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Participating teams
StarLadder ImbaTV Invitational Season 5 features 8 teams from 6 different regions:
- Europe: Team Kinguin.
- North America: OpTic Gaming.
- South America: SG e-sports.
- CIS: Natus Vincere, FlyToMoon, Vega Squadron.
- Southeast Asia: Fnatic.
- China: VGJ.Thunder.
StarLadder ImbaTV Invitational Odds
To Win outright
VJG Thunder: $3.25
Fnatic: $3.25
OpTic Gaming: $4.00
Kinguin: $13.00
FlyToMoon: $15.00
Vega Squadron: $17.00
Natus Vincere: $19.00
SG e-sports: $23.00
* odds courtesy of GG Bet and were correct at time of publishing.
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Tournament format
The eight participants will be initially divided into two groups of four. Both of these groups will be played in a double-elimination bracket format (GSL).
The top two teams from each group qualify for the Playoffs, where 1st place from Group A plays against 2nd place from Group B and vice versa. Every match is a Bo3 series with the exception of the Grand Final (Bo5).
Prize pool and points distribution
StarLadder ImbaTV Invitational Season 5 belongs to the Dota Pro Circuit, offering not only prize money but qualification points as well. These rewards will be distributed among the participants in the following way:
- 1st place: $135.000; 150 points
- 2nd place: $60.000; 90 points
- 3rd – 4th place: $30.000; 30 points
- 5th – 6th place: $15.000; 0 points
- 7th – 8th place: $7.500; 0 points
Team analysis
VGJ.Thunder
VGJ.Thunder is currently sitting at number 8 in the Dota Pro Circuit rankings table with 1665 points. The team has a lot of potential and has had two 2nd place results at Dota Pro Circuit events this season. One of these events was a Major. At the latest tournament it participated in, VGJ.Thunder did poorly (9th-12th place), but the opposition was very strong. At this event, the Chinese team is more than likely to make it all the way to the Grand Final.
Best odds: VJG Thunder to win, paying $3.25 at GG Bet
FlyToMoon
This is a CIS team that has existed for only 2 months. And although it’s made up of experienced CIS players, it has very little experience and not a single notable result at the international level. In all likelihood, FlyToMoon will finish StarLadder ImbaTV Invitational Season 5 in 7th – 8th place.
Best odds: FlyToMoon to win, paying $15.00 at GG Bet
OpTic Gaming
Apart from Evil Geniuses, this is probably the strongest North American team at the moment. OpTic Gaming has a lot of potential, having plenty of experience, good individual players and a formidable captain: Peter “ppd” Dager, former TI champion with Evil Geniuses in 2015. OpTic Gaming is easily a top 3 team at this event and could easily get a great result. I’m expecting them to qualify for the Grand Final.
Best odds: OpTic Gaming to win, paying $4.00 at GG Bet
Team Kinguin
This is a mediocre European team with some level of international experience but not a single notable result. Given the level of competition at this event, they might get a 5th-6th place finish, but it’s still more likely that they will finish among the last 2.
Best odds: Team Kinguin to win, paying $13.00 at GG Bet
Vega Squadron
Vega Squadron is an up and coming contender in the CIS region, having recently defeated Team Empire, Natus Vincere and Team Spirit in the CIS qualifiers for GESC: Thailand Dota2 Minor. With its roster of little known but experienced players, Vega Squadron doesn’t stand much of a chance against the main contenders for this event (VGJ.Thunder, OpTic Gaming and Fnatic) but has a good chance of winning against all of the other teams. A 5th-6th or even a 3rd-4th place finish wouldn’t be surprising in its case.
Best odds: Vega Squadron to win, paying $13.00 at GG Bet
SG e-sports
This is one of the strong South American teams, but unfortunately, South American Dota is known to be the weakest of all the 6 recognized regions. Like other teams present at this event, SG e-sports hasn’t really had any notable results this season. And, based on the skill difference between their region and the rest of the world, I think it’s safe to assume that they won’t make it very far into this tournament.
Best odds: SG e-sports to win, paying $23.00 at GG Bet
Fnatic
Fnatic is currently sitting at number 11 in the Dota Pro Circuit rankings table with 884 points. So this tournament will be decisive for them in the sense that, if they want to get a direct invite at The International 2018, they need to earn as many points as possible and get back into top 8. If they can’t do it at an event like StarLadder ImbaTV Invitational Season 5, where most of the participants are fairly weak teams, then it’s pretty clear that they won’t achieve this goal this season.
Fnatic is the 2nd placed team at this tournament in terms of strength. Their main rival for qualifying for the Grand Final will likely be OpTic Gaming.
One thing to keep in mind for this tournament is that Fnatic will be playing with their coach Adam instead of pieliedie. So we’ll have to see how that decision turns out.
Best odds: Fnatic to win, paying $3.25 at GG Bet
Natus Vincere
Natus Vincere is currently sitting at number 10 in the Dota Pro Circuit rankings table with 1199 points. So its situation is similar to Fnatic’s. I honestly don’t like this new Na’Vi lineup and consider that after the departure of RodjER, Na’Vi lost all momentum and all hope of getting a top 8 finish at the end of the season. Even when they win, Na’Vi seem to be extremely lucky or are getting carried by one of their cores. The team as a whole doesn’t seem to have much synergy.
Best odds: Natus Vincere to win, paying $19.00 at GG Bet
]]>The event is organized by StarLadder and ImbaTV, brings together 16 of the world’s best teams and has a prize pool of $300,000. With so many participants and matches, this is the kind of esports event that’s sure to offer plenty of excellent betting opportunities.
Tournament participants, format and prize distribution
StarLadder & i-League StarSeries Season 4 features 16 teams from 4 different regions:
- Europe: Fnatic, G2 Esports, mousesports, Heroic, Natus Vincere, Gambit Esports, Virtus.pro, HellRaisers, Astralis, FaZe Clan.
- Asia: MVP PK, TyLoo.
- North America: Cloud9, Renegades, Team Liquid.
- South America: SK Gaming.
The competition will be played in a Swiss system format followed by single elimination bracket Playoffs. All matches will be Bo3.
The prize distribution for StarLadder & i-League StarSeries Season 4 is the following:
| ?Place | ?Prize Money |
| 1st place: | $125,000 |
| 2nd place: | $50,000 |
| 3rd – 4th place: | $25,000 |
| 5th – 8th place: | $10,000 |
| 9th – 11th place: | $6,000 |
| 12th – 14th place: | $4,000 |
| 15th – 16th place: | $2,500 |
Betting predictions for Round 1 matches
Astralis vs. Team Liquid
Both of these teams are on an upward trend and hungry to win again, after a pretty disappointing performance at the ELEAGUE Major. Following this event, Astralis replaced Kjaerbye with Magisk while Team Liquid replaced jdm64 with NAF. The impact of these transfers was immediate in both cases. Team Liquid recently won the cs_summit 2 tournament, defeating SK Gaming and Cloud9 in the process, while Astralis won 5 out of their last 6 matches in the ESL Pro League Season 7 (Europe). Some of these victories came against two of the world’s best teams, namely FaZe Clan and mousesports. In light of recent results, Team Liquid is slightly favored to win this match even though the odds are perfectly equal. Bovada puts these odds at -120/-120 or around 1.83 – 1.83.
Prediction: Team Liquid to win: $1.83 at Bovada
Cloud9 vs. Heroic
Cloud9 won the ELEAGUE Major and finished second at the recent cs_summit 2 tournament, losing just to Team Liquid at a close score (2 – 3) in the Grand Final. Along the way, they also defeated Heroic in that tournament (score 2-0) and they’re overall much stronger than them. In a match like this, given the strength difference between these two teams and the likelihood of success for Cloud9 (close to 100%), you’d expect the North American team to have really low betting odds and yield almost no returns. But the fact that Bovada puts the odds at -400/+250 or around 1.25 – 3.50 in their favor makes this the best betting opportunity on this list.
Prediction: Cloud9 to win: $1.25 at Bovada
FaZe Clan vs. TyLoo
FaZe Clan finished in second place at the ELEAGUE Major and is one of the strongest teams in CS:GO. They showed signs of weakness recently, but against top competitors like Natus Vincere and Astralis (they lost 4 Bo1 matches against them in the last few days). However, TyLoo is still a complete outsider to the world of big Counter-Strike, so I don’t see how these losses could possibly point towards a major risk or a significant chance of an upset in this dispute.
Bovada puts the odds at -2500/+800 or around 1.04 – 9.00 in the European team’s favor.
Prediction: FaZe Clan to win: $1.04 at Bovada
Fnatic vs. Gambit Esports
Following their 5th-8th place finish at the ELEAGUE Major, Fnatic went through some ups and downs, winning 6 matches and losing 4. Their most important victories came against HellRaisers and Ninjas in Pyjamas, while their defeats came against mousesports and the team they had previously defeated, HellRaisers.
These results are worrying going into this match against Gambit, and that’s because this team, since their disappointing 9th-11th place finish at the ELEAGUE Major, has had some pretty significant victories: one against mousesports (2 – 1) and one against Natus Vincere (2 – 1). It’s true that they’ve also suffered some incredible defeats against provincial nobodies, but their high ceiling makes them a scary opponent to go against and a perfect team to rely on when it comes to producing upsets.
Last time these two teams faced each other it was at the ELEAGUE Major. Fnatic won that dispute quite convincingly, but this match will likely have a completely different result. Bovada puts the odds at -210/+140 or around 1.48 – 2.40 in favor of Fnatic, but the chance of an upset is very high. If you want to bet on this match, you should definitely consider picking Gambit Esports as the winner.
Prediction: Gambit Esports to win: $2.40 at Bovada
G2 Esports vs. Renegades
G2 Esports is in good shape right now, even though they still struggle against the top teams. Their ELEAGUE Major performance was impressive (they went undefeated during the first two stages of the event) and it was rather unlucky for them to encounter Cloud9 in the Quarterfinals.
Renegades is not a bad team either, but they recently lost an important player (NAF) and have played significantly worse than G2 Esports over the last two months. Which is why Bovada puts the odds at -400/+250 or around 1.25 – 3.50 in the French team’s favor. The returns here are the same as in the Cloud9 vs Heroic match and the risk is only slightly higher. Keep in mind that the matches are played in a Bo3 format, so it is extremely unlikely for a top 6 team that’s on an upward trend to lose 2 games against an opponent that’s not even in the top 20.
Prediction: G2 Esports to win: $1.25 at Bovada
mousesports vs. Virtus.pro
Given mousesports’ exceptional form and VP’s complete lack of it, this match will likely be totally one-sided. Virtus.pro is not even a top 30 team anymore (while their opponent is in the top 5), and their latest move was to replace Taz with MICHU. However, this change is unlikely to be effective against a world class adversary like mousesports.
Bovada puts the odds at -275/+180 or around 1.36 – 2.80 in favor of the German team, which is amazing given that this is another match with an almost predetermined result.
Prediction: mousesports to win: $1.36 at Bovada
Natus Vincere vs. HellRaisers
On paper, Na’Vi, the semifinalist from the ELEAGUE Major, is lightyears ahead of HellRaisers right now. However, whenever they play against them I get the feeling that anything can happen. The last two direct matches between these two teams resulted in one close win for HellRaisers (1 – 0 and a map score of 16 – 14) and one decisive win for Na’Vi (1 – 0 and a map score of 16 – 6). Given that this match is a Bo3, Na’Vi is the clear favorite to take the victory.
Bovada puts the odds at -135/-105 or around 1.74 – 1.95 in Natus Vincere’s favor.
Prediction: Natus Vincere to win: $1.74 at Bovada
SK Gaming vs. MVP PK
This will be a total bloodfest. Not much to say here except that SK Gaming will almost certainly take this match without dropping a single map. They’re a top 3 team at the moment while their opponents are not even in the top 30. Bovada puts the odds at -1400/+600 or around 1.07 – 7.00 in the Brazilian team’s favor.
Prediction: SK Gaming to win: $1.07 at Bovada
]]>The victory was important for eSports powerhouse Team Liquid as it was still smarting from a loss to Newbee in the final of the ESL One Genting.
Team Liquid was too strong for LGD Gaming, who are a China squad, with a 3-1 victory which saw them drop just one map for the entire match.
They earned USD $135k and each player got 150 Qualifying Points, bringing them closer to the leaders, Team Secret.
Team Liquid winning the event was probably expected by a lot of fans due to how well they had been doing since the addition of gh to the roster.
What was unexpected was LGD Gaming making the final, beating Newbee on the way.
The return of fy in position four and the addition of Chalice and Malaysian player xNova in the last couple of months could have given LGD Gaming teamwork issues, but they showed they have combined just fine and it points to a positive future.
It can be said there are four teams in the top: Team Liquid, Newbee, Team Secret and Virtus.pro.
Even after recent results, it is hard to say that LGD Gaming is now a top team although the sharp improvement shows they may be on the rise.
Every once in a while, other teams defeat a top team, but no teams can show dominance consecutively in multiple events like those four.
The big question is whether LGD Gaming can get to the top of the scene and turn the top into a big 4 or big 5; or is LGD Gaming another one-event scene-stealer like Mineski with their triumph in PGL Open Bucharest?
Right now, LGD Gaming is ranked 11th in the Dota Pro Circuit team standings, but there are 12 events that teams can still get qualifying points from.
Do you think LGD Gaming is in the same level with Team Liquid, Newbee and Team Secret? Will they keep this roster or change players after TI8? Give us your opinions below!
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