The preview of IEM Beijing 2019

The general information

Intel Extreme Masters Beijing 2019 will start on November 7 and will be over on November 10. 8 teams will take part in it. Six of them have received direct invitations, while the other two had to pass qualifiers. Astralis, ENCE, FaZe Clan, Evil Geniuses, Team Vitality, and 100 Thieves have become the lucky owners of invites given by the organizers, while Vici Gaming and TYLOO have made it through the Chinese and Asian qualification, respectively. The participants will start the fight in the group stage where they were divided into two groups with four teams in each one. 100 Thieves, Astralis, ENCE, and Vici Gaming got in Group A and Evil Geniuses, FaZe Clan, Team Vitality, and TYLOO were put in GRoup B. In groups, the teams will play bo3 matches by a GSL system and will move to a single-elimination bracket in the playoffs. Semi-finals will be hosted in a bo3 format and the grand final will be played in a bo5 series.

The favorites

Astralis (a place in the rate by HLTV — #2)
Odds on a victory: 2.25

Astralis are on the top of outright bets at all bookmaker companies and have the lowest odds on their victory. We think that it’s not absolutely fair and there is at least one contender to prevail, which will be able to beat the Danes. Astralis performed very badly at BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen 2019 and their only joy was a victory over Natus Vincere in BLAST Pro Standoff. The 4th place in the standings can be explained because the team had very little time to prepare and the players had taken part in an advertising campaign and footage instead of practicing right before the start of the tournament. It’s not worth to forget that one of the representatives of Astralis, namely dev1ce, had health issues. If the team was not able to make it to the top 3, playing at a home arena, where is the guarantee that Astralis will win IEM Beijing 2019?

The roster of Astralis and the players’ rate:

Nicolai ‘dev1ce’ Reedtz — 1.23
Peter ‘dupreeh’ Rasmussen — 1.07
Andreas ‘Xyp9x’ Højsleth — 1.08
Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander — 1.02
Emil ‘Magisk’ Reif — 1.10
Danny ‘zonic’ Sørensen — a coach

Evil Geniuses (a place in the rate by HLTV — #1)
Odds on a victory: 3.40

We consider Evil Geniuses to deserve a victory at the championship more. The American team reached the top in a couple of months. The players, playing under the tag NRG, placed 11th and even didn’t enter the top ten CS:GO rosters in the world and started leading the world rate at the end of October and achieved victory at two big LAN events in one months: ESL One New York 2019 and StarSeries i-League CS:GO Season 8. Now, EG is on the top of its shape, which they have never had. The decision to replace daps on stanisla was right and Peter Jarguz really managed to help the teammates with his experience to become the strongest team in the American division. Evil Geniuses got in Group B, which is more difficult than the parallel four. EG will have to fight with FaZe Clan, Vitality, and TYLOO for getting to the playoffs where they will probably see Astralis. The American team’s chance to prevail is pretty high. The players will only have to continue playing the same way as at previous competitions.

The roster of Evil Geniuses and the players’ rate:

Vincent ‘Brehze’ Cayonte — 1.23
Cvetelin ‘CeRq’ Dimitrov — 1.20
Ethan ‘Ethan’ Arnold — 1.17
Tarik ‘tarik’ Celik — 1.09
Peter ‘stanislaw’ Jarguz — 1.05
Chet ‘ImAPet’ Singh — a coach

The teams, which have a chance

Team Vitality (a place in the rate by HLTV — #5)
Odds on a victory: 7.00

The team has suddenly improved its results with the recent arrival of shox and his debut at DreamHack Masters Malmo 2019 was pretty successful. There, the team placed second and earned a reward in the sum of $50,000. Despite this, the team started showing bad results, having got to StarSeries i-League CS:GO Season 8 and lost, respectively. The French placed 7th-8th at that championship and earned only $12,500. It’s unclear what to expect from them at the moment but the team might surprise us in a good way because some world-class talents are in it. ZywOo is worth everything who, according to many viewers, is the best player of 2019 and the legendary French captain shox. The last one is obviously not going to give up and we expect Vitality to play well at the championship.

The roster of Team Vitality and the players’ rate:

Dan ‘apEX’ Madesclaire — 0.99
Cédric ‘RpK’ Guipouy — 0.94
Mathieu ‘ZywOo’ Herbaut — 1.29
Alex ‘ALEX’ McMeekin — 0.96
Richard ‘shox’ Papillon — 0.99
Rémy ‘XTQZZZ’ Quoniam — a coach

100 Thieves (a place in the rate by HLTV — #8)
Odds on a victory: 9.50

100 Thieves have recently signed the roster of Renegades and now, the players are motivated to show them in action. IEM Beijing will be their debut under the new tag. It’s worth to remind that the placed 4th at the last tournament, in which they took part, SL i-League Season 8. There, the Australians beat MIBR, the vice-champions Fnatic, and Team Vitality in the group stage and prevailed over G2 Esports in the playoffs. Such a result cannot but gladden their fans and the performance reflected that the players hadn’t been wasting time and improved their gaming shape. At the upcoming championship, 100 Thieves got in Group A together with such teams as Astralis, ENCE, and Vici Gaming. They are unlikely to compete with Astralis but they can beat ENCE and ViCi. 100 Thieves will probably hold the 3rd-4th place in the standings because, in the playoffs, they will have to fight with Evil Geniuses who will place 1st in Group B.

The roster of 100 Thieves and the players’ rate:

Aaron ‘AZR’ Ward — 0.98
Justin ‘jks’ Savage — 1.17
Joakim ‘jkaem’ Myrbostad — 1.09
Jay ‘Liazz’ Tregillgas — 1.06
Sean ‘Gratisfaction’' Kaiwai — 1.00
Aleksandar ‘kassad’ Trifunović — a coach

ENCE (a place in the rate by HLTV — #14)
Odds on a victory: 10.50

ENCE have been playing worse and worse in recent time. The Finns placed 5th-8th and 9th-12th at the last four tournaments, in which they took part. Nothing changed with the departure of Aleksib and his future replacement on suNny and the results became even worse. It is possible that ENCE will be able to show a few beautiful moments at the championship but we don’t think that allu with his teammates will be able to make it to the playoffs. ENCE will probably hold the 5th-6th place in the standings and they can’t be considered to be the outsiders in their group because they play together with Vici Gaming.

The roster of ENCE and the players’ rate:

Aleksi ‘allu’ Jalli — 1.11
Jere ‘sergej’ Salo — 1.07
Jani ‘Aerial’ Jussila — 0.94
Sami ‘xseveN’ Laasanen — 0.95
Miikka ‘suNny’ Kemppi — 0.99
Slaava ‘Twista’ Räsänen — a coach

FaZe Clan (a place in the rate by HLTV — #9)
Odds on a victory: 10.50

FaZe Clan is the team, which can hold promises to prevail. After a long bad streak, there is a bright light in the players’ career in the form of the triumph at BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen 2019. Despite the format of the championship was peculiar but we can’t deny the seriousness of the participants, which were in Copenhagen. They include Astralis, Team Liquid, NAVI, NiP, and Cloud9. NiKo with his teammates showed a master-class how to win comeback in the most desperate situations and nullified NiP’s advantage in the grand final, having defeated the last ones with a score of 2-0. The team’s newbies, broky and coldzera who joined the ranks of FaZe at the end of September, managed to show their best and raised the cup of BPS Copenhagen 2019, having earned $125,000. NiKo said that there is hard work in progress in the team and the players are going to continue playing on a high level. We think that the talented players who are assembled in FaZe will be able to play well at the Beijing championship.

The roster of FaZe Clan and the players’ rate:

Håvard ‘rain’ Nygaard — 1.03
Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovač — 1.09
Olof ‘olofmeister’ Kajbjer — 1.07
Marcelo ‘coldzera’ David — 1.12
Helvijs 'broky' Saukants — 1.05
Janko ‘YNk’ Paunović — a coach

The outsiders

TYLOO (a place in the rate by HLTV — #35)
Odds on a victory: 135.0

One day TYLOO were a very strong team, which was represented by a few talented esportsmen and the tag of the team was close to the top ten CS:GO teams by HLTV. Now, this time passed and BnTeT with his teammates don’t even reach the top thirty. Despite TYLOO is actually the best team in China but the competitiveness of the roster is far from the rest of the participants of the Beijing tournament. The only thing, which might help TYLOO, is a factor of the home arena and fans who will come to support the Chinese players. This team is one of the main outsiders of the championship in terms of all other things.

The roster of TYLOO and the players’ rate:

Haowen ‘somebody’ Xu — 1.18
Hansel ‘BnTeT’ Ferdinand — 1.18
YuLun ‘Summer’ Cai — 1.10
YuanZhang ‘Attacker’ Sheng — 1.08
Wing Hei ‘Freeman’ Cheung — 1.07

Vici Gaming (a place in the rate by HLTV — #47)
Odds on a victory: 245.0

Vici Gaming looks just like their countrymen, TYLOO. A long time ago, they were able to participate in Major tournaments are not the last ones in their country but, compared to the rest of the participants of the championship, it’s almost impossible to believe in their victory. Like in TYLOO’s case, the only thing, which might help the players from Vici Gaming, is the support of viewers at the stadium. ViCi are weaker than their opponents in all terms, so have the highest odds on a victory at IEM Beijing 2019.

The roster of Vici Gaming and the players’ rate:

Weijie ‘zhokiNg’ Zhong — 1.08
Zhihong ‘aumaN’ Liu — 1.14
Zhuo ‘advent’ Liang — 0.85
Andrew ‘kaze’ Khong — 1.30
Yi 'JamYoung' Yang — 1.11