?FURIA Esports are billed as one of the strongest teams in Group B, which is reasonable, but since all group matches are best-of-one (Bo1), there’s a good chance they drop a couple of games. And it doesn’t help that the remaining five teams in this group are all more than capable of competing for a spot in the playoffs.

One of those teams is 00Nation (formerly O Plano), featuring the former MiBR core and ex-FURIA AWPer, Henrique “HEN1” Teles. Although a relatively new squad, 00Nation have done well in recent weeks; they finished in the top four at cs_summit 8 and reached the finals of DreamHack Open June 2021 North America three months back.

FURIA last met with 00Nation at the cs_summit 8 (while 00Nation were still O Plano). The first match ended in a 2-0 win for O Plano (16-8 on Vertigo and Mirage), while the rematch saw FURIA claim a revenge win (2-0) with 16-12 on Nuke and 19-17 on Mirage.

00Nation have the tools to deal with FURIA Esports, and there’s nothing that would suggest they can’t put up a fight on Wednesday. We like 00Nation at the outsider odds.

?Evil Geniuses are priced as $1.35 favourites for this match, which might seem fair; however, this is still a very high price for a Bo1 match. What’s more, EG are in abysmal form.

Evil Geniuses haven’t won a single tournament since ESL One Cologne 2020 Online North America in August 2020 and are fresh off a 10th-12th place finish at BLAST Premier Fall Groups 2021. Their only other tournament appearance since Intel Extreme Masters XVI Cologne (17th-20th) in July was the ESL Pro League Season 14, where Evil Geniuses lost all five of their matches.

To illustrate how bad EG’s form is – they have won only five games since March (5-24). We talked about EG’s situation a couple of months back and how it’s only a matter of time before EG disband – they’re not quite there yet, but we’re getting close.

With the form EG have been showing, we have no faith in this team to win, even against Triumph. There’s plenty of value on the outsiders at $3.00.

FURIA Esports are priced as betting favourites against GODSENT, which should make a lot of sense, considering they’re much higher rated (no.18) than their compatriots (no.37). However, those ratings don’t mean much, particularly in a best-of-one (Bo1) match.

And it’s not like you can be overly impressed with what FURIA have achieved of late – placed fifth-eighth at Malta Vibes Knockout Series #2, and crashed out of groups at the ESL Pro League Season 14. FURIA’s only notable accomplishment of 2021 happened in July when they won Elisa Invitational Summer 2021.

Even though FURIA are still a better team individually, betting on them at the offered CS:GO betting odds offers little to no value. Instead, we like GODSENT, who have recently won DreamHack Open September 2021 North America and are undefeated in their last eight.

Extra Salt and Bad News Bears will cross paths on Tuesday, October 5, in the second round of Group A at Intel Extreme Masters Season XVI Fall North America. It will mark their first meeting since Friday, October 1, when Extra Salt won 2-0, with 16-11 on inferno and 16-8 on Ancient.

It’s very easy to see that Extra Salt are much better and not necessarily because this is a top-level team, but rather because Bad News Bears are a complete mess. BNB haven’t won anything besides some lesser tournaments in Fragadelphia 15 and ESEA Cash Cup and are not a team you would want to represent the region at international competitions.

Extra Salt might not have won any notable tournaments, but they haven’t placed worse than third across the last eight competitions. We will trust Extra Salt to emulate what they produced on Friday and defeat Bad News Bears with at least four rounds to spare.