OG vs Grayhound Gaming Prediction: The Australians to discover the next level of the game

From October 31 to November 13, the second CS:GO major of the 2022 competitive season will take place. Twenty-four teams have qualified through the regional RMR qualifiers - eight will begin their journey from the Legends stage and another sixteen will begin their journey from the Challengers stage. The winner of the IEM Rio Major 2022 will receive $500,000, BLAST ranking points, and invites to ESL Katowice 2023 and BLAST Premier: World Final.

The tournament will be held in two stages. The first is the Challengers Stage. At this stage, 16 teams will compete for the eight slots in the Legends stage. The Challengers Stage matches are played in a Swiss system (each team plays for points until they have three wins or three losses). The elimination matches are BO3, the rest are BO1.

OG and Grayhound Gaming will meet in the Challengers stage. In the BO1 series, they will reveal the winner of the encounter. Which team will be closer to qualifying for the Legends stage?

OG boosted half of their roster in  summer, inviting young players NEOFRAG, F1KU and degster. The latter appeared on the team thanks to a successful performance as a stand-in at the BLAST Premier: Spring Finals. In spring the team couldn't qualify for the major in Antwerp, but after the reshuffle they easily made it to the RMR qualifiers through the open qualifiers, and also won BLAST Bremier: Fall Groups, making it through all the matches of the tournament.

Degster's performance is astounding in every tournament he plays. He has the level of a world-class sniper, with an HLTV rating of 1.21 with an average of 80 damage per round and 0.8 frags per round. He's equally accurate against the clear underdogs as he is against the top teams in head-to-head encounters. The newcomers have also successfully joined the new team, and are contributing a lot of impact on the maps under nexa's guidance.

OG experienced problems in RMR qualifications on the first game day against MOUZ, then there were only victories. The team proved its level against Outsiders in their final game, defeating the Russian team 2-1. Nexa's team played smoothly in the matches, showing average individual statistics. OG wins open duels more often, winning more than 30% of 4x5 situations and dealing 27 damage per map with grenades. It finished fourth in Group B at the Rio major.

The competitive level in Europe and Asia is noticeably different. Brazil is a young, motivated team with the potential to win big tournaments. They will be looking to advance to the Legends stage as soon as possible from the first series, and facing the Aussies will be a nice warm-up for a meeting with a level opponent.

For Grayhound Gaming, entering the major is already a great achievement. The last time the organization competed in a tournament of this level was back in 2019, and after that it didn't have a CS:GO lineup for two years. In 2022, it reassembled a roster that managed to pass regional RMR qualifiers. Admittedly, it is easier in four-team competition than in conventional Europe or America.

The team plays predominantly in Australian events, only in Melbourne in September to try its hand at the tier-2 level of the HLTV World Rankings. It couldn't defeat paIN Gaming and Imperial Esports in the group, but it tried to do battle, taking more than 10 rounds on the maps. It's interesting that they could also watch the game of OG, as they were fighting in the neighboring group and also didn't make the playoffs.

Statistically, captain INS stands out. Over the past three months, he's given out 90 damage per round and made 0.8 frags, with an overall HLTV rating of 1.24. He plays as a rifler on the team, combining team-wide calls with individual play. He's also the only one who's been able to achieve a positive rating in games against top-30 teams on the HLTV leaderboard. The other members of Grayhourd Gaming failed in such matches, and one of the aliStair players has a miserable 0.52 rating at this level.

For the Australian five players the OG test will be a real stress. The Europeans are better on the map, they pick good positions and look stronger than their opponent individually. Greyhound Gaming has never met teams of the same level, so the first meeting at the major will go according to OG's plan.

The teams have never met each other.

The overall total of rounds in the match will be less than 25.5. The odds on this outcome are 1.72 at bet365.

Grayhourd Gaming won't win more than 9.5 rounds in the match. The odds on this outcome are 1.68 at 1xbet.

OG's pistol rounds are lacking. Will we believe that the Aussies will take the lead just once at the start of the meeting (in the first round)? The odds on this outcome are 2.55 at betway.