BIG and Astralis Talent will meet in the first round of the CCT North Europe Series 5 play-offs. It's very The International to watch the Danes, who have the potential to surprise the favourites unpleasantly.
In general, I would not take BIG so seriously, as the team plays according to their mood, sometimes without even trying. And Astralis Talent is quite a well-played team that has structure.
In such a format, the German team may falter, even though they are clear favourites. So here I would lean on the card from the Astralis Talent team.
BIG form
The eighteenth team in the world ranking managed to fail in Brazy Party 2023 where they suffered two defeats from 00NATION and paiN Gaming, eventually taking the last place.
The German side went on to fail to qualify for ESL Challenger Katowice 2023 and also fell in the play-offs of BetBoom Playlist Freedom 2023 where they lost straight away to Aurora in the quarter-finals.
Of the latter, BIG also tried to come up with something in CCT 2023 Online Finals 1, but it didn't work out there either. The team ended up only fourth, again losing their matches.
Recent BIG results:
- A 2-0 win over ex-Copenhagen Flames.
- A 2-0 win over Endpoint.
- Defeat to Aurora by a score of 0-2.
- 2-1 win over Into the Breach.
- 0-2 defeat at the hands of 9INE.
Best BIG wins:
- Overpass - 80% wins.
- Anubis - 55% wins.
- Inferno - 50% wins.
It is worth noting that the German team have stopped appearing on the Ancient map.
The form of Astralis Talent
The 49th team of the world ranking also failed in the CCT 2023 Online Finals 1 where it suffered two defeats before losing at the Gamebox Festival 2023.
The Danish side also failed to make a mark in the BetBoom Playlist Freedom 2023 play-offs where, although they managed to beat the ex-Copenhagen Flames, they expectedly failed to defeat FORZE in the quarterfinals.
However, Astralis Talent were able to qualify for the play-offs of CCT North Europe Series 5, despite suffering two defeats in the five rounds played.
Astralis Talent's latest results:
- A 2-1 win over Sashi.
- A 0-2 loss to Anonymo.
- 2-0 win over Viperio.
- 2-0 win over Ignis Serpens.
- 2-0 win over MASONIC.
Astralis Talent's best scores:
- Inferno - 80% wins.
- Overpass - 68% wins.
- Mirage - 59% wins.
- Anubis - 53% wins.
- Ancient - 52% wins.
In turn, the Danish team does not appear on the Nuke map.
BIG - Astralis Talent encounter statistics
The teams have not met before.
Forecast for the match BIG - Astralis Talent
In general, it is very interesting to see what the Germans have come up with again, given their love of experimentation. More often than not, however, BIG fail to do anything, for which the team gets beaten by the underdogs.
Here, the Danes have some structure, with which Astralis Talent more often than not show good matches. Also, the boys have no problem with experience, for which we can say thanks to Xyp9x.
Therefore, in this case, I would recommend betting on the Forum on map (+1.5) for Astralis Talent.
