Russia vs SK Gaming

WESG 2017 World Finals ,

This will be the first of many tips to come for the WESG 2017 World Finals. Their are thirty two teams in this event and a lot of game to be played, so expect some well deserved coverage for this event. In our first tip of the competition, we have SK Gaming: the Brazilian dominance in the CS world. Facing off against Team Russia, which is a combination of CIS players spread across three different teams. These teams are Gambit, Flipside, and Natus Vincere. The level of talent is very apparent on both sides and I feel this will be a good game to watch and kick off the WESG world finals!

SK Gaming :

SK Gaming have been on a constant boot camp ever since their departure of the IEM Katowice event held in Poland. They took a flight out to Germany to play non stop until their flight to China where the WESG finals are being held. SK Gaming have even gone as far as to forfeit their ESL Pro League North American games against Team Liquid because they felt it was more necessary for themselves to train at the boot camp, than play online matches against other North American teams. SK Gaming are well prepared for this event.

SK Gaming's maps are as followed ; Inferno is 8-8, Mirage is 6-4, Cobblestone is 8-2, Overpass is 4-5, Train is 4-3, Cache is 3-2, and Nuke is the perma ban.

Team Russia :

As I stated previously in this tip, Team Russia are made up of a combination of three different teams. The reason this is, is because of the WESG rule that only teams with all five members being from the same nationality can compete. This is why you have mix teams and also why you have teams that are very much capable of winning or placing high not competing because their team is a combination of different nationalities. Quite a shame as the level of play is not as high as it could be, but at the same time it allows other lower tier teams that have the same origins a chance to play on the big stage.

Team Russia's maps are as followed ; since the team is a combination team, they haven't had an recent map choices and I feel it will just depend on the players on what maps they want to pick.

Map Pick/Ban :

This will be a best of one series and because of Team Russia not having a map pool because of their mixed roster, it will be hard to predict exactly what map will be chosen. If I had to guess, something pretty standard in most map pools are the maps Mirage and Inferno.

Final Thoughts:

My final thoughts on this match up are that even though it is a best of one and anything can really happen, with SK's constant boot camping in mind, as well as the fact that Team Russia didn't have a whole lot of practice time together and they are kind of just going at this event as an extra way to make some cash. I feel SK Gaming have a clear advantage in this match up and should take the game pretty easily. Upper Medium bet on SK Gaming.