CSGO FACEIT Major Challengers Stage: Day 5 Predictions
Reaching the end of week one, we finally know 13 of the 16 teams who will make it to the legends stage. Our remaining six challengers will battle it out in a best of three series, including a court mandated minimum of four periods of overtime per series, to see which three teams will make it to the next stage. Some of you are probably thinking “hey, I wonder who Verona thinks is going to win”. Good news.

Team Spirit vs TyLoo
My inner fangirl is sad. Spirit and TyLoo have been two of the more interesting teams in this stage and it would’ve been fun to see both of these teams get thrown into the deep end. Unfortunately, one must go home.
You wouldn’t expect there to be much history between two mid-level teams from the historically weaker regions of CIS and Asia. Most international tournaments don’t reserve many invite slots for these regions and, as a result, you wouldn’t expect to see both of these teams at the same event. Strangely though, these two teams have played each other twice in the last 12 months, both times in best of three, both times on LAN and both times in a loser-goes-home situation. The teams have won one series each, with TyLoo winning the most recent match-up at the final of a StarLadder invitational in Chongqing.
This should be a tight clash, so we’ll need to examine the competitors map pools to get an idea of how this might swing. Spirit will likely ban Train and TyLoo permaban Nuke, a map they’ve played just three times since it was relaunched. TyLoo have been notorious for upsetting teams on Mirage, beating heavyweights like Astralis, NaVi and MIBR on the map in recent months. This wouldn’t be a terrible choice for Spirit and an upset is possible, but TyLoo are excellent on Mirage and should win if they pick it. Next, Spirit are likely to pick Overpass, a map they were able to dismantle Rogue on earlier in the tournament. TyLoo generally struggle on Overpass, though again, an upset is possible and they have beaten Spirit on that map before.
Personally, I think this will go the distance. Whichever map is the decider, perhaps Cache, the question will remain the same. Will the relatively weak CT holds from Spirit be able to cope with the flair of TyLoo. In the last few tournaments they’ve attended, the Asian team have been able to cause upsets through their explosive and unpredictable playstyle, largely thanks to their star player BnTeT. If Spirit hope to win this series, they need to find a way to shut down TyLoo’s talisman. It’s definitely possible, but I think they’ll fall just short.
Prediction: TyLoo 2–1 Team Spirit
OpTic vs BIG
Oh dear.
I admire the OpTic organisation, they’ve put together some interesting lineups in the past, but the current Danish experiment is falling flat. The story of the team is centred around in-game-leader Snappi. After defying the odds to mould Heroic into team capable of challenging for titles, onlookers wondered what he would be capable of if he was given some bigger tools to play with. We now live in that world, and what we have is a team which consistently fails to live up to their potential, rarely more so than at this tournament.
As for BIG, nex and tiziaN have been running cold and slightly less cold throughout the initial stages, which has left tabseN to do all the heavy lifting while smooya works on plays for the highlight reel. The lack of consistent firepower has forced the shot caller, gob b, to raise his kill counts to hitherto unseen levels. You have to think he’ll struggle to maintain this level of individual performance as the tournament progresses. If so, what happens to the team?
Mirage will be permabanned by BIG, which could be problematic for OpTic as it’s one of their more consistent maps. Even worse, it’s likely that BIG will pull out Dust 2, a very poor map for OpTic. With no member of OpTic really stepping up to the plate so far, it’s possible that the consistent numbers from tabseN and weird AWPing from smooya may be enough to give BIG a 2–0 victory. Whichever team wins, they should count themselves lucky and will need to do some soul searching if they hope to go deep into the tournament.
Prediction: BIG 2–0 OpTic Gaming
Vega Squadron vs North
I’ve never really understood how Vega manage to do it. Their squad looks paper thin and their results outside of the majors haven’t been anything to write home about. But for the third time, Vega are on the verge of getting to the last 16 and here I am, writing home about them. The constant for the team is jR; every time the Russian team shows up on the big stage, he offers up a good, consistent level of performance. He acts as an anchor, which allows the rest of his team to work around him and force plays. But his colleagues come across streaky. Anyone on their team is capable of taking over a round, or even a map, but can just as easily have zero impact. We’ve seen that again this time around.
North, however, are something else entirely. While Dreamhack Stockholm was an interesting event, it almost feels as though it doesn’t really count. North claimed some big scalps at that tournament, but to be frank, they hadn’t looked very impressive for a long time beforehand and the win comes across as a fluke. They seem to have instantly reverted back to their previous pace in London and it’s hard to feel any emotion for this lineup other than disappointment.
Vega have been exceptionally quiet in the build up to the major so it’s difficult to get an accurate picture of where the team place in the grand scheme of things. Historically, they’ve been able to cause some damage at majors on Inferno and Mirage. However, these are meant to be two of North’s best maps so, theoretically, North should be able to pick up the 2–0 victory here. Right?
I don’t feel confident about saying that at all. Why? North just beat Astralis and NaVi. How can they look so shaky so quickly?
Prediction: North 2–0 Vega Squadron
