ESWC is with no doubt the most awaited tournament this year for the CS:S fans, and no wonder why, with some of the best teams in attendance, and a nice prize pool, the tournament will surely deliver some incredible matches.
It will be hard to predict who will make it out of the group stage, since both groups could seriously be considered the group of death, but, I will try my best to give you guys some insight of how things could turn out.
Group A:
As much as I would like it to be differently, I have no doubt that the group will be topped by VeryGames, who, apart from being the undisputed nr1 team in the world, will be playing on home soil, which means, they will probably want to give a good show to the crowd.
Now, on to the fun part, and that is, deciphering which team will get the 2nd spot., which is, at the very least, a tough task. The community seems to put their money on apeX, but, with Reason playing so good at the online qualifiers, and recently winning G4L, they will surely want to confirm themselves as one of the top European sides. The other team to possibly give a fight are the Americans from CheckSix, who will try to prove that CheckSix took the right decision by picking them up, but, after knowing they are not going to be able to bootcamp in Europe prior to the tournament, i would not bet my money on them.
Orgless 5 will surely be up for some surprises, but I certainly don’t see them advancing, and, what to say about the Danes from DSRack, even though they just placed 3rd at G4L I can help but feel hopeless for them.
If i had to decide today who would advance in order to save my life, i would say it would be VeryGames and Reason-Gaming.
Group B:
Group B gets even more exciting than Group A. something I wouldn’t believe were we not talking about ESWC. And I say it is even more exciting, because not even first place is predictable here, even though many would tip Dynamic for victory, I don’t know how to par their game is with the Euros, and, even though last time they came to Europe they managed to get a 2nd place, I don’t see them having that much luck this time, but, never the less I guess they will be up there fighting for first place in the group. Fighting for first place, will also be the Danes from CKRAS, who haven’t been seen lately at LAN, which could put a question mark on their possible performance, but, i think we can all agree they will be up there. Last but not least, the others fighting for 1st place will be the Frenchmen from LDLC. Many of you would argue with me about mTw not being on my top list for this group, but, i don’t see them taking more than second place.
Unfortunately, i don’t have too many hopes on either FM.Toxic or OK, who will most likely be fighting to not be the last on the group.
Now, if I had to pick the 2 teams advancing in this group, those would be Dynamic and LDLC.
Even though I’m pretty sure I will end up eating some of my words, i think anyone predicting the ESWC CS:S tournament would end up the same way. All in all, I’m sure the tournament wont disappoint anyone, and will surely be remembered for months to come.
