ESL Challenger February 2022 Preview
A rather interesting tournament, the replacement for ESL Anaheim that was cancelled few months ago and a warmup before Katowice for teams like Virtus.Pro and Complexity.
The groups seem unbalanced to say the least as Group A is a lot more competitive than Group B, and the format of the tournament (BO1 GSL) only makes things more spicy. Before we get into more detailed breakdown of the tournament, I'd like to point out several teams that I'm personally going to watch closely here:
- Virtus.Pro; After having problematic end of the year, VP bounced back at IEM Winter and now they are the main favorites to win the ESL Challanger. It is also a good practice for them ahead of upcoming Katowice, where plenty of teams won't be as warmed up, so it's important for them to get in best shape during the weekend
- Movistar Riders; We haven't seen them at all in almost 2 months - and last time they played they were really out of form, especially compared to their prior performance. For now it's pretty much unknown what are they up to, they could be a dark horse and go quite far, or they could be a huge disappointment an fall out of it before even reaching playoffs
- FURIA; They didn't really have a chance to show themselves with the new roster, as the only game they had was a 0-2 blowout against Wisla Krakow. Although it was a catastrophe for them we can't judge how good this team is based on just that game, and with an easier group that they have here in ESL maybe they could prove themselves
- ORDER; Obviously I don't expect anything at all from them - and noboy should, what even in the fuck is this team, however it's still interesting to see what AU region has to offer. So far we only had LFO who are currently stuck losing in tier3, but maybe ORDER could surprise us. I remember watching USTILO and Valiance years ago in Australian LANs when they were still in different teams, and to be honest I've always liked these guys more than the "classic" aussie players. This time ORDER picked up a new player from Paradox, ekul, who was doing a pretty good job last year and hopefully they won't go out without at least showing some decency
Now, let's look closely at the groups and the opening BO1s
For the first round there is only one match that attracts any interest and a potential for a good bet, and that is Dignitas vs Movistar Riders. Although it's pretty much a coinflip as Movistar's current state is unknown and Dignitas aren't exactly the prime example of a good team, I must say that I fancy Dignitas here.
With all the struggles that they have with players' individual performance, they have been on a non-stop grind for the past few weeks and, surprisingly enough, they've shown some good results. Since the beginning of the season they had 11 matches and won 9 of them - only dropping it to Eternal Fire and Sprout, while beating teams such as ECSTATIC, sAw and even 2-0 against Forze.
As for other matchups, there isn't much to say. FURIA are lucky to have first game against ORDER and unless they are about to disband already they should have no issues winning it, though betting on it is pointless. Same goes for VP vs 9z, I don't see a world where 9z could possibly upset even in BO1, but the odds are simply dead.
A potentially interesting match would be Complexity vs HEET, but both teams are so unstable that I think it would be better to see how it turns out before making any further conclusions.
If the first matches go as expected, we should see the following pairs for next stage:
Virtus.Pro vs Dignitas and Movistar Riders vs 9z
FURIA vs Col/HEET and Col/HEET vs ORDER
In that case, ORDER should sadly go to 0-2 stage, while FURIA could be at danger of going 1-1. For Group A, VP should have an easy way to 2-0 while Dignitas and Movistar will face a rematch in 1-1.
We will follow the matches throughout the day and maybe there will be some bets on the second round of matches, but for the most part first day will be dedicated to spectating and noting the teams' form.