ESL One New York CSGO Tips - Day One

ESL One is about to get underway, so CSGO Betting’s experts bring you our ESL One New York CSGO tips. The tournament uses a Swiss system in the groups, where teams with the same number of wins/losses will meet. If a team wins three matches they will qualify for the knockout stage. If a team loses three matches they will be eliminated. The initial group matches will be a best-of-one format, which will add some randomness to proceedings. It is also the first event after the introduction of Valve’s new coaching rule. There are four matches on day one to examine and with $250,000 up for grabs, everyone will want to prove themselves. The veto will follow an ABBAAB format, leaving the remaining map to be played.

Virtus Pro (20/23, 1.86 138) vs fnatic (9/10, 1.90 Betway)

ESL One will kick off with Virtus Pro, who Paul “ReDeYe” Chaloner tipped up in his column for CSGO Betting, going up against Fnatic. Fnatic have never played Nuke with their new lineup but have played every other map in the ESL Pro League. Thus, we can expect an initial ban of Nuke from Fnatic. This will enable Virtus Pro to ban their three least favoured maps aside from Nuke; Dust2, Overpass and Cache. Therefore, it will come to down to whether Fnatic would rather play Cobble, Mirage or Train.

Fnatic did beat VP 16-14 on Cobble in the ESL Pro League, but they should ban this regardless. They lost to Dignitas on the map and only took an overtime victory over tier 2 team HellRaisers. VP haven’t been as intimidating as they once were on Cobble, but Fnatic will know what the Poles are capable of.

The old Fnatic roster lost badly to VP last time they met on Mirage, but they have looked slightly better on the map with their new roster. A victory over Astralis is reasonable form, and their loss to FaZe not disastrous for a new roster. However, Virtus Pro have looked very convincing on the map, winning their recent online matches against Astralis, EnVyUs, HellRaisers, and against an in-form Dignitas at Dreamhack.

It is likely that Train will be the map played. It was favoured by the previous roster and an overtime loss against Astralis for the new line-up was respectable, before they annihilated Na’Vi on it earlier this week. Whilst Na’Vi have been extremely inconsistent since adding Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, they did beat VP on Train. This may bait Fnatic into choosing Train, despite VP’s imposing nature on it at Dreamhack against Cloud9 and Heroic.

We expect Virtus Pro to perform better on LAN, as they always do, and to start with a win. Fnatic’s weak links, John ‘wenton’ Eriksson and Jonas ‘Lekr0’ Olofsson have struggled on the Train, and this will play to VP’s advantage.

G2 (20/27, 1.74 138) vs Astralis (13/10, 2.30 Paddy Power)

G2 and Astralis have not met for five months, which makes for an interesting round one tussle. It is certain that G2 will ban Mirage, a map they left in against NiP online, perhaps by accident, but usually perma ban. Astralis will reciprocate by banning Cobblestone. At StarLadder, G2 combined this with Nuke bans, which suggests they have not been spending a lot of time on the map. With three bans available, and it being a map Astralis are willing to play, it’s also a cert to go. Astralis dislike Overpass, which G2 were the best in the world on earlier in the year. G2 are still happy to play Overpass despite their recent poor form on it, so expect Astralis to veto it.

This leaves Dust2, Cache and Train. G2 prefers playing Dust2 although that map also suits Astralis. There is little between G2’s form on Cache or Train, though they are probably slightly weaker on the latter. Astralis prefer Dust2 out of the three as well, but are inconsistent on it, though the same can be said for both their Cache and Train. Having lost to Heroic this week on Train, G2 will likely remove it, giving Astralis the choice between Dust 2 or Cache. The match may well end up taking place on Dust2 in which case a close game can be expected. Both sides like Dust2, so we have to side with Astralis at the price with Paddy Power.

Recommended Bets:
Virtus Pro to beat Fnatic at 20/23 (1.86) with 138
Astralis to beat G2 at 13/10 (2.30) with Paddy Power