Last updated: 19 Oct 14:24
Intel Extreme Masters XV New York has been switched to regional online tournaments, which gives us IEM New York Online CIS. We have 12 teams from the CIS region competing for a prize pool of 50 000 USD as well as some highly valued ESL Pro Tour points.
CIS CS:GO is super entertaining to watch and probably even more interesting to bet on. In this article we preview the entire event from a betting point of view. We give our betting tips for favorites to win, dark horses that can upset as well as few niche markets that might be good to follow on this tournament.
Betting on CS:GO and especially the CIS region is often regarded as quite volatile, but is there truth in that statement? Simply put - Yes, but this is not a reason to stay away from the betting markets offered in the region, actually, we would like to argue the opposite. The CIS teams are well known for creating big upsets, but also falling flat when we expect it the least. Even a giant like Natus Vincere has had a history of getting upset by lesser teams in the region.
The mentioned Na’Vi are massive favourites to win IEM New York: CIS, but it might come as a surprise that they aren’t the RMR points leaders of the region. Instead it is Team Spirit who finds themselves at the top after a strong second place in WePlay! Clutch Island and a tournament win in ESL One: Road to Rio. With that said betting on Na’Vi in individual games is rarely a good choice, as they are unstable and on a bad day they falter too easily. Instead we would suggest to find value through trusting the underdogs of the tournament.
Betting on the early stages of IEM NY will be a tough task, but as we can expect upsets to be commonplace there is big potential to find good value bets on the underdogs. Teams such as ESPADA, Nemiga Gaming and Gambit Youngsters to name a few won’t be favoured in most matchups. They have however shown in the past they will upset more than one team, specifically in the CIS region and we can expect to see good betting opportunities arise.
Besides the obvious favourites to win IEM New York CIS there is a whole lot of speculation for who could potentially challenge for a win, but more realistically the top spots. Let us begin with having a look at the favourite, challengers and also a potential dark horse.
Na’Vi has had their fair share of up and downs during 2020, but make no mistake - they are still the dominant kings of the CIS region. With players like Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev and Denis “electronic” Sharipov it is hardly a surprise that the team can challenge anyone in the world. Recent performances in ESL Pro League cements the teams position as a heavy favourite as the team grabbed second place after a nerve wrecking final that eventually ended in a 2-3 loss to Astralis.
The achilles heel of the team has however been the same for over a year or more - consistency. The team has a bad habit of having horrible off days, where even the superstars look like mere mortals. While there is no doubt in our minds that Na’Vi should walk away with a tournament win from IEM New York, we would heavily suggest against betting on the team on individual matches. Their bad habit of losing against lesser teams, especially early on, should be warning enough to stay away.
Team Spirit - As mentioned Spirit are amazingly enough ahead of Na’Vi in RMR points ahead of this tournament. While it does speak volumes of the teams great results as of late, there is no way to put the two teams in the same category just yet. Spirit fought heroically in ESL Pro League with wins over Vitality, NiP, FaZE and mousesports, just to exit the tournament with three straight losses.
The most exciting part of the team has been the rise of Nikolay “mir” Bityukov as an absolute top class player during 2020. If he can keep on delivering brilliant individual performances Spirit should be close to a lock for the top placings in IEM NY. On their best they can challenge even for the tournament win, but that would require the teams absolute best, while Na’Vi has a big dip in form.
Gambit Youngsters - You could argue Spirit and Gambit Youngsters should be in different categories, and maybe you would be right. However, out of the remaining teams it truly looks like these young guns could be the one team to have a shot at winning it all. While Dmitry “sh1ro” Sokolov has been the name on everybody's lips when Gambit Youngsters enters the server, it’s truly another youngster who has gotten his real breakthrough during 2020 - Sergey “Ax1Le” Rykthorov. While Ax1Le still has to improve his consistency, his peak performances are already world class without a doubt. This deadly duo on their best can solely be the reason that Gambit Youngsters can give Na’Vi a run for their money. We are not saying it’s likely to happen, but if any team besides Spirit can get the job done, it sure is this exciting young team.
Virtus.Pro - It’s hard to believe four of the five players in VP played a major final a year ago, as results have dwindled since. There has however been some signs of life as of late and the newcomer Mareks “YEKINDAR” Galinskis is starting to look more comfortable in the team. VP has less games under their belt than many other teams the last few months and that could be either a good or bad thing. For a real longshot to win IEM New York CIS we still think VP might be one of the better choices, as they have a strong core that now has had time to develop their team before this tournament. The first few games will be massively telling in if the team has been productive during the break or not. The best case scenario is that we see a reborn VP on the server and can profit by getting great odds during the later games of the group stage.
There are 12 teams in total competing in IEM New York CIS tournament. 7 out of the 12 teams got direct invites based on their current CIS RMR rankings (places 1 to 7) and the other 5 teams battled their way to the tournament via closed qualifiers. Teams are:
The prize pool for IEM New York CIS is 50 000 USD in total, but that’s not all for the teams to compete about, as there are ESL Pro Tour and RMR (Regional Major Ranking) points on the line too! With that being said, here is the prize pool distribution with EPT and RMR points after the dollars:
Group Stage:
Playoffs:
Orlin Spasov
Beting Expert and Operations ManagerBio:
Orlin has always been interested in sports, especially football. Sports betting is his hobby before becoming a part of betting.com he has a rich experience in sport journalism and other iGaming areas. He aims to help punters with his knowledge and detailed analysis of games.Recommended Bookmakers
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