?MAD Lions enter the opening round of qualifiers straight off an awe-inspiring run through BLAST Premier Fall Showdown 2021, where they came only one win short of winning their bracket. They did well enough to defeat two struggling giants in Evil Geniuses and G2 Esports to improve their record in October to 11-3.

Entropiq hold a slightly worse 11-5 record on the month and are also 4-2 across their last six outings, with defeats against FunPlus Phoenix (12-16) and 9z Team (1-2).

Even though we have to take MAD Lions’ wins against EG and G2 with a grain of salt, they shouldn’t be such big underdogs for this bout. Entropiq are a solid team, but the CS:GO betting odds should be much closer to even money, which presents us with a great value bet on the outsiders.

?With the addition of Owen “smooya” Butterfield, Fnatic now field a team that looks very strong. The British AWPer has not needed long to prove his worth at Fnatic, helping them win eight maps with a positive rating in all but one.

While the addition of smooya makes Fnatic stronger talent-wise, synergy could be a problem, at least for a few more weeks. This makes it very hard to justify a bet on Fnatic at $1.38, and it’s even harder to believe that they can defeat Eternal Fire in straight maps.

The Turkish superteam has also freshened up the roster by adding Yasin “xfl0ud” Ko? as a replacement for Issa “ISSAA” Murad. Although not a massive upgrade, it should improve team communication.

Talent-wise, Fnatic are in a much better spot, but they’re still shaky on their feet. Eternal Fire likely won’t win, but they should force a close match.

ForZe enter this match on a three-game winning streak; however, they’re 4-7 across their last 11 outings. What’s more, their four wins over that stretch came against Team BLINK (3-2), AVE (2-0), Trasko Esports (2-0), and K23 (16-13), which isn’t exactly spectacular.

Team GamerLegion are 10-5 across October and 3-2 in their last five outings, with losses against Fnatic (6-16) and PACT (14-16) and three wins against Illuminar Gaming (16-7), SAW (16-8) and Meta4Pro (16-11). So while Alfred “RuStY” Karlsson and his crew have proven that they can be competitive, they’ve only looked good against much weaker teams.

ForZe can easily slip and lose a map, but there’s an equal chance that they close it out in straight maps.

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