StarLadder Berlin Major 2019 Playoffs Bets

After eight days packed with counterstrike the StarLadder Berlin Major 2019 finally reaches the playoff stage.

We are down to eight teams and the format changed to a single-elimination bracket.

In this article we take a closer look at the matchups in detail and analyse map vetos and give betting advice.

Our bets so far

vitality -1.5 vs avangar @ 1.99 (1.9+) [1u] on betwinner

Natus Vincere vs NRG @ 2.18 (2.1+) [1u] on Betonline

Astralis vs liquid @ 2.06 (1.9+) [1u] on Fairlay

As always of our bets will be posted on our discord-server and our twitter first so join to not miss out on anything.

During the major we have a special promotion running giving all of our users premium access. More info on that in this post.

ENCE vs Renegades [minimal odds: 4.2+ Renegades]

The first match of the playoffs features ENCE and Renegades.

ENCE cruised through the legend stage, beating Avangar and MIBR convincingly in their best of 1s. They easily handled Vitality in round 3 convincingly with 2-0. Overall, ENCE has had a quite solid performance, beating 2 teams that also qualified for the next stage, despite the fact that it became public knowledge that they will replace their IGL Alebksib with Sunny after this tournament.

ENCE is facing Renegades, who pulled a reverse sweep to narrowly qualify for the playoffs following the loses of 2 very close games versus NRG and Avangar. After going 0-2 they went on to beat the likes of Dreameaters, Faze and G2 to hold on to their legend status which they achieved for the first time last major.

Now let's take a look at the match itself. What certainly speaks for ENCE is that they have shown they are able to perform on the big stage. They showed us during the last major and various other tournaments like DH masters Dallas and IEM Chicago where they lost to Liquid in both finals. On the other hand the last time Renegades reached playoffs of a major tournament goes back to StarSeries season 7 in April.

Taking a look at the veto. ENCE permabans Vertigo, a map Renegades started to pick up during the major, beating Faze and G2 on it. Renegades permaban is Overpass, which ENCE is fine playing with (beating Avangar 16-5 in the major but losing to Liquid 2-16 in Chicago), but don't actively pick.

We are expecting ENCE to either pick Nuke or Train against Renegades. Train has been a map where ENCE has been historically good, (100% WR in the last 3 months, first picked in 58.3% of their games), however Renegades are ok with playing it as well, even having a close match vs ENCE on it in Chicago and beating Dreameaters on it in the major. Therefore we think more likely for ENCE to pick Nuke (80% WR over 5 maps and first picked in 25% of their games), since Renegades lost it to Faze during this major and ENCE are good on this map as well.

With ENCE perma banning Vertigo, Renegades seem to lose a viable pick option for them. Looking at their pick stats from the last months, Renegades first picked Mirage in 66.7% of their games (also picked it vs Faze and Dreameaters). Therefore Renegades picking Mirage seems likely. Predicting the leftover map is always hard to predict, we expect it to be a middle ground map like Dust2 or Inferno.

Playing this veto out, ENCE picks a map Renegades isn’t that comfortable on, and given that the series odds for Renegades aren’t good enough (4.2+), our play for now is to wait for the veto and try to jump on Renegades pick, most likely mirage, before bookies adjust their odds. Given the current odds of 2.8 or more for Renegades on a map, the goal should be to get at least 2.75.

Vitality vs AVANGAR

In the second game of the playoffs we will see Vitality face off vs Avangar. Both teams finished the group stage with a 3-1 score.

While Vitality won vs North and Faze in the bo1s they lost their first bo3s 2-0 vs Ence where they didn't show up at all, indicated by only having 1 player with a positive K/D after the 2 maps which wasn't even their starplayer Zywoo.

Overall Zywoo did not have a standout performance and up to his standard this major, similar to S1mple. They are both still top 10 players with the highest HLTV 2.0 rating , but towards the end of the list, ZyWoo with a 1.24 rating over 6 maps and at 7th place, and S1mple at the 8th spot with a 1.22 rating over 8 maps.They managed to pick up their form vs Mouz, crushing them 2-0 in a similar fashion that Ence crushed Vitality.

Avangar lost their first bo1 vs Ence, getting blown out 16-5 on Overpass, but managed to win the next one in a close game on Vertigo 16-13 vs Renegades. In their third bo1 they had to play the current number one team, Team Liquid, managing the hard task of beating them in overtime on Overpass 22-18. They then had to face G2 in a bo3 to qualify for the playoffs. After losing the map pick of G2 - dust - they turned the series around by winning Inferno.

On the deciding map Overpass Avangar showed a very strong ct-side, finishing the half with a 13-2 score making it almost impossible to comeback, although they struggled to find a point to attack in the second half and lost 7 rounds in a row just to finish it with 3 wins in a row and to secure their spot in the playoffs.

Looking at the match-up itself, it's quite clear that Vitality come in as clear favourites. Both teams had their struggles to find form in the major main qualifier but found it in the group stage and are looking forward to playing on the main stage.

Looking at the statistics for the Veto, we see quite easily that Vitality permaban Train and Avangar perma bans Nuke. Both teams have a decently sized mappool, which makes it hard to predict what they will end up picking, nonetheless it seems very likely that Vitality will end up picking Mirage as Avangar have only won 33% out of 12 games on Mirage in the last 3 months. Vitality is rocking on it with a 79% win rate over 14 games in the last 3 months.

Of course, Vitality could still end up picking a different map, but it seems unlikely that they will pick their Overpass, with a 71% win rate, since Avangar have shown their prowess by winning on it vs the #1 team.

On the other hand Avangar could decide on a couple maps. With Train banned, Inferno is their most successful map, with 67% win rate over 15 maps , which they also picked with success vs G2, but they could also decide to play Vertigo if they fancy their chances. Vitality showed vs Mousesports that they can play it, winning 16-5.Thus it could end up as decider map same as Dust and Overpass. Since we assume that the first 2 maps will end up being Mirage, chosen by Vitality, leaving Avangar to choose Inferno or a map that Vitality is also comfortable on, we choose to bet Vitality -1.5 match handicap @1.99 odds for 1u and advise to take it for anything above 1.9 odds.

NRG vs Natus Vincere [minimal odds: 2.1+ Navi, 2+ NRG]

Going on to day 2 of the playoffs, our first match will be played between NRG and Navi.

NRG is coming from the Challenger stage with a 3-1 record. They cruised through the Legend stage and into the playoffs, beating Renegades in a close match 16-14, beating Liquid quite convincingly with 16-9, and finally beating Astralis 2-0, after edging them out with 31-28 on the first map and crushing them 16-4 on Nuke.

Navi, on the other hand, barely got to the playoffs with a 3-2 record, losing 17-19 to two teams who did not qualify for the next stage: mousesports and G2, while beating Dreameaters and MIBR. The most important player for Navi at this major has been Electronic, impressing throughout all games and currently holds the 3rd highest HLTV rating with 1.42 over 8 maps. But others have been fragging too. Zeus only went negative on 2 out of the 8 maps they had to play, even though he is known for having a low individual skill level. The underlying problem for Navi at this Major is s1mple. He is currently sitting at a 1.22 rating in 8th place of the top rated players. That’s still quite good, but he is not playing as aggressive as he used to do, much rather letting his teammates shine and enabling them to frag as well.

In the last match to qualify for playoffs, Navi managed to beat Cr4zy, a team which surprised a lot of people. After losing the first map, they started strong on Inferno but did not manage to keep that trend up giving CR4ZY a way back into the game finishing the first half with a 8-7 score on t-side Inferno, which is not a bad result. Crazy then proceeded to win the pistol and gave Navi a run for their money at 10-12 for Cr4zy. Navi turned it around closing the game 16-12.

They funneled that momentum into the third map, crushing Cr4zy 16-4 on nuke.

Looking at the match itself, the veto is quite interesting as both teams do not play Vertigo.

It will be interesting to see if both teams will let it go through during the first banning phase or play it safe and ban it to avoid running into the other team possibly hiding that they play the map.

This however seems unlikely as both teams haven't played the map in an official match since May.

We could see NRG banning Inferno as the first map, like they did vs Astralis, which could be a try to get Navi out of their comfort zone as they picked Inferno vs Cr4zy and MIBR.

However, we wouldn’t be surprised either if they decide to ban Overpass first as it’s their statistically worst map left if in the pool.

For Navi we can see them pick Inferno like they did in earlier matches, however Overpass is also possible depending on NRGs ban.

If you just take a look at the recent results of both teams, NRG may seem like a no brainer, however Navi always come very well prepared for playoff matches and still have one of the best players in the world, s1mple, on their team.

We believe that this match is a toss up and odds for either team should not be higher than 2.0, maybe a maximum of 2.1 for Navi who have been struggling a bit. Therefore we decided to place a 1u bet on Navi at odds of 2.18 on betonline.

Astralis (2.11) vs Liquid (1.74) [minimal odds: astralis 1.9, liquid: 2.65 ]

The next match of the major playoffs is a derby which we are all too familiar with: Astralis versus Liquid.

For a long period of time, Astralis would have been the clear favorite of this matchup and Liquid falling short beating them. Times have changed and Liquid was able to beat Astralis in important lan matches, like the quarters of the EPL finals, and winning IEM Chicago, ESL ONE Cologne, Blast Pro Series LA and, most importantly, the Intel Grand Slam.

Astralis, on the other hand, chose to skip a lot of these bigger tournaments and only attended the ESL One Cologne and the Blast Pro Series Events due to sponsor obligations. So we haven't seen much from them before the major and what we saw was not really convincing. It's no surprise that bookies have them as slight underdogs to Team Liquid right now.

Taking a closer look at the caliber of both teams and their current performance raises a few questions. Liquid showed a pretty mediocre major performance so far, losing to NRG and and getting upset by Avangar. They barely made it versus mousesports by winning in overtime on two maps.

Astralis didn't have the clean major run either, losing 0-2 to NRG and dropping a map to the upcommers CR4ZY. Partly because they came "cold" into the tournament, both teams made quite a lot of mistakes, which are pretty uncommon for teams this caliber.

It will most likely come down to which team used the time off this week to make corrections. Since Astralis are by far the most professional team in the top 10, having a big coaching staff and a lot of experience in adjusting to their opponents, we think they might have the edge here.

Looking at the pick and ban stats of both teams and how they performed during the tournament, it's pretty likely that the maps being played will be Overpass (liquids pick), Inferno (astralis pick) with Vertigo as the decider, which is pretty much the same veto as in their best-of-three at the EPL finals.

Assuming this is how the veto plays out, our bets for this match will be Astralis ML @1.9+ and Astralis on Inferno if we can get on that for 2+ odds.