The MongolZ are among the lowest-rated teams attending ESL Pro League Season 19, priced at $101.00 on the outright betting markets. On the other hand, Team Falcons are priced at $21.00 to win the trophy, which should be a good indication of how these two teams measure up.

However, we have to consider that Team Falcons have played just one game since the start of March and are on a five-game losing streak. The MongolZ have played 19 official games this month alone and are on an 18-game winning streak — granted, all their victories came against regional Asian opponents.

Despite their lacklustre form, Team Falcons deserve respect for what they showed at IEM Katowice 2024 in February, and they’ve since upgraded their roster with Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen. Still, Falcons are rusty, so there’s a good chance this will be a much more competitive match than what the Counter-Strike esports betting odds suggest.

G2 Esports have close to establishing themselves as the world no.1 Counter-Strike team for nearly a year, but they consistently slip in the latter stages of big events. In March, they crashed out of the PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 in the semifinals, and they did the same at IEM Chengdu 2024 earlier this month.

TYLOO were once known as a tough team to play on the big stage; however, they are now struggling not only to make noise in high-profile tournaments, but also to keep their status as China’s best CS team. At IEM Chengdu 2024, TYLOO crashed out in last place, and although they have managed a 4-2 record since then, they’ve had the luxury of playing only regional opponents.

G2 Esports are one of few top-tier teams capable of humiliating themselves against inferior opponents on a bad day. However, the quality gap here is large enough to confidently predict a dominant victory from the current no.5 team in the world.

Esports betting tips

G2 Esports is one of a handful of teams that should expect to make the playoffs, and in doing so, the world number five should get their campaign off to a good start with a comprehensive win over 9z.

Team Liquid and Heroic will be one of the best matches of the opening round of the group stage, as Casper “cadiaN” Moller will take on his old side for the first time since making the move to Liquid. Expect a tight contest here.

Lynn Vision got the better of FURIA in the opening stage of PGL Major Copenhagen in a best-of-one series and it is very hard to tip against the Chinese team here, who will be playing in their home country.

There are 126 rankings between MOUZ and TYLOO going into this clash and that is why MOUZ is so short with Counter-Strike 2 betting sites. MOUZ should be kicking off their IEM Chengdu campaign with a good win.

Although FlyQuest puts their eight-game win streak on the line at Cloud9 in their opening match of IEM Chengdu, the level of competition has been much easier than the challenge that Cloud9 presents. FlyQuest will be up against it here and are predicted to struggle.

Virtus.pro will be looking for some redemption at IEM Chengdu after suffering a controversial exit from the Copenhagen Major. Wildcard will have their work cut out for them against the methodical game plan of VP.

Monte have been replaced by Steel Helmet on the eve of the tournament and will face Astralis in the opening round. Astralis should be winning this best-of-one series comfortably.

FaZe Clan may start this match against Nemiga as heavy favourites with esports betting sites, but the world number one is known for being slow starters. FaZe Clan should be winning but don’t be surprised if it is closer than expected.

Esports betting tips

TYLOO clarified the situation with a post on the social media network Weibo, where they explained that xeta and Freeman had opted to return home to South Korea and Hong Kong respectively and are currently in isolation due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

TYLOO’s roster recently spent some time in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, but they have since left the country and gone home. YuLun “Summer” Cai, HaoWen “somebody” Xu and YuanZhang “Attacker” Sheng have already flown back to the mainland China and will remain in isolation at a hotel in Qingdao, Shandong, for 14 days. It was also reported that TYLOO provided the trio with computers so they can continue practising for upcoming tournaments such as ESL One: Road to Rio, which is set to kick off on Wednesday, May 6.

With Freeman and xeta both benched, TYLOO have announced Kelun “SLOWLY” Sun and ZhengHao “DANK1NG” Lyu as their replacements. The Chinese duo just recently arrived at the team as part of a proposed academy project, but now they have a chance to prove their worth with the main roster.

DANK1NG spent two months with TYLOO in late 2019 before he abruptly left the team due to “personal issues”. The 20-year-old Chinese esports pro then joined EHOME, where he remained for over two months and impressed with a 1.28 HLTV rating across all competitions. He is widely regarded as one of the most promising CS:GO esports talents in China.

SLOWLY spent the last 27 months with EHOME, where he averaged a fairly impressive 1.12 rating at only 18 years of age. He was part of the team that picked up a seventh-eighth finish at EPICENTER 2019, where DANK1NG was unable to play.

While the roster changes are not permanent, TYLOO have yet to announce return dates for Freeman and xeta. It is likely the duo will remain sidelined for a while longer, or at least until the coronavirus pandemic slows enough to allow for safe travel.

OG VS TYLOO CS:GO BETTING & MATCH DETAILS

OG VS TYLOO ESL PRO LEAGUE SEASON 11 BETTING PREVIEW

OG and TYLOO will meet on the battlefield for the first time this Friday in the second fixture of Group C at ESL Pro League Season 11 Europe.

OG come into this event with designs on claiming their first-ever title. Although their road to the top won’t be a cakewalk, Aleksi “Alaksib” Virolainen and co. will fancy their chances against a TYLOO outfit billed as one of the weakest teams in the tournament.

OG saw a reasonable amount of success in the BLAST Premier: Spring 2020 Regular Season in February, where they took down Evil Geniuses twice but fell short in the group finals against the reigning IEM Katowice silver medallists, G2 Esports. A runner-up finish was enough to earn them a spot in the Spring 2020 Finals, which is exactly what this team needed following iffy displays at IEM Katowice Open qualifiers and ICE Challenge 2020.

OG, however, failed to carry that momentum into the European Minor Championship Closed Qualifier, where they suffered a shock 0-2 defeat against Team Heretics in round one. They bounced back with a 2-0 thrashing of KOVA Esports, but a 1-2 defeat to GODSENT in the second round of the lower bracket saw them finish in ninth-12th place.

TYLOO, despite hailing from a weaker region, had always carried the element of surprise, which made them a dangerous team for those who underestimated them. That, however, changed in December, when Hansel “BnTeT” Ferdinand left for Gen.G and took with him the only serious quality on the roster.

Since the turn of the year, TYLOO have attended the Intel Extreme Masters XIV World Championship Asian Qualifier, IEM Katowice main event and Asia Minor Championship Chinese Closed Qualifier, with varying degrees of success. TYLOO made it to the finals of IEM Katowice qualifiers but suffered a humiliating 0-3 loss to ViCi, although they still secured a ticket for Poland because ViCi were unable to secure their visas for the prestigious tournament.

In Poland, TYLOO failed to represent their region properly without BnTeT on the team. A 0-2 loss against mousesports in the opening match of Group B and a clean sweep in round one of the lower bracket against 100 Thieves saw TYLOO end their IEM Katowice endeavour in last place with a consolation prize of US $2,500.

Their venture into the Asia Minor Championship qualifiers failed to bare any more fruits. Although TYLOO made easy work of Wubbalubbadubdub and Lynn Vision in the first two rounds, they failed to overcome ViCi and later lost their ticket for the Asia Minor with a 0-2 loss to EHOME in the lower bracket finals.

OG VS TYLOO ESL PRO LEAGUE SEASON 11 BETTING PREDICTIONS

Since BnTeT left, TYLOO are not the same team that pocketed a top-four finish at CS:GO Asia Championships 2019 in November. While they saw some success against weaker Asian teams in recent tournaments and qualifiers, OG will prove to be an entirely different beast.

We could argue that this is an online tournament, which should, in theory, give the underdogs a fighting chance, but the quality gap here is way too big.

OG are the stronger team and esports bookmakers did a fine job setting the odds. TYLOO will be fighting an uphill battle and the favourites should come out with a perfect 2-0 win.

Recognised as the pinnacle of Counter-Strike esports, IEM Katowice is set to start on Monday, February 24, with the grand finals slated to be played on Sunday, March 1. The participating teams will compete for the largest slice of a US $500,000 prize pool, with the champions taking home a quarter of a million dollars.

The tournament is also part of the Intel Grand Slam, which is now in its third season. The first team to win four IGS-affiliated titles during a window of 10 consecutive events will pocket a cool $1 million. Astralis, Evil Geniuses, Fnatic, mousesports and Team Liquid all have one win apiece this season.

Here, we will look at the latest odds and best bets for the IEM Katowice 2020 CS:GO World Championship.

IEM Katowice 2020 outright odds

$3.00 – Astralis
$7.00 – FaZe Clan, mousesports
$8.00 – Team Vitality
$9.00 – Team Liquid
$11.00 – Natus Vincere
$13.00 – Evil Geniuses
$19.00 – Fnatic, G2 Esports
$21.00 – 100 Thieves, MAD Lions
$26.00 – Ninjas in Pyjamas
$34.00 – Cloud9
$51.00 – Renegades
$67.00 – Virtus.pro
$151.00 – TYLOO

Market courtesy of GG Bet

IEM Katowice 2020 underdogs

Of the 16 teams taking part, eight cannot be compared to the favourites because they lack either quality or form. Belonging to that category are TYLOO, Cloud9, Renegades, Virtus.pro, Ninjas in Pyjamas, MAD Lions, G2 Esports and 100 Thieves.

TYLOO are the weakest team in the field, having earned their spot at Katowice only because ViCi Gaming failed to secure their visas. What’s more, TYLOO will also travel to Poland without their head coach, LiKan “KingZ” Luo, who is in quarantine because of the coronavirus outbreak.

None of the other seven underdogs have impressed with their recent showings. Cloud9, Renegades, 100 Thieves and MAD Lions all field relatively new rosters that have failed to produce any notable success in recent months. G2 Esports are still underperforming, while Ninjas in Pyjamas just recently signed a new coach and lost Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg to Dignitas.

IEM Katowice 2020 dark horses

Sitting in the middle of the rankings are Fnatic, Team Liquid, Natus Vincere and Evil Geniuses. All four teams are significantly stronger than the eight underdogs, yet all have issues that prevent them from entering the tournament as favourites.

Fnatic had their moment of glory back in October when they won DreamHack Masters Malm? 2019, yet it soon became clear that title run was a flash in the pan. Also, this will be their first major tournament of the year, which suggests they will be a bit rusty travelling to Katowice.

Evil Geniuses and Team Liquid both possess immense individual quality, yet they fail to inspire much optimism following their shaky displays at the BLAST tournament earlier this month.

While far from tournament favourites, Natus Vincere have improved significantly since they replaced Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovács. Although a lot will have to go right for Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev and company to hoist the trophy in Poland, they offer some value at long odds.

IEM Katowice 2020 favourites

Team Vitality, FaZe Clan, mousesports and Astralis are the top four contenders according to the outright odds at esports bookmakers, but FaZe look out of their depth in such esteemed company. Nikola “NiKo” Kova?’s squad had a solid run at the BLAST Premier: Spring 2020 regular season, where they defeated Ninjas in Pyjamas and Team Liquid, but it was clear that they overperformed.

FaZe might win a couple of matches in Poland, but going the distance will be out of their reach. Team Vitality are in complete contrast to their North American counterparts, as they severely underperformed at the BLAST tournament but should feature prominently in Katowice.

Mousesports are a solid team that can go toe-to-toe with anyone, but no team can compare to Astralis. When they are playing to their full strength, the Danes are a class above everyone. They might let things slip on occasion at some lesser tournaments, but that won’t be the case at IEM Katowice.

If there are no massive upsets, Astralis should secure their second title of the Intel Gram Slam season without any major issues.

IEM Katowice 2020 predictions

The American-Korean organisation announced their entry into the CS:GO scene last week with the acquisition of Cloud9’s core, consisting of Timothy “autimatic” Ta, Damian “daps” Steele, Kenneth “koosta” Suen and head coach Chris “Elmapuddy” Tebbit.

A few days later, Gen.G acquired Sam “s0m” Oh from Team Envy as the fourth member of the team, leaving only one spot to fill on the starting roster.

While there are no official announcements yet, rumour has it Gen.G have already made an offer to BnTeT and are close to finalising a deal.

BnTeT started his professional career at Team nxl in 2013. He played for a number of Indonesian teams, including Jakarta Juggernauts and Fortius Gaming, before TYLOO signed him as a replacement for YuanZhang “Attacker” Sheng in March 2017.

BnTeT has dominated the Asian CS:GO scene with TYLOO, regularly claiming podium spots. He has qualified for three CS:GO Majors and most recently helped TYLOO reach the semi-finals of the CS:GO Asia Championships in November.

Despite the long history he has with the Chinese team, BnTeT could be poised to venture out of Asia for the first time in his career when his contract expires at the end of this year. It is understood Gen.G would employ him as a rifler, as daps is locked in for the IGL role.

As it stands now, Gen.G have former Complexity member Hunter “SicK” Mims acting as a stand-in player. SicK played for Gen.G in their first professional CS:GO match at IEM Katowice 2020 North American Open Qualifiers, where the newly established team fell flat in the opening stage against Just For Fun.

BnTeT will continue playing under the TYLOO banner until further notice. The Chinese juggernauts are set to enter the playoffs of the WESG Chinese qualifiers this Thursday, where they will meet with Rising-Stars in the semi-finals.

Grayhound entered the Asia Minor as the favourites to go all the way and finish on top, and they did not need long to prove their worth. The Australian team topped Group A with a 16-7 win over Energy Esports in game one and followed it up with another strong performance against AVANT.

SEE ALSO: HOW TO BET ON CS:GO ESPORTS

The series against AVANT started on Overpass, where Grayhound took a 6-1 lead before their opponents produced some resistance to whittle the margin down to one round by half-time. The second half saw the teams go back-and-forth until Grayhound found their rhythm and took seven out of the last eight rounds to win the first map 16-12.

Unlike the opening game, Nuke was anything but close. The Aussies produced what can only be described as a perfect map, winning 16-0 to seal top spot in Group A and make a big statement in the process.

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While TYLOO were not as dominant as Grayhound, they did enough to get the job done in Group B. A 16-8 win over FFAmix on Mirage put them through to the winners’ match, where they faced ALPHA Red in a Bo3 battle.

TYLOO endured a slow start to that series. They underperformed in the first map (Overpass), giving A-Red a 9-6 advantage at half-time that stretched out to a 16-8 win for the Thai side.

On Mirage, TYLOO got out to a fast start and went 3-0 up before ALPHA responded and pulled the deficit back to only one point at half-time. This time the Chinese outfit woke up in the second half, claiming seven out of eight rounds to level the series with a 16-8 win.

The third map was Train, which played out in a similar fashion to the second map. TYLOO once again exited the first half with a slight lead (9-6), only to outperform their opponents in the second half (7-3) and secure the series with a 16-9 win.

Grayhound and TYLOO now await their semi-final opponents, who they will meet on July 26. TYLOO will face off against the second-placed team from Group A, while Grayhound will test their strength against second-placed team from Group B.

The Chinese esports organisation, currently ranked 36th in the world, made the signings in time for the Asia Minor China Closed Qualifiers, which started on Thursday.

Freeman – formerly a player for ViCi Gaming, Flash Gaming, VG.FlashGaming and 3New 2 Old – enjoyed a fair share of success with VG.FlashGaming, although he has failed to put up an impressive result since first place at WESG 2018 Hong Kong last November. Nevertheless, TYLOO are hoping he and 19-year-old AWP-er Danking will push the team to another level.

The two changes come after a disappointing result at DreamHack Masters Dallas, where TYLOO finished dead last after losing to NiP and Windigo. But the poor showing at DreamHack was not the sole reason for the roster change.

TYLOO have been steadily sliding in the CS:GO world rankings, dropping from 20 in February to 36 in June, so the changes were a long time coming.

With the arrival of two new players, the team also needs to get rid of two. TYLOO now have seven players under contract and are yet to announce any departures, which begs the question of which players will end up leaving the team.

Some sources are speculating that Kevin “xccurate” Susanto and Hansel “BnTeT” Ferdinand will be the ones to go, which would make TYLOO a team with only Chinese players.

The ESL Pro League Season 9: Finals, which are set to take place in the second half of June, will feature 16 of the world’s best CS:GO teams.

SEE ALSO: COUNTER-STRIKE ESPORTS BETTING

As it stands now, there are nine announced teams confirmed for the event: mousesports, FaZe Clan, G2 Esports, Astralis, NRG, Team Liquid, Luminosity Gaming, DETONA Gaming and TYLOO. This leaves seven more spots. Four are reserved for European teams, two for the Americas and one for an Oceanic team.

TYLOO were the Asian favourites from the get-go. They proved that with a dominant performance in the group stage, where they faced off against MVP PK, 5POWER and ViCi and ended with a 2-0-1 record.

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In the second round, TYLOO got put in a group with MVP PK, Lucid Dream and Alpha Red, where they fought some close and exciting maps, but ultimately ended up on top. The first match against Alpha Red ended in a clean 2-0 win for the Chinese side, who convincingly won both maps.

The second match saw TYLOO facing MVP PK, who managed to put up a tough fight; however, the favourites ended up winning it 2-1. They took the first map 16-14 (Dust II), lost the second one 16-19 (Mirage) and concluded with a dominant 16-10 win (Train).

The third and last match was against Lucid Dream, who made TYLOO work extremely hard on the CT side on Overpass, which in the end resulted in a close 16-14 win for the Chinese. The second map was Mirage, where we saw a similar story. After a strong performance on the CT side, TYLOO struggled a bit in the second half when they were on the terrorist side. They came close to losing it all, but still managed to push through to secure another 16-14 win. Final score: 2-0.

With that, TYLOO earned their spot among the ESL Pro League’s best 16 teams, who will face off in Montpellier, France from June 18 to June 23.

CS: GO, just like any other sport, does not lack roster moves, with players leaving their teams and joining other teams on an almost weekly basis. This trend holds true for coaches as well.

Only a few days ago we talked about coach Neil “NeiL_M” Murphy joining Grayhound Gaming.

Ivan “Johnta” Shevtsov, a former professional CS: GO player who played for Hellraisers, DTS and KerchNET, has coached teams such as FlipSid3 Tactics, Arcade eSports, Worst Players and the HellRaisers.

TYLOO made the announcement on Twitter yesterday:

Today we are announcing that Ivan “Johnta” Shevtsov @JohntaCSGO has decided to step down from our team’s coaching position. During his time with us, Johnta had brought structure and new approaches to our game, which had helped the newly formed roster grow at an incredible pace.

— TYLOO (@tyloogaming) April 28, 2019

The Ukrainian coach joined TYLOO on January 11 in conjunction with roster changes that added YuanZhang “AttackeR” Sheng and YuLun “Summer” Cai to their roster.

While the team did not achieve any spectacular results, TYLOO was respectable under Johnta’s watch. The squad finished 9th-11th at New Challengers Stage of IEM Katowice and 12th-14th StarSeries i-League Season 7.

The real reason behind the departure of Ivan “Johnta” Shevtsov remains unknown at this point, however, it has been speculated that there have been key differences between Johnta and upper management’s vision for the franchise.

Nonetheless, the TYLOO organisation were very respectful to Ivan “Johnta” Shevtsov, thanking him for all he did in the past couple of months, which arguably helped the team grow in all aspects of the game.

SEE ALSO: LATEST ESPORTS BETTING TIPS

Ivan “Johnta” Shevtsov did what was asked of him when he joined TYLOO. He took the new roster and brought structure and new approaches to the game, which will understandably help the players grow as individuals and of course help TYLOO grow as a team.

With the departure of Ivan “Johnta” Shevtsov, there have been rumours’ of more changes to the roster on the way, most notably the rumours link WingHei “Freeman” Cheung to the team, since he announced he would be leaving ViCI.

Additionally, there have been talks of Gan-Erdene “dobu” Batbold joining TYLOO as well, which could mean we will be looking at a “new” TYLOO team yet again.

There are some things to be said about the constant roster changes which are arguably harmful for the team in the long run. Building a roster who will play like a solid unit and achieve good results takes time. Just like the saying goes “Rome was not built in a day” — the same can be applied here. Constantly switching players works against that.

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