Syman and Nemiga will lock horns in the opening match of Group B at the BLAST Premier CIS Cup, which kicks off this Tuesday.
Syman Gaming will hope for a big improvement on their recent competitive endeavours. Their best results this year are top-four finishes at the LEGENDS.BET L33T CUP, Cyber.Bet Cup and #HomeSweetHome: Week 2. Sanzhar “neaLaN” Ishkakov and co. also took a swing at ESL One: Road to Rio – CIS, where they finished sixth after losing to Winstrike (0-2) and Nemiga (0-2) in the playoffs.
Shortly after the Rio Major qualifiers, Syman appeared at Hellcase Cup #8, where they suffered an early elimination following defeats to Team LDLC (1-2) and S-Gaming (0-2). NeaLaN and his crew looked marginally better at #HomeSweetHome: Week 5, where they finished the group stage with a 2-1 record, defeated Team Secret 2-1 in the quarter-finals, then suffered a humiliating 0-2 defeat against SMASH in the semis.
Nemiga Gaming have been very active this year. They have attended 11 CS:GO esports events and are currently competing in both the ESEA Season 34: Premier Division – Europe: Regular Season and WINNERS League – Season 4: Europe Invite Division. That stacked schedule has not translated into any great success, however, as a runner-up finish at WINNERS League – Season 3: Europe Invite Division and fourth place at OGA Counter PIT Season 5 remain the team’s best results so far.
In their last five fixtures, Nemiga defeated Syman (2-0), pro100 (16-6), HellRaisers (16-8) and Bpro (16-4), but they lost to ALTERNATE aTTaX (14-16) at ESEA S34. Nemiga have been averaging a 64.5% win rate over the last three months and will enter the upcoming fixture against Syman on a three-game winning streak.
Although Nemiga are nothing more than a B-Tier team, they are starting to find their place amongst the stronger CS:GO teams in the region. The latest global rankings, which were updated on May 18, had Nemiga at 32nd in the world and seventh in the CIS – both all-time highs for the organisation.
A lot of that improvement can be credited to Igor “lollipop21k” Solodkov and Rassim “Jyo” Valijev, who have been averaging 1.16 and 1.14 ratings respectively across last three months. It would be unfair to discredit the remainder of the team, however, as Aleksander “mds” Rubets (1.03), Anton “boX” Burko (1.05) and Anton “speed4k” Titov (1.10) are all keeping positive ratings.
The most recent roster change for Nemiga came in January, when they signed speed4k from Hard Legion Esports. That is the only change to the squad since the Belarusian organisation acquired boX in March 2019.
These teams played each other last weekend, when Nemiga came away with a convincing 2-0 win. The match was one-sided on both Nuke (16-7) and Overpass (16-12), which does not inspire any optimism that Syman can turn it around here and walk away with the spoils.
It’s also worth noting that Nemiga defeated Syman not because of an individual stand-out performance, but instead with a joint effort. That fact is highlighted in the match stats, as all five members of the winning team ended the series with 1.18+ ratings.
Speed4k topped the ratings with 1.28 in that match and has maintained that standard with remarkable performances against pro100 (1.54), HellRaisers (1.25) and Bpro (1.01). Meanwhile, lollipop21k has averaged 1.57 in Nemiga’s last three matches.
When you compare that kind of form with Syman’s recent loss to SMASH, Nemiga should be priced at much shorter odds. A -1.5 handicap bet might seem risky at first, but it makes more sense when you consider that the favourites have a better win record (67%) than the underdogs (58%) on Inferno – Syman’s best map.
BIG and Syman will meet on the battlefield on Tuesday in their opening Group A fixture in Week 1 of the #HomeSweetHome CS:GO esports tournament.
In January, BIG announced huge changes to their CS:GO roster, which saw the departure of Owen “smooya” Butterfield and the benching of Johannes “nex” Maget in favour of ex-Sprout duo Florian “syrsoN” Rische and Nils “k1to” Gruhne. That controversial move proved to be beneficial for BIG, who look to be much stronger with syrsoN and k1to on board.
Since the roster changes, BIG have won DreamHack Open Leipzig 2020, topped the Europe Minor Championship – Rio 2020: Open Qualifier #1 and Flashpoint Season 1: LAN Qualifier, and produced some big performances in high-profile events, including their 2-0 win over Natus Vincere at ESL Pro League Season 11 Europe. The recent surge in form has seen BIG climb to 19th spot in the CS:GO world rankings, far above their regional rivals Sprout (32nd).
Despite BIG’s recent improvement, however, they failed to impress throughout March, when they crashed out of the Europe Minor Championship – Rio 2020: Closed Qualifier in round two and finished 16th-18th at ESL Pro League Season 11 Europe. While those results fail to inspire much optimism, it’s worth noting that BIG’s next opponents have not played a single competitive match since losing to forZe in the ESL Pro League on Tuesday, March 24.
Syman enter the #HomeSweetHome tournament with an incomplete roster. Their two permanent members, Sanzhar “neaLaN” Ishkakov and Nicolas “Keoz” Dgus, are joined by loanee David “n0rb3r7” Danielyan and trialists Rasmus “kreaz” Johansson and Rustem “mou” Telepov.
The CIS team have lost some individual quality since they parted ways with Ilya “Perfecto” Zalutskiy, who left for Natus Vincere in late January. Based on their performances through February and March, however, neaLaN and co. are holding up surprisingly well. In fact, they have dropped only four spots in the global rankings since January and are now sitting at 31st place, which is commendable for such a young and inexperienced team.
Since the turn of the year, Syman have participated at the DreamHack Open Anaheim 2020: European Open Qualifier, Flashpoint 1 European Closed Qualifiers and BLAST Premier CIS Cup: Open Qualifier #1, where they finished ninth-16th, ninth-12th and second respectively. Notable results in that stretch include 2-0 wins over HellRaisers and Hard Legion as well as a battling performance against the surging HAVU, who they took to overtime on the second map in a 0-2 defeat.
Syman are clearly the underdogs heading into this bout, but that does not necessarily mean they don’t have a chance to surprise BIG.
Online matches are notorious for upsets. What’s more, this is a best-of-one (Bo1) fixture, which will suit the outsiders.
In a perfect world, BIG would come out ahead on merit alone. They might do so here, but at $1.40 there is little value in siding with the favourites. Instead, we like the generous odds offered on Syman, who are priced as high as $2.77 for the win at some esports bookmakers.