cause an upset on Saturday.

This should be a straightforward win for the favourites, but it won’t be a clean sweep. Florida Mutineers, while a weaker team, have looked better on S&D compared to Surge, so they should be able to pick up one map.

New York Subliners replaced Travis “Neptune” McCloud with Matthew “Royalty” Faithfull in a bid to bounce back from an abysmal start to the season. But even though Royalty couldn’t lead his team to victory on his debut on Saturday, the Subliners showed some improvement.

With Royalty, the Subliners performed better on tactical maps yet weren’t as clean on respawns, suggesting that the newest addition needs a bit more time to acclimate himself to the new roster. So while the Subliners should improve, it might be too soon to expect them to defeat Boston Breach.

The Breach are 2-1, with wins against Los Angeles Guerrillas (3-2) and Paris Legion (3-1), and one defeat against Atlanta FaZe, which is decent but not great. Still, Boston Breach have looked much cleaner and should take down New York Subliners with at least two maps to spare.

?Minnesota R?KKR picked up a significant win (3-2) against Texas OpTic on Monday, but they are still a bit shaky, and there is not a single map they’ve looked good on. Their next opponents, London Royal Ravens, are 2-0 after the first week of play with wins against Florida Mutineers (3-0) and OpTic (3-2), which is impressive for a team of this calibre.

Much of the London Royal Ravens’ success is due to their strong performances on respawns, and if they polish their S&D, we would have no problem ranking them as one of the top-four teams in the league. R?KKR, on the other side, might be one of the weakest squads in the current meta.

From what we’ve seen so far, the Royal Ravens are a much more efficient and well-rounded team and are rightly the favourites. Admittedly, the R?KKR have the potential to be good, but until they show a bit more, the potential is all they have.

There is a world where London Royal Ravens finish with a clean sweep, but we’ll play it safe and predict them to win with at least two maps to spare.

?Paris Legion showed a phenomenal performance against Atlanta FaZe, who they forced to a five-map series (2-3) last week. But just a day after, Paris Legion got stomped by Florida Mutineers (1-3), which leaves a bit sceptical about the Legion, even though they’ve looked very competitive in respawns.

OpTic Texas were expected to be one of the most dominant teams of the CDL. Yet, they enter the second week of play with a 0-2 record, with defeats against London Royal Ravens (2-3) and Minnesota R?KKR (2-3), which is highly concerning.

This is a must-win match for OpTic, who can’t afford to lose against teams like Paris Legion if they’re serious about competing for the CDL title. And while they should win, OpTic have yet to show anything that would make us feel confident backing them at the offered CDL betting odds.

From what we’ve seen, there’s a good chance the Legion steal S&D and a Control map, so we’re siding with the outsiders to collect at least two maps on Saturday.

?The esports betting sites have set Atlanta FaZe’s implied probability of winning this bout at 96.2%, which may seem too high, but it’s a fair number. Despite their mediocre performance at CDL 2022 Kickoff, FaZe are one of the strongest teams in the league and strong candidates to win the organisation’s third CDL crown.

Meanwhile, Paris Legion are the complete opposite. The French organisation has not achieved anything since it first entered the CDL, and it doesn’t seem like that will change this season due to the lack of necessary roster changes that would make Legion competitive. It’s way too early to say, but there’s a good chance Legion end the 2022 CDL season with their second wooden spoon.

The latest CDL odds on FaZe are extremely low, but this is a fair price. This should be a very quick 3-0 for the reigning CDL champions.

?The second match of the day between London Royal Ravens and OpTic Texas has similar vibes to the FaZe vs Legion clash, but this one could be a bit closer. Nevertheless, the result will likely be much the same.

Like FaZe, OpTic Texas struggled to leave a mark last month and crashed out in the quarter-finals against Los Angeles Thieves. Even so, this is still a championship roster with Indervir “iLLeY” Dhaliwal, Seth “Scump” Abner, Brandon “Dashy” Otell, and Anthony “Shotzzy” Cuevas-Castro.

As mentioned in our previous CDL betting preview, London Royal Ravens are not very good, and we don’t expect them to achieve much this season. They should be a solid middle-of-the-table team, but their ceiling is not very high.

There is a world where the Royal Ravens stun the rusty OpTic and win one, but at $3.00, we have to take OpTic to close it out in three maps.

?London Royal Ravens will kick off the 2022 CDL season against Florida Mutineers, who enter the bout priced as $2.21 underdogs. Although the Royal Ravens look stronger on paper, we have to go off what we saw from the teams during the CDL Kickoff tournament in January, and based on the results there, the Mutineers are no pushovers.

We’re not very high on either of these two squads long-term. The CDL betting odds for this match should be much closer to even money, so at $2.50, you could consider backing Florida.

However, since we expect a very tight match that can easily reach five maps, we have to take the better odds on the overs.

?The league newcomers, Boston Breach, will clash with Los Angeles Guerrillas in what promises to be an exciting match. Boston entered the 2022 season as a team that did not look very good on paper, but they performed admirably during the CDL Kickoff tournament in January, whereas the Guerrillas were the complete opposite.

By bringing in Austin “SlasheR” Liddicoat and Cuyler “Huke” Garland, the expectations on Guerrillas were high. However, they fell against the Mutineers (1-3), putting a huge question-mark above the team ahead of the opening week of action.

It’s worth noting that there were reports about the Breach playing from the Northeast while Guerrillas are in Texas, which should work in favour of the latter. And besides the possibility that Boston might struggle with connection, there is nothing that would explain why the esports betting sites have them priced as $1.30 favourites. At $2.10, we like the Guerrillas with a 1.5-map handicap better.