?Royal Never Give Up are enjoying a solid start to the 2022 season and look like one of the top-three Dota 2 teams in the region. They placed third in the first Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) Tour in January and claimed silver in the regional finals on Sunday, with two wins against Team Aster (2-1, 2-0).

Xtreme Gaming have not achieved as much as RNG this season, but they were not in a position to do so since Xtreme were competing in the lower division of DPC. Still, Xtreme won the second division league and made the finals of Intel World Open Beijing in January, with wins against Aster.Aries (2-1), Vici Gaming (2-0), and PSG.LGD (2-1).

On paper, Xtreme Gaming look good, but if we take away their upset win against PSG.LGD, they have not achieved anything noteworthy. Furthermore, Xtreme Gaming’s last official match was a month ago, and they lost their previous meeting with RNG (0-2) at the end of December.

Xtreme Gaming will be competitive, but at this price, it’s hard to pass on Royal Never Give Up.

?Vici Gaming were one of the top teams in the world last year, but after the departure of key players after The International 10, Vici started to slump. Admittedly, they looked solid at Huya Winter Invitational 2021 (4th) in December but have since managed only a fifth-sixth place finish at Intel World Open Beijing and a fifth-place finish in the first Tour of the 2022 DPC season.

EHOME have not achieved any remarkable results, but they ended the two competitions in fourth place. They’re also 1-0 up in the head-to-head with Vici, and have managed to pick up maps against PSG.LGD (1-2, 1-2) and Team Aster (1-2) in their last three outings.

EHOME look stronger and should win, but we wouldn’t bet on them at -188.68. They have a better record this season, but realistically, EHOME’s only four wins of 2022 came against Phoenix Gaming, Invictus Gaming, LBZS and Vici.

As bad as Vici have been, they’re still good enough to force a close series, so we’re on over 2.5 maps at even money.

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?Vici Gaming and Aster.Aries both suffered losses in their opening matches of the tournament. Vici lost against their arch-rivals PSG.LGD (1-2), whereas Aries proved to be no match for Elephant (0-2).

These teams last met in March during FMWH Dota2 Championship Season 3, where Aster.Aries stunned Vici and won 2-0. It was, however, a somewhat undeserved win, so we wouldn’t put too much weight on that result.

Aster.Aries enter this match as +543 underdogs, which seems fair since they’re an academy roster and a significantly weaker team than Vici; however, they seem disrespected in the first blood market. Aries like to play with a bit more aggression, especially when faced with tougher opposition, so we have to take a shot with the outsiders to get their name on the board first.

?Team Aster made a strong start to the tournament, winning 2-1 against Royal Never Give Up on Saturday and then adding a 2-0 sweep against Sparking Arrow Gaming a day later. Invictus Gaming, meanwhile, suffered a devastating reverse-sweep loss (1-2) against RNG on Sunday.

These two sides last met in May during the first season of i-League. Team Aster won the first match 2-0 but couldn’t emulate that success four days later when IG secured a 2-1 revenge win.

Aster are 4-2 up in the head-to-head stakes this year and 3-1 across their last four outings. We expect them to do well on Tuesday as well, but it won’t be a one-sided affair.

The post OGA Dota PIT S5 China betting picks – August 10, 2021 appeared first on Esport Bet.

Intel Extreme Masters Season XV Global Challenge

?These two sides will clash on Tuesday for the seventh time this year and the first time since Team Vitality reverse-swept BIG during the BLAST Premier Fall 2020 Finals. The series started with BIG taking the lead with 16-9 on Vertigo, only to get stomped into the dirt by the French squad on Inferno (1-16) and Dust2 (2-16).

With that win, Vitality are now 4-0 in the head-to-head fixtures since October. During that stretch, BIG claimed only two out of 10 maps played, so it makes sense that the latest CS:GO betting odds favour Dan “apEX” Madesclaire and his crew.

Regardless of BIG’s loss last time out, we would normally side with the Germans to win at least one map, but recent reports state Johannes “tabseN” Wodarz and his crew are fatigued after a streak of tough matches. For that reason, it’s better to side with Vitality to win without dropping a map.

?The return of Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander to the in-game leader role has made Astralis much stronger. They have recently beaten G2 Esports (twice), Team Liquid, FURIA and Natus Vincere, who are all arguably stronger than Complexity.

Complexity have seen a fair amount of success as well, but they’ve not been nearly as convincing as the Danes. Complexity have only three games on their record this month, with one 2-1 win against FaZe Clan and two 0-2 losses against Gambit Esports and FURIA.

The odds on Astralis winning this match 2-0 are rather short, but we don’t see how this match can end any other way.

?This will mark the second clash between these two teams since last Friday, when Natus Vincere bested FURIA with 16-8 on Inferno and 16-11 on Nuke during the BLAST Premier Fall 2020 Finals. FURIA have not played a single match since, whereas NaVi went on to lose against Astralis (0-2) in the next round of the competition.

Due to NaVi’s tendency to underperform in the early stages of tournaments, there is a world where FURIA claim an upset win. While we don’t believe they have the tools to stop Oleksandr Olehovych “s1mple” Kostyliev, the Brazilians can still force a three-map series.

OGA Dota PIT Season 4: Europe/CIS

?Just Error last week parted ways with Syed Sumail “SumaiL” Hassan and replaced him with Roman “Resolut1on” Fominok. With this roster change, Vladimir “No[o]ne” Minenko returns to the mid lane, which seems like a positive move, but the departure of SumaiL makes it hard to be overly confident about Just Error.

Natus Vincere’s results have been all over the place since their run to the ESL One Germany 2020 grand finals. Although they took series off mudgolems, Vikin.gg and Team Secret in the first week of December, they have since suffered back-to-back losses against Vikin.gg and OG.

Regardless of NaVi’s slump in form, they still look the better pick in this matchup. Just Error are significantly weaker without SumaiL, and since they lost against NaVi only last month, it’s hard to believe they can turn things around on Tuesday.

?Alliance and mudgolems will clash in the opening round of OGA Dota PIT Season 4: Europe/CIS, which will mark their second meeting of the year. Their only previous fixture happened at the end of November when Alliance won 2-1.

Alliance enter this match on a five-game winning streak that includes victories against Winstrike, Just Error, Spider PIgzs, Gambit Esports and Live to Win en route to the EPIC League Division 2 title. Mudgolems have been far less convincing, losing all of the five fixtures, and nine of 10 maps, leading to this clash.

Give those contrasting records, it is hard to see anything but a comprehensive win for the favourites here.

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Esports multi bet tips for Tuesday, December 15

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FLASHPOINT Season 2

?BIG enter this bout following a somewhat shaky reverse-sweep win against Team Envy. Virtus.pro, meanwhile, narrowly defeated MAD Lions in the quarter-finals with a 19-17 overtime win on Train.

Virtus.pro hold a 3-2 record in their last five, which some may rank on par with BIG’s 4-1 run considering the Germans have faced relatively weaker squads. However, that does not convince us that VP are equally as strong as the no.5 team in the world.

Even though VP stole one map off MAD Lions, FURIA, Spirit, OG, Gen.G and Cloud9, that hardly means anything since BIG are significantly stronger than all those sides. We expect BIG to take this one with ease, which makes the -1.5 handicap a very appealing option.

Nine to Five #7

X6tence enter this match with a solid 7-3 record in their last 10 outings and 3-2 in their last five. That includes wins against Wizards Esports Club (2-0), Giants Gaming (16-14) and North (2-0), as well as losses against Movistar Riders (1-2) and ESPADA (1-2).

KOVA have gone 2-3 in their last five. Their only wins in that run came against semi-pro teams Esimed Esports (16-14) and Team Blink (19-17), while they could not get the better of 9INE (1-2), Nemiga (0-2) and Illuminar Gaming (0-2).

Not only are X6tence objectively stronger, but they are also in much better shape than KOVA, who only seem to do well against weak teams. We don’t expect any surprises here.

EPIC League Division 1

Natus Vincere enter the final week of EPIC League Division 1 on the heels of three consecutive defeats against Virtus.pro (1-2), Team Nigma (1-2) and OG (0-2). It’s a similar story for mudgolems, who have lost all of their last four outings against OG (0-2), Alliance (1-2), Virtus.pro (0-2) and Vikin.gg (1-2).

Even though there is a world where mudgolems steal one map off NaVi, they have yet to show anything that would convince us they can upset the ESL One Germany 2020 finalists.

Vikin.gg sit atop of EPIC League standings with a 6-1 record and 12-6 map differential. Team Nigma, on the other side, enter this match with a 4-3 record and 9-8 map differential, which is not terrible but still far from what we expected to see from The International 2019 finalists.

Vikin.gg have yet to defeat Nigma this year (0-1-3). Even though this might be their best chance to change that, their tendency to drop maps makes it hard to consider the -1.5 handicap. Vikin.gg have lost at least one map in all but two of their games at EPIC League, including all of the last three, and we don’t expect that trend to end here.

OGA Dota PIT Season 4: China

These teams last met during the China Dota2 Pro Cup two weeks ago when Elephant claimed a reverse-sweep win to improve their head-to-head record to 2-0. The only previous meeting happened at the end of October when Elephant won 2-1.

IG are clearly not as strong as they were in 2019, but that does not mean they don’t stand a chance against Elephant. At +322, esports bookmakers are implying that IG have only a 23.7% chance of winning this game. That makes no sense when they have forced Elephant to three maps twice and defeated ViCi Gaming (2-1) en route to a fourth-place finish at the CDA-FDC Professional Championship last week.

With that in mind, the odds on Invictus to win a map are way too good to pass up.

Esports multi bet tips for Thursday, December 3

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