?Lee “Rogue” Byeong Yeol and Kim “Cure” Doh Wook will clash on Thursday in the opening round of Group D at IEM Katowice 2021. This will mark their first meeting since January when Cure reverse-swept his compatriot to secure his 18th head-to-head victory in 43 meetings.

Rogue has since played 16 games and won just five, so it’s fair to say he is not in good form. Rogue is also 1-5 in his last six outings, but perhaps he deserves some slack for those results since he had to face the likes of Joo “Zest” Sung-wook, Cho “Trap” Sung Ho and Park “Zoun” Han-sol.

Cure has played 36 games since his last meeting with Rogue and won all but eight. He also enters this match on a seven-game winning streak that includes a 3-0 sweep of Zoun last Wednesday. With equal odds offered on both players, it’s not hard to pick a side.

?Won “PartinG” Lee Sak is priced as an underdog for this bout, which is fair since he is 0-5 against Kim “Stats” Dae Yeob. That seems unlikely to change considering Stats is 13-1 across his last 14 fixtures.

Even though a moneyline bet on Stats is not a bad option, you sometimes have to risk it for the biscuit and trust the favourite to cover the handicap. That’s not to say PartinG is a bad player, but he has faced mostly weaker opponents of late while Stats has made tougher payer and defeated a significant majority of them. In this form, Stats shouldn’t drop a map.

?INnoVation and Cure will clash on Wednesday for the first time since the former’s 3-1 win in October. That marked his 14th head-to-head victory of 2020 (14-6) and his 30th (30-10) since 2014.

INnoVation enters this match rightly priced as the favourite with StarCraft II betting sites, but we don’t expect to see a one-sided affair. INnoVation deserves some praise for his 4-3 record in his last seven outings – a run that includes a 4-1 win against Cho “Dream” Joong Hyuk on Monday – but we can’t look past Cure’s 12-1 record across the last week.

This should be a much closer bout than expected, and we would even go so far as to say Cure has a legitimate chance to cause an upset. A bet on Cure to win 2-1 might appeal to some, but we are taking the overs.