Coming out of the mid-season player break, FaZe Clan looks to win ESL Pro League to achieve the Intel Extreme Masters Grand Slam prize worth a cool US$1 million.
bet365 certainly favors the top dogs of CS:GO giving the Karrigan-led FaZe Clan 2.75 odds to win outright with Navi trailing very close behind at 3.00. It seems that oddsmakers believe that only Navi can stop them after a very close 2-3 defeat in the recently concluded IEM Cologne XVII.
※ Current Odds Date & Time: August 25th, 9:00 P.M. (EST)
Despite the defeat, living legend S1mple took home the MVP award after an absolutely strong performance leading the team to win group A convincingly and also giving them a semi-finals berth coming into the playoffs in the process. A scenario very much similar to FaZe, who looked unstoppable with Twistzz popping off.
FaZe Clan of course have four of their five members that can be considered a superstar in broky, ropz, Twistzz and rain. Adding one of the best IGLs ever in Karrigan to the mix and with CS legend Robban as coach, the team really is one of the greatest to ever assemble and is compared to the historical Astralis team from 2018-2019.
ESL Pro League is always stacked with the top teams in attendance. Add to the mix G2 Esports, who made changes in their IGL roles by replacing Aleksib be Hooxi after only a few months. Also bidding farewell to the team is the long tenured JACKZ, who will be playing for the French scene team HEET. The new roster debuted at Blast Spring Groups and have shown great promise so far.
Teams like Vitality, Heroic, and ENCE also made changes in their roster. Vitality bringing in Spinx from ENCE and replacing misutaa means there’s more firepower from the French organization. Heroic recently replaced refrezh with Jabbi from CPH Flames, which is an upgrade on paper but have not really reflected on the server yet. Finally, ENCE brought in awper SunPayus from Movistar Riders and Danish staple Valde.
Despite the many movements and roster changes during the player break, teams like Cloud9, who have been playing as a team for the longest time will be looking to compete. Their patented patient strategy has been working for two years now with great performances from Sh1ro and Ax1le.
Astralis and NIP also have fixed rosters and despite the current struggles of the former in the RMR qualifiers, Astralis are looking good against tier 1 teams in the Blast Spring Groups.
With heavy tier 1 competition looming, will FaZe Clan continue their hot streak and claim the grand slam glory or will another team spoil their victory?
