Virtus.pro vs Astralis: the Danes look stronger

The long-awaited IEM Cologne 2021 playoffs will start on July 16. The first LAN tournament did not give many sensations, but still, there were some surprises. For example, the game of Faze Clan who managed to get into the playoffs. Also, a small surprise was Virtus.pro's reaching the final stage of the tournament. The team had a terrible start, but they managed to improve their situation and make the playoffs. Can Virtus.pro team continue their winning streak and make it one step closer to the finals?

Virtus.pro has been unable to get their game going lately. The team finished in last place at Starladder CIS RMR 2021 without showing any action. At IEM Cologne 2021, the Bears also started badly by losing to BIG 0-2, but then pulled themselves together and managed to get three wins in a row. But yes, the opponents were not very strong, Complexity hasn't shown their game for a long time and NiP lacks stability, of course, plays great, but there are questions to most of the rest of the team. In the last match, the Bears won both maps in the extra rounds, and this victory can not be attributed to their confidence.

Virtus.pro has over 50% victory rate only on Inferno. I think the Bears won't make anything up and will pick that card, even though they lost their last face-to-face game. But it's unlikely our team will win. If you look at the victories of Virtus.pro on Inferno. Almost all of the victory rate (which is already pretty mediocre) scored on Team Spirit (the worst map), forZe (one of the worst) 100PG (a no to strong team), and BIG (a month ago, the Germans had this card was always in the first stage of bans). Not the most impressive opponents. Astralis on their background look much more powerful, especially when you consider that they themselves often pick this map with their choice and are very confident in it. Of the other options, there's only Overpass. I have more faith in that one, but will they pick it? Who knows. Picking Dust2 will be a mistake, and after the Danes' matches with Faze and NAVI, teams that are still in the tournament, by the way, the desire to pick this map should disappear.

We can’t say that the Astralis were surprised to make the playoffs, the team did not fall below a level of bad performance, but in the decisive stages of major tournaments has not been in a long time. Therefore, their results should be treated with caution. At IEM Cologne 2021, the Danes look good so far. In the first two games, they didn't lose a single map and further, they lost only to Natus Vincere that almost all analysts and commentators elevate to the top-1, at least of this tournament.

В поражении от NAVI по большей части виноваты сами. Датчане решили зачем-то пикать Ancient, а не Inferno, что лично у меня вызвало большие вопросы. На Inferno они выиграли четыре из шести очных матчей, но пикнули Ancient. Слабо верится, что они NAVI's defeat was mostly their own fault. The Danes decided to pick Ancient instead of Inferno for some reason, which raised big questions for me personally. They won four of their six head-to-head matches on Inferno, but they kicked Ancient. I find it hard to believe that they cooked it, since, on the map, probably half of the kills were done from the back and sides of the players. The complete lack of understanding of movements on the map in the case of exchanges just doesn't give you the right to think that the Astralis prepared this map well. There should be no such mistake with VP. In my opinion, they will take either Dust2 or Inferno, depending on what VP themselves choose because they can also take Inferno. There's also Vertigo, on which Virtus.pro has a terrible win rate, but they don't play it that bad and maybe only slightly worse than the Danes. On this map, Astralis have almost no advantage, and they played it a very long time ago, and it all comes down to how well the team has prepared before the tournament.

The last face-to-face matches were held in a very hard fight, with the maximum number of maps. From this match, you can also expect a hard fight, breaking the average in each match. In my opinion, the key maps in this encounter will be Inferno and Dust2. On both of these maps, I think the Danes will be a little stronger.

Bookmakers offer odds of 1.66 for Astralis to win, which looks like a good option. We can also bet on the Total Maps Played Under 2.5 bet for odds of about 1.80.