The BLAST Pro Series heads to Lisbon on December 14 to round off its year of events. The same six teams from Copenhagen will battle it out once more for a share of $230,000. What has changed since Copenhagen? Have we learned anything since the ECS Season 6 - Finals? Read on for our preview.
Quick recap: What is the BLAST Pro Series?
On December 14, BLAST will be bringing six of the best teams to Lisbon to play in the Altice Arena. The tournament is once again split into three stages: Group Stage, Pro Standoff and Grand Final. The Group Stage will be Bo1 (best of one), and the Grand Final will be Bo3 (best of three).
The PRO Standoff will be a series of 1 vs. 1’s where the third-place team will pick a team that finished between fourth and sixth to battle it out on the BLAST Aim Map. The winning team of the Standoff will take home $20,000, while the winner of the overall tournament will take home $125,000.
BLAST Pro Series: Lisbon 2018 odds
Learn more about the top contenders
Bettors’ assessments will be informed by the fact that all of the teams attending have recently played at ECS Season 6 – Finals and BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen 2018. We are going to focus on the strong points of each team and let you know of any surprises along the way.
Current favourites Astralis are looking to improve on the previous BLAST Pro Series where they finished in fourth place, losing out to Cloud9 on the Aim Map. Despite that, the impressive run continues for Astralis, having won eight trophies over eight months (most recently at the ECS Season 6 – Finals).
Having won quite convincingly against MiBR in the finals at ECS, going 2:0, they also defeated fellow contenders NiP and Cloud9 along their journey to being crowned the winners.
All eyes will be on previous BLAST Pro Series champions Na’Vi who defeated NiP in the Bo3 Grand Final. The previous six months have shown us that Na’Vi are one of the most consistent and nerve-wracking teams to go up against, having played 123 maps, winning 82 and losing 41 teams.
Opposing teams will want to play Na’Vi’s weaker maps, such as Inferno (51% win rate) and Nuke (63%). Even with those statistics, Na’Vi are still a force to be reckoned with and if they stick with maps such as train (78%) and Mirage (78%) they could be taking home the trophy once more.
MiBR are going to be the team to keep an eye on. The “Brazilian” outfit have been causing a pretty big stir amongst the top teams, having made their way to the ECS Grand Final and displaying a true display of skill and potential – having won 63 out 96 (in the last three months) maps played and their biggest short coming is on Overpass with a 50% win rate.
MiBR will also want to improve on their previous BLAST experience, having not got out of the Group Stage and losing every match, going 0:5 overall. Lisbon could prove to be a difficult competition for MiBR as entry fragger, fer, has been ruled out on medical grounds.
Analysing others in the BLAST Pro Series odds
FaZe have had one of the most interesting journeys out of all the teams attending Lisbon. They should be looking to rock the boat, especially after they almost made it out of the Group Stage only to be defeated by Astralis 14:16 at Copenhagen. Previously, they defeated BLAST champions, Na’Vi, at EPICENTER 2018 to take home first place.
The team has relatively neutral statistics, having a W / L ratio of 44/43 and an average team K/D ratio of 1.00. Much like Na’Vi, if they play to their strengths, such as Train (70%), Dust2 (55%) and Mirage (52%) then they could be in with a chance of winning.
The team that is starting to surprise many is NiP, whilst they haven’t won anything major recently, they have started to demonstrate that they can turn up to events and win matches.
Having made it to the Grand Final in Copenhagen against Na’Vi, they couldn’t quiet defeat Ukrainian team and eventually lost 2:0. Having made their way through the ECS Season 6 qualifiers, they got to the Semi-finals where they eventually went 0:2 against Astralis.
The downward spiral of Cloud9 seems to have no recovery mode at the moment, with team coach Valens standing in at Copenhagen where they had their most successful run of the event, defeating Na’Vi and MiBR.
All eyes will be on current in-game leader Golden and the team once more, more so off of the back of ECS where they got dominated against Astralis and then lost 0:2 against mouz.
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