Park “Dark” Ryung-woo is priced as a $1.14 favourite to defeat Park “DRG” Soo-ho on Tuesday, which makes sense, considering Dark is 20-3 up in the head-to-head since the two Korean StarCraft II esports pros first met in 2014. Moreover, Dark is 6-1 up in the head-to-head in 2023.

However, while Dark holds an awe-inspiring record against his compatriot, he lost against DRG (0-2) in September, proving he isn’t invincible. But considering it was his first defeat against DRG since 2020, it could have easily been a fluke.

It also doesn’t help that DRG enters the 2023 Global StarCraft II League Season 3: Code S in shaky form. He is 3-4 across his last seven outings, whereas Dark is 6-4 across his last 10, although most of his wins came against weaker opponents.

Dark should win, but we’re getting a generous offer on DRG to steal a map. Despite DRG’s poor head-to-head record, Dark has not been playing well recently, and the last time Dark struggled with his form, he lost to DRG. So, taking the outsider with a map advantage at $2.20 in this situation is more than fair.

Byun “ByuN” Hyun-woo is 7-1 up in the head-to-head against Maxwell “Astrea” Angel this year and 27-8 all-time. However, ByuN is only 2-1 across his last three meetings with the American SCII pro and 5-4 in maps won.

Even though ByuN holds an imposing record, he has dropped at least one map against Astrea across his last three meetings, which suggests that this match has the potential to be closer than the offered SCII betting odds suggest. On the other hand, Astrea has a terrible record against Terran players (40.48% win rate over the last 42 games), whereas ByuN is 97-34 against Protoss players (74.05%).

Astrea looked decent in his last three meetings with ByuN but hasn’t shown much over the last month. At the offered odds with esports betting sites, we prefer ByuN to sweep.

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Kim “Cure” Doh-wook and Kim “Stats” Dae-yeob have met 32 times since 2015, each winning 15 series and 39 maps. However, while their all-time head-to-head record is 50-50, Cure holds a perfect 6-0 record (12-0 in maps) against the 31-year-old veteran this year.

The strong head-to-head record explains why Cure is heavily favoured for this match, but we must also consider that Cure is in excellent form. He holds a 62.66% win rate across the last 233 games and is 65-34 against Protoss players. Stats has a 48.1% win rate across the last 54 games and an abysmal 36.84% win rate in PvT games.

Stats is never to be underestimated, but at the offered StarCraft II betting odds, we have to side with Cure to sweep Stats for the seventh time this year.

Lee “Bunny” Jae-seon is priced as a $1.30 favourite to defeat Jang “NightMare” Wook, which sounds fair considering Bunny is 3-0 against NightMare across their last three meetings. However, the two Korean SCII pros have not met once since November 2022, so that number doesn’t mean much.

NightMare’s best tournament placement was ninth–12th at the 2023 Global StarCraft II League Season 2: Code S, which isn’t too inspiring. However, Bunny hasn’t looked much better recently. He made the semifinals in GSL Season 1 Code S but then added two 13th–16th-place finishes at GSL Season 2 and ESL Summer.

The only thing going in Bunny’s favour is his strong record against Protoss players (57.14%), but even that is only slightly better than NightMare’s PvT record (55.71%). Bunny should be favoured, but not by that much. Value is with NightMare.

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Multi-Esports Organization WIN Partners With Southern California Marketing Agency

International esports organization WIN has unveiled a new partnership with Southern California marketing agency HypeLife Brands. This partnership will allow corporate brands to forge valuable relationships within professional esports and should help bridge the gap between brands and professional esports organizations.

HypeLife Brands has expertise in crafting effective funnels between new brands and millennial consumers. Meanwhile, WIN provides three different esports services through its digital platform. They include esports media platform Win.gg, with news, schedules, and scores.

The Winner’s League is WIN’s competitive esports arm, a full-blown competition service powered by FACEIT. Finally, Winners.net, the sports betting side of the organization, is an online sportsbook covering esports betting markets in the United States and abroad.

Asia

Fnatic’s Selfmade Weighs In On Suning vs TOP Esports LoL Worlds 2020 Semi-Final

This Sunday, Suning and TOP Esports will be facing off in an Asia-dominated League of Legends Worlds 2020 semi-final match, with the thrilling series expected to draw a massive streaming audience. This has prompted many in the industry to weigh in with their thoughts on the matchup.

Selfmade, jungler for European pro esports team Fnatic, recently restarted streaming on YouTube and, in his latest video, he discussed Worlds 2020 with Ranger, specifically touching upon the Suning vs TOP match.

According to the Polish player, Suning will easily dominate TOP as they are the strongest team in the competition according to Selfmade, who played them both in scrims and on-stage.

Many Asian betting sites seem to agree with this estimation, with Suning currently the bookie’s favorite to move on to the finals.

Africa

Africa E-sports Championship 2020 Announces Registration Deadline Extension

The Africa Esports Championship’s (AEC) official Twitter account announced an extension to their registration deadline which applies both to player signups and project submissions. Originally, registrations were open until October 21, but players and game developers now have until Friday 30th October to sign up or submit their projects.

The AEC brings together the best talent in the region in FIFA 21, League of Legends, Tekken 7, and PlayerUnknowns’ Battlegrounds (PUBG) Mobile . In addition, independent African game developers can submit their own projects and compete for cash prizes.
This is the second edition of the Africa Esports Championship. The tournament and game showcase serve as a platform for the development of esports in the region.

Europe

Askott Games Bringing Virtual Esports To European Bookmakers

Askott Entertainment has negotiated a deal that will place their unique RNG games in over 120 European operators. The arrangement allows Askott to market B2B and B2C gambling solutions in new markets.

The deal comes in the wake of Askott’s merger with FansUnite in June. After the merger, Askott have been aggressively pursuing new markets for its growing product portfolio which includes FansUnite’s exclusive Chameleon Gaming Platform, a turn-key B2B gaming product.

The company is also focused on developing new game types and formats that draw in millennial audiences. Its most interesting product to date is a selection of esports RNG games. Virtual esports is a relatively new and untapped market with considerable growth potential.

South America

Rainbow Six LATAM Regional Majors Schedule Revealed

Rainbow Six Esports LATAM, the official Latin American RB6 esports organization, has confirmed the schedule for this year’s Regional Majors. The Rainbow Six LATAM Major will take place between October 30 – November 1.

It will be the first of the three Rainbow Six Regional Majors that will be played across November. The European Major will take place between November 6-8, while the North American Major is slated for November 13-15.

The LATAM Major is the playoff phase of the Rainbow Six LATAM league which brings together Mexican, Brazilian, and South American teams. After a group stage, the two best teams move on to the semifinals. They will represent the region in the international Six Invitational.

Oceania

DreamHack SC2 Masters 2020 Winter Oceania Wraps Up Second Matchday

The DreamHack StarCraft 2 Masters 2020 Winter edition has come to Oceania. This Major-tier tournament started on Wednesday October 21st and will conclude on Sunday October 25th. After the second matchday, two playoff matches are already set.

EnDerr dominated Group A, followed by TeebuL, while Seither and RazerBlade topped Group B. Today, EnDerr faceRazerBlader in the semis, with Seither playing TeebuL on the other side of the draw. The victors will move onto the Winners’ Final, and then to the Grand Finals.

Meanwhile, remaining teams will compete for a spot in the Loser’s bracket tomorrow. The tournament has a modest $12,000 prize pool, with $3,500 earmarked for the eventual champions.

Intel Extreme Masters XV New York Online CIS

Unless K23 find a way to improve for their bout against Cyber Legacy, they just might end the tournament with a 0-5 record. That is not to say Cyber Legacy are a strong team, but they showed glimpses of quality against Natus Vincere and forZe.

Both teams are in shaky form, making a three-map series a highly likely outcome. If we had to choose a team, however, Cyber Legacy are the better pick given the odds.

Winstrike Team’s only win this tournament came against Ethereal, and even there they dropped the first map (2-16). Winstrike also lost to HellRaisers (1-2) and Gambit Esports (0-2), so it’s difficult to imagine they can compete with Team Spirit.

Out of three games played, Team Spirit dropped a map to both Nemiga and Gambit but convincingly closed out all of their fixtures. Despite their slip-ups, Spirit are by far the strongest team in Group B and could go on to win the title. There is no reason to doubt their chances to sweep the struggling Winstrike.

Besides their win over Winstrike (2-1), HellRaisers’ performance at IEM New York has been nothing short of humiliating. They managed to win only 21 rounds across four maps in their losses to Nemiga Gaming and Team Spirit, which makes it hard to trust them with our money – even though they’re facing the worst-performing team at the tournament.

We don’t rank Ethereal highly, but there is no reason to have them priced at such generous odds. Ethereal took one map off Winstrike and won 24 rounds against Nemiga, which shows they have enough firepower to win at least one map against HellRaisers.

These teams last met in June during LOOT.BET/CS Season 7, where Gambit (then Gambit Youngsters) squeezed past Nemiga with 2-1. A lot of time has passed since then, so it would be wise not to put too much stock in that result.

While both teams have shown solid form of late, Gambit are much stronger in terms of individual quality. It’s difficult to bet against a team with Sergey “Ax1Le” Rykhtorov and Dmitry “sh1ro” Sokolov on the roster, and they should be too much for Nemiga to deal with.

2020 Global StarCraft II League Season 3

Jun “TY” Tae Yang swept Park “DongRaeGu” Soo Ho (3-0) in the quarter-finals to book a best-of-seven meeting with Kim “Stats” Dae Yeob. The in-form Stats is favoured over TY, which is no shock despite TY’s masterclass of a performance against DongRaeGu.

Stats has already defeated TY twice this year – once in August during 2020 Global StarCraft II League Season 2 with 4-2, and two weeks ago during ITaX Super Series #26 with 5-1. We expect a closer bout here, but we are not prepared to side with the underdog at the offered odds.

Intel Extreme Masters XV New York Online – CIS

?ESPADA started their IEM New York campaign with a convincing 2-1 win against forZe but stumbled on Wednesday when they were swept by Virtus.pro. Cyber Legacy shocked many with their three-map series against Natus Vincere (1-2), which remains their only notable result to date.

Despite Cyber Legacy’s relative success against the no.3 team in the world, they need to show a bit more before we start believing they’re a serious threat for the title. We feel the same way with ESPADA, but we don’t have a problem with esports bookmakers pricing them as favourites over Cyber Legacy.

ESPADA hold better win rates on Dust II (100%-60%) and Mirage (62%-33%), which are besides Inferno (30%-60%) the two maps the teams play the most games on. This is enough for us to believe ESPADA can manage a clean sweep, but the odds are not high enough for us to go for the -1.5 handicap over the straight win.

?ForZe have looked very good of late with their 2-1 wins over HAVU, North and Gambit. While K23 deserve some praise for their showings as well, their results are not nearly as promising as those of their regional rivals. They picked up one map against Virtus.pro on Tuesday, although that was only because VP forfeited it.

After a streak of iffy showings, we have no reason to side with K23 to win – even though they bested forZe in August. While forZe are far from the best CIS team, they are in good form and should defeat the Kazakhstani squad without any real issues.

?Both Natus Vincere and Virtus.pro have won their opening two fixtures of the tournament. VP defeated K23 (2-1) and ESPADA (2-0), while NaVi took down Cyber Legacy (2-1) and K23 (2-0).

If we look solely at those results, these two CIS rivals appear equally matched. Despite their renown as one of the best teams in the world, NaVi showed some cracks against both Cyber Legacy and K23. Perhaps they are not as strong as the odds would seem to suggest.

We expect a three-map series, but since there is a chance VP can upset NaVi and win 2-0, we have to go for a +1.5 map bet on the outsiders.

?Nemiga looked quite impressive in their win over HellRaisers, who they kept to only 12 rounds across the series. Ethereal lost their opening match of the tournament against Winstrike Team (1-2) with disastrous performances on Overpass (4-16) and Dust II (7-16), which makes us question their stability and all-round ability.

Nemiga are 4-1 in their last five games. While we are not too excited about their 17-19 loss to Crazy Killerz, it seems like that was an anomaly rather than a true indication of Nemiga’s quality.

Considering their form, the odds offered on Nemiga to win 2-0 are quite high. There is a chance Ethereal might get on the board, but siding with Nemiga at the map line is a much safer bet.

2020 Global StarCraft II League Season 3

?Cho “Maru” Seong Ju has been playing very well of late and even managed to defeat one of the best Zerg players in Byun “Byun” Hyun-woo with a clean sweep. Cho “Trap” Sung Ho has not disappointed either, although he did lose to Maru (2-3) less than two weeks ago.

Trap is priced as the favourite, which is fair since Protoss are regarded as the strongest race in the current meta, but the odds offered on Maru still seem a bit high. He has beaten Trap before, and as the favourite has since dropped a map against Park “Armani” Jin Hyuk (2-1) and lost to Kang “Solar” Min Soo (1-3), we have no problem siding with the outsider.