SK Gaming vs Cloud9

ECS Season 5 North America ,

Hopping across the pond from yesterdays tip of the ECS Season 5 European league, we will today be looking at the ECS Season 5 North American League. More specifically in today's match up, we will be watching teams SK Gaming and Cloud9 go head to head across two maps. The first map being Cache and the second being Inferno. Their is a lot to cover in this tip and the odds are in either favor so let's dive right in a discuss what the outcome will be.

SK Gaming :

This series will be the first since the SK Gaming roster dropped their support player TACO. Since TACO's departure the newest member of SK Gaming has been fulfilled by former Cloud9 player Stewie2k. Stewie is regarded as the best North American player to ever touch the game and was hand picked by SK Gaming after the team was having some issues beating other foreign teams. This will be Stewie's first game on the new squad and it is also against his former team. I expect Stew to rise to the occasion as he has never failed to do so before.

SK Gaming's maps are as followed ; Inferno is 8-7, Mirage is 5-5, Cobblestone is 8-2, Overpass is 4-6, Train is 3-4, Cache is 3-2, and Nuke is the perma ban

Cloud9 :

After the Boston Major, Cloud9 have been struggling to find the form of which once was. This accompanied with the departure of their star rifler Stewie2k, this has made the team seek out new talent to help them rise to the occasion. I feel tensions will be high for Cloud9 more than SK Gaming as Cloud9 even admitted to themselves that their run at the Boston Major would almost never happen again. I believe all of the players on Cloud9 have accepted that they are playing to get paid and not really to win or make deep tournament runs anymore. Only time will tell the future of this Cloud9 roster.

Cloud9's maps are as followed ; Inferno is 13-9, Mirage is 13-7, Train is 11-4, Cache is 6-5, Overpass is 7-4, Cobblestone is 1-2, Nuke is the perma ban.

Map Pick/Ban :

This is a best of two with each game represented as an individual game. In this tip we will be focusing on the first game on Cache. Both of these teams have played a few games in their most recent form, obliviously they have never played the map with the respective lineups being brought into today's game. But I find some map advantage going to SK Gaming as they have a better win percentage. They may have not played as many games, but they win more consistently on them.

Final Thoughts:

Looking at the future of these two squads and where Stewie2k left Cloud9, I find that this will be a close game because emotions will be a high factor of the outcome. Stewie2k leaving Cloud9 is big news for any CSGO fan, but having him debut against the team he left is something else. I don't see Stewie missing a beat. I think he will be a force to recon with and not give his old teammates any le-way. Medium bet for SK Gaming.