ZEST vs NEEB SCII BETTING & MATCH DETAILS

?This Wednesday, Joo “Zest” Sung-wook and Alex “Neeb” Sunderhaft will lock horns in Group B of the DreamHack SC2 Masters Winter Season Finals.

The latest StarCraft II betting odds have Zest as a clear favourite, but we wouldn’t be so quick to write off Neeb. For while Zest has achieved far more this year, he is also the type of player who could have an “it’s an online tournament” kind of day.

Zest’s only previous meeting with Neeb in 2021 came back in January, when the Korean won 2-1 to take his career head-to-head record to 7-2. Neeb’s most recent win against Zest happened in 2018 during the IEM Season XII World Championship.

Neeb enters this match with only two wins from his last eight outings, which isn’t great, but we have to remember that Neeb won against Riccardo “Reynor” Romiti twice in October (2-0, 2-1) and holds an excellent 68.8% win rate in Protoss vs Protoss match-ups.

Zest is a much better player on paper, but he has had a few blunders in online tournaments this year, so there’s a chance he slips again. Neeb to win at $5.00 is worth a small play, but we’re taking the outsider with a map advantage.

Afreeca Freecs teammates Jun “TY” Tae Yang and Cho “Trap” Sung Ho will duke it out in the IntoTheAlphaX Pro Circuit 5 semi-finals on Wednesday, which will mark their third head-to-head bout of the year. TY came out ahead (3-2) in his most recent clash with Trap last month, yet he is still priced as an underdog for the rematch, and there is a good reason for that.

At $2.20, the StarCraft II esports bookmakers imply TY has a 45.5% chance of winning this best-of-five series, which is a bit too high in our book; a more realistic probability would sit around 27% at odds of $3.70. Although TY has shown good form of late, he is still fairly inefficient against Protoss (58.15%), whereas Trap’s best matchup is against Terran (62.12%).

We expected to see Trap priced closer to $1.35, making this a great value bet. However, we are chasing a higher payout with a bet on Trap to win with at least two maps to spare.

The second IntoTheAlphaX Pro Circuit 5 semi-final will see Lee “INnoVation” Shin Hyung clash with Joo “Zest” Sung-wook for the first time since February 6, when Zest won his 30th head-to-head bout (30-36) with 3-0.

INnoVation enters this match on the heels of a ninth-12th finish at IEM Katowice 2021, where he was eliminated by Won “PartinG” Lee Sak (1-3) in the first round of the playoffs. Although a solid placement, it can’t compare to Zest, who reached the grand finals but lost 2-4 against Riccardo “Reynor” Romiti.

Given Zest’s success at IEM Katowice, it is reasonable to see him favoured to win this match. We would go even so far as to say the odds are very generous. The real dreamers might want to consider a -1.5 handicap bet on Zest.