Cloud9 vs The MongolZ

Here we are at IEM Oakland 2017,

In the first round of "Best of One" matchups, we have the North American Number 1 team; Cloud9. Versus the what seems to be Number One Asian Team. Although these teams are the top dogs in their own respective regions, North America's Cloud9 has had much more Overall experience on LAN and in the international setting.

Cloud9:

Coming off of an easy win of last weekends iBUYPOWER masters 2017, only dropping one map 14-16 Vs Australia's uprising powerhouse "Renegades", Cloud9 are feeling confident and ready to go. In recent showing Cloud9 boasts a whopping positive record of 68 wins to only 34 loses, making them a hard to team to combat for any tier 1-2 organizations.

Having a diverse map pool in recent times is what is making Cloud9 one of the best teams in the world right now. Although C9 have their favorite maps such as "Mirage" and "Inferno" where C9 has a 16-9 record on both maps, they also dip into the less played maps and still dominate. On "Train" C9 has a dominant showing of a 14-6 record . On "Cobblestone" they have a 10-5 record, showing that this is also a map they are not scared to play. Maps "Cache" and "Overpass" are their more unplayed maps. Although still positive on both with a 6-2 record on each map, these are not their preffered maps and in a Best of One, will probably ban them. Lastly we have "Nuke", and Nuke is not a commonplace map in any orgs lineup, and is most likely a permanent ban in the C9 map Pick/Ban

MongolZ:

In their most recent LAN showing at the "Asian Minor - ELEAGUE Major 2017" the MongolZ did not have a good showing, which makes me concerned for how well they will do in this LAN event. During the Asian Minor MongolZ went 0-2 in group stages and finished out negative 25 rounds as they fell into the 7th-8th place spot. The lowest possible spot of the Lan showing. MongolZ have not shown to have much potential in order to compete on the international stage winning it situations where they face new establish Asian Organizations or where they win because of a forfeit by the other team due to the other team going to an even larger tournament..

Knowing the information above, I almost feel i shouldn't have to talk about their preferred maps as they don't seem to have a fighting chance to begin with. But for future reference and this will help when predicting what map they will be playing, here we go. "Inferno" is their most played and won map where they show a 7-5 record. Followed by "Train" showing a 6-6 record. "Cache" sits next in most played with a 2-4 record. "Cobblestone" comes in at number four with a 2-3 record. "Mirage" is their highest percentage winning map with a 3-1 record. And finally "Nuke" at the bottom again, where they have played one game and have the record of 1-0.

Map Pick/Ban

The pick and ban for these two teams will probably fall to the final map being played as "Inferno" or "Mirage". "Inferno" is the main map for both and in a Best of One series, most teams won't ban out their most won map. I look forward to this game and as i don't expect it to be entirely close I expect MongolZ to take a few rounds at the least.

Final Thoughts

Cloud9 is the clear favorite here, and to miss the opportunity to bet against MongolZ is not one to pass up. Expect the map "Inferno" or "Mirage" as the map of choice, so if you happen to like those maps and want to watch C9 get ahead a little in the group stages, tune in and enjoy the game!