‪#‎SWEDENvsDENMARK‬
Sweden: Draken, Doplan, Quantum, freddieb, mrtn
Denmark: DetlevSNitzEL, Percy, ColoN, Lass3, EXR
When TheSwede (QPAD KoN host) sent us the info for this week's tournament, we laughed at the odds on ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ for this match which were, and continue to be, around 70/30.
Just a glance at those lineups makes you wonder "who are these Swedish guys?" and "Don't I know ColoN and EXR?"... Yes, you know ColoN and EXR and possibly Percy and Lass3 too as these are all danish players that have played at a high level.
ColoN is of course the one who's most famous on this lineup as he has jumped in and out of Danish CS teams for years including ESC, Playing Ducks, Reason etc along with players such as Friis, gla1ve, aizy, tenzki etc. He actually recently made headlines on HLTV after forming a new team alongside Maxaki, percy, REASTEN and hudzg. All in all, ColoN is definitely a strong individual performer who has the experience to go alongside it.
EXR, Percy and Lass3 like ColoN are also experienced t2/3 danish players who have years of experience online and offline in CS in the international and Danish scene.
Now, they'll be facing a pretty unknown lineup here who got to this stage after playing through the Publiclir.se qualifiers for KoN. There's little information on this team but the Swedish side of KoN has been notoriously bad with Sweden only being able to win the very first KoN which was months ago before the strong Norwegian and Danish players showed face.
Based off of game hours alone (pretty bad way to tell, but it's better than nothing), the Swedish team is a mix of friends that have between 1700hr and 2700hrs played which vs the likes of ColoN etc will definitely be no match as the Danes have been playing with each other on and off for years which means they understand how each other plays and there will definitely be some synergy between them. Even if we count out anything to do with synergy, these Danish players are definitely going to be outshooting the swedes if ColoN and EXR are warmed up.
All in all, I'd say the CSGL odds are based purely on people that either A) Are rooting for their country. B) Think top Swedish players are going to be playing on this team. C) Mindless betting.
Our odds are around 70/30 in favour of Denmark here. You do have to bare in mind that these King Of Nordic games are all BO1s with a randomly picked map off of the pizza box wheel. (mirage)
OUR CHOICE here is definitely going to be Denmark as they have the players who are well-known in the Danish scene that have played with top players such as aizy, gla1ve and friis. We anticipate a 16-8 scoreline.
Our bet: http://puu.sh/jsfJy/22c28269c7.png *THIS IS A MEDIUM BET, DO NOT ALL IN ON THESE MATCHES AS THEY ARE VERY RANDOM*
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‪#‎FINLANDvsTBDb‬ (TBDb = winner of SWEDENvsDENMARK)
Finland: JALLU, STOVVE, KIPSIk, zehN, EMD
Sweden: Draken, Doplan, Quantum, freddieb, mrtn
Denmark: DetlevSNitzEL, Percy, ColoN, Lass3, EXR
We've seen little from the Finns in the QPAD King Of Nordic with (I believe) 0 wins to their name so far. The closest they got to being crowned was in the last one (KoN #7) with a 14-16 loss in the finals vs Norway.
As we said in the prediction above, we believe the Danish team's firepower alone will grant them a relatively easy win into this second match of the evening where they will face some familiar Finnish players such as JALLU and KIPSIk whom we've seen present at Finland's Assembly tournaments a few times already and also in previous KoN tournaments under the name "bUukLubBeN" (aune, JALLU, EDMUND, KIPSik, Kiss^).
The big difference here is that this Finnish lineup is an actual team that goes by the name "SKITLITE" as opposed to the mix teams we very often see in the KoN tournaments which is also essentially what this Danish team is.
We saw SKITLITE face ROCCAT and eBettle (both tier2 teams) at Assembly last week where they lost both matches pretty convincingly with 8-16 scores on both of them. They're no doubt a tier3/4 team with some pretty underwhelming players.
Now, usually if an actual team faces a mix team, we'd 9/10 times opt for the actual team as we believe they are massively favoured if they have put in practice and have spent time playing with each other and learning each other's playing styles. However, we don't think this will be too much of an issue in this match up as this Danish team has players that have played with each other for years in and out of different teams versus Tier2 and Tier1 teams online and offline whereas the Finnish team SKITLITE had a mediocre performance at Assembly vs Tier2 teams.
We consider this to be probably the closest match in this tournament as we on one hand have the individual skill on the Danish team versus the teamplay that SKITLITE will be able to bring to the table.
OUR CHOICE here is TBDb (Denmark) as we believe the individual skill and firepower along with the synergy that years of playing together here and there will be enough to close out this match vs SKITLITE. Lounge odds currently sit at 41/59 in favour of TBDb as of writing this which we deem to be 100% accurate. However, we all know what CSGL is like and we will no doubt be seeing TBDb odds shoot up if Denmark run over Sweden as we expect. If odds sway in favour of Denmark's favour, we'd recommend just skipping this one as it's very risky.
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‪#‎NORWAYvsTBDb‬
Norway: ensa, xyndt, cENTRYZ, Skurk, Mystic
The Norwegians have won the last 3 King Of Nordic tournaments so this week they sit at the top once more to defend their title. The closest match we've seen from them was last week's where they faced TMVG (jOELZ, TOMSKU, KHRN, xartE, reflex) which definitely was the best team we've seen so far excluding the Norwegian teams.
The Norwegian lineup seems to differ from week to week as we've seen REASTEN and maak both make appearances in the past. Last week's Kings of Nordic was this exact same lineup except we saw maak instead of cENTRYZ. Definitely a good change though as cENTRYZ is no doubt one of the top players in Norway and currently plays for their top team LGB along side jkaem, Polly, zEVES and RUBINO.
If our predictions go as we hope, we'll be seeing Norway facing off vs Denmark. Two very evenly matched lineups with solid Tier2/3 players who have been around in the CS scene for a while. Even if we see Finland ending up beating Denmark, our choice definitely remains the same.
The way we see it, the Norwegian lineup this week is much like the Danish one with stong individual players that have played together for years. But better. As in, we feel the Norwegian team has better individual players and more synergy and teamwork as we've already seen in past KoN tournaments. On KoN #7 (the last one), they were down 13-9 and managed to successfully come back to 14-16 to keep the KoN title with strong teamwork on the CT side of Inferno.
We feel that this Norwegian team's performance is definitely going to be no match for either Finland or Denmark.
OUR CHOICE for this match is going to be Norway as we feel there is more raw talent with the carry capability that cENTRYZ, Skurk and Mystic all possess when they're warmed up. We also feel that these players have more experience both together and on an professional CS level which will grant them the win. This is also a Bo1, so bear in mind, nothing is a safe bet with King of Nordic haha.
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