?In the space of a few months, BIG have gone from the no.1 team in the world to something resembling a B-Tier side. Outside of their semi-finals appearance at DreamHack Open January 2021 Europe and a top-three finish at BLAST Premier Spring Groups 2021, the Germans haven’t done anything of note in 2021. They enter Funspark ULTI 2020 off a disappointing third-fourth finish in the Pinnacle Cup, where they beat only Endpoint and got swept by HAVU in the semis.

Extra Salt aren’t exactly a top-tier team either, and they didn’t impress at BLAST Premier Spring Showdown 2021 last week. Their only match of the month happened last Wednesday against Team Spirit, who we tipped to win 2-0, and that’s exactly what happened. Although Spirit are an extremely strong team, Extra Salt can’t really make any excuses for their showing that day.

Neither team looks good, but it’s difficult to side with BIG at the offered odds. Extra Salt should be somewhat competitive at the very least and force a tight series, so we have to go with over 2.5 maps for this one.

?Dignitas enter FUNSPARK ULTI 2020 as a replacement team for Heroic. The veteran lineup will have huge shoes to fill, as they take over a squad that has gone undefeated since February, but they’re not to be overlooked as a potential dark-horse of the tournament.

Dignitas caught our attention in the BLAST Premier Spring Showdown with their win over Team Liquid, to which they added straightforward victories against HAVU, Sprout, and SINNERS Esports. That form has seen Dignitas climb to no.28 in the CS:GO world rankings, and they could rise further still after the next update.

Evil Geniuses haven’t been playing too well recently, although they have had a few flashes of greatness. They pocketed a 2-1 win over Astralis at ESL Pro League Season 13 and emerged as the only team at IEM Katowice to beat the eventual champions, Gambit, but EG’s 3-7 record in their last 10 matches says it all.

On Thursday, Evil Geniuses replaced Tarik “tarik” Celik with Micha? “MICHU” Müller, who is hardly an upgrade, and it definitely won’t help the team’s synergy early on. EG might be the favourite, but we don’t believe they will have an easy time against Dignitas.

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?It’s difficult to make a case for Extra Salt here, and not least because Team Spirit have been playing extremely well for the past month. Extra Salt are essentially the former Cloud9 core plus Edgar “MarKE” Maldonado, formerly of Chaos Esports Club.

Extra Salt enter this match with a 30-3 record since late January, which should catch anyone’s attention, but most of their wins have come against weaker sides at ESEA events and the DreamHack Open. On the other side, Team Spirit are 13-3 since late January, and that record includes wins against some of the best European sides.

Extra Salt field capable players who were relatively successful while playing under Cloud9, but it’s been a while since they last faced a top-20 team, let alone the no.7 side in the world. Team Spirit are just too good at the moment, so we are backing them to cover the map line.

?Going from one mismatch to another, we have NASR Esports taking on Gambit Esports in the second fixture of the day. A quick look at the odds reveals just how one-sided this match should be, with esports bookmakers giving NASR only a 6% chance to defeat the reigning IEM Katowice champions.

The betting odds don’t surprise us, considering NASR are a UAE squad featuring four unknown players and former Budapest Five in-game leader Atif “gejmzilla” Mustafa as their captain. What’s more, NASR have yet to face a top-tier team since World Electronic Sports Games 2018, where they fielded a completely different squad.

Betting on Gambit to win 2-0 at -625 offers no value, but we are happy to take a shot with NASR at the +1.5 map handicap. This is a complete long shot, but the odds make it worth a stab for two reasons.

Firstly, Gambit might not take this match too seriously and could be overconfident, which could turn around and bite them. Secondly, NASR are an unknown opponent for Gambit, whereas the underdogs have more than enough film to analyse and figure out how to play this one. Whether that will be enough remains to be seen, but at +381, we are ready to pull the trigger on NASR getting on the board.

?Once a Classico of the LATAM CS:GO scene, this fixture is now regarded as more of a warm-up match for FURIA. The latest CS:GO betting odds don’t seem too wrong at first, but we have to consider that this is still a match between two local rivals who know each other well.

It’s no secret FURIA overtook MiBR as the best Brazilian CS:GO team last year, but we are reluctant to believe Andrei “arT” Piovezan and his crew will walk away with a clean sweep. That is despite their 2-0 win against MiBR at ESL Pro League Season 13 last month.

These Brazilian derbies can be quite volatile, which is a good enough reason for us to believe MiBR can make something happen. The outsiders have a better win rate on Dust II, Mirage and Overpass, and as long as Raphael “exit” Lacerda can continue playing as well as he has for the past month, MiBR should be able to make FURIA sweat.

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