Hello and welcome to my preview for Fanteam’s new CS:GO tournament €10K ESL Pro League Group A Season Game! It is the first kind of ‘Seasonal Game’ for the discipline on the platform.
Fanteam Rules
You can’t get more than 2 players from the same team and yes – there are transfers here. Each Gameday you will have 1 Free Transfer and you can save 1 additional transfer if you want to. You can´t do more than 2 transfers per GW! The budget is 50M – and while it may be difficult to make a proper team from the first try but then it’s easier to adjust – and maybe I can help by reviewing all six teams that are going to play and try to give my opinion on their chances.
Tournament Rules
These s are simple – all matches are BO3, best team advances to the Play-in, second and third advance to 1/12 where they will have to win one more game to get in the Play-in round also.
What I want to point out is that in such tournaments almost everyone has a chance to get first place. But sometimes there are situations where one team isn’t just good enough to impose competition on other teams. In this case, this team is Renegades.
The Australians dominate in Oceania but rarely shows something good against top European teams. In 2021 they moved to Malta to compete with EU teams after dexter’s departure who was team’s shotcaller and played in one tournament where they lost to mousesports and VP. I don’t see any chances for this team and I will be very surprised if they won’t be last in this Group. Not sure if you want to get a lot of picks here, but if you want to gamble, go for INS (10.0M) and maybe aliStair (8.5M) who joined Renegades from ORDER (second-best Australian team) in 2021 – he can be your enabler for other 4 more expensive picks.
OG is very talented but underachieving team who entered new circle of problems before the tournament. niko from Heroic replaced NBK- as a replacement for DreamHack Masters Spring qualifier where they won Nordavind but then lost to Complexity without any chances. Team spirit is very low and I can’t see this team being good enough to fight for the top-spot in the tournament.
Moreover, I think that mantuu (11.0M) and valde (11.5M) are overpriced, but Aleksib (8.5M) can either be great enabler option. If niko will be priced below 11M – maybe 10.5 or even 10 – it may be worth a punt.
On the other hand we have Heroic. It is also a team that has unstable times but with one difference – 2020 was a great year for them. But now Heroic has two new players – sjuush and refrezh who came following the benchings of b0RUP and niko. Both featured in victories over VOYVODA and Cloud9 and the team now has qualified to DH.
In these two games sjuush (9.0M) had shown that he is already capable of playing on the level and refrezh (9.5M) clearly need more time to settle in. sjuush can form a nice stack with stavn (11.5M), TeSes (10.5M) and especially cadiaN (9.5M) who is clearly underpriced imo. If you dont want to risk with new players, just go for some of these 3 guys – everyone has great potential.
FunPlusPhoenix is a new name but definitely not a new players for those who follows CS:GO. The Chinese organization bought GODSENT roaster so basically this is definitely a team we should look into. The original stack wasn’t very successive in 2020 but when they were joined by Farlig things got better. Now they will try to create something new with suNny who replaced kRYSTAL – but here I’d suggest to look into more stable picks.
Farlig (10.0M) offers great value and if you think that the team is capable of hitting a top spot, and his stack with zehN (10.0M) looks very promising – both can contribute well. Maden (9.5M) is also a great addition with a very good price – I’d give him 10.0M pricetag also, so as for me he is a very good value-pick. STYKO and suNny cost (9.0M) – and if you want to risk, I’d suggest go for the first one for two reasons: we know that the Slovakian can shine sometimes and we doesn’t know how suNny will fit in. So if you aren’t going to create a lot of teams, you’d better take a closer look at him in the beginning.
compLexity Gaming seems like they are back on track after oBo’s leaving. Jks was one of the most interesting players on NA scene but had some problems after moving to Complexity. poizon is back after he missed two months due to health problems and showed how the team really struggles without AWPer they are used to. The team slso earned spot on the DH after destroying OG giving away only 8 rounds so they will definitely be in good spirits.
As for picks I’d recommend choosing from blameF (11.5M) who is definitely the best player in the team (at least in terms of Fantasy perspective). konfig (11.0M) is a bit riskier pick but he might be a good alternative to blameF thanks to having a less pickrate. And if you think that poizon (9.5M) will catch the best vibes – go for him, this man can perform. But I must warn you – the Bulgarian is very unstable and it might be very risky to trust him in the long-term tournament. But as a transfer option he is prefect – just get the timings right.
BIG is the most mysterious team for me here. Germans were the most active team from these 6 in the 2021, and the beginning of the year was quite good – 3-4th on DreamHack Open in January and triumph in their group on the BLAST Premier Spring Groups 2021. Then there were poor results in Katowice (lost 4 of 5 games) including close loss to Heroic (12-16, 14-16).
Personally I don’t really like to play this team in Fantasy because it’s one of the hardest team to predict who will perform today. XANTARES (11.0M) and syrsoN (11.0M) worth their money only if they will be the best in every games – I think this is very unlikely. So I don’t think you can stick with them for a whole tournament. From the cheaper options k1to (8.5M) can also fill in as a good enabler option – especially if the team will be fighting for the top spot – so you can try and stack him with some more expensive players.
Thanks for your time guys and let me know your thoughts wherever you want to – here, in the comments, or in the FanTeam Official Telegram-Chat.
PS. While picking your team, consider looking in the tournament structure to see who plays who in each Gameday – you rarely want 2 your guys to play against other 2.
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