Sprout vs GamerLegion Prediction: Expect a close fight of two equals

The Finnish Elisa Masters Espoo 2022 tournament kicks off on Wednesday, November 16, with a prize pool of $200,000 and a slot to the Play-In stage of the IEM Katowice 2023. Sprout and GamerLegion teams will face off in the final games of Group A matches.

Since Danish players refrezh and Zyphon joined the German team in August, people were more cautious about the Sprout squad than before. The team made it through the RMR Qualifiers pretty good and even made it to the Legends stage in Rio de Janeiro, but at the main event of the second half of the year, Sprout only won 2-0 against NIP, losing to BIG (11-16), Team Liquid (6-16) and Team Spirit (0-2).

Has anyone expected Sprout to have a breakthrough in Brazil? No, so the exit wasn't tragic and the team didn't force substitutions in their already young roster. But now in Finland Sprout players are at ease. The opponents are all in their league, so there's a good chance to make the playoffs in this tournament.

Confidence in GamerLegion comes in waves. At first people don't believe in the newly-formed team, but they shoot their way to the RMR qualifiers for the major, nailing G2 in the process. After qualifying for the main tournament in Brazil and a successful start in the Challenger stage (2-0), the European team doesn't make it to the Legends stage, losing their next three BO3 matches. And faith in them has fallen again. What state the Legionnaires will come up in this time is hard to predict.

At various times, GamerLegion has had successes, but only on the tier-2 stage. The team has not played anything big, let alone won for quite a long time, and if before the team was more full of Swedish players, now it is a hodgepodge. Among the current squad we can mark out a Danish sniper acoR who played for MOUZ for the last year and a half and only at the end of summer he left, moving to GamerLegion in September. Together with the Dane, the Belgian Keoz (from Team Falcons) and the Polish captain siuhy (from MOUZ NXT) joined the team.

Judging by the RMR tournament and the main tournament in Rio de Janeiro, we can conclude that GamerLegion players feel good in BO1 matches, it is hard to fight on equal terms on three maps because of the weak map pool so far. The group stage at Elisa Masters Espoo 2022 takes place in the BO1 format, but in the match against Sprout you should not expect an easy game because the opponent is not inferior in name and skill.

The opponents are of equal strength, so we expect an equal confrontation. We don't even rule out a series of extra rounds, but we suggest considering the following options:

Total Over (26.5) Rounds for 1.78 at 1xbet;

W GamerLegion for 1.83 at Bet365 & 1.85 at Betway.