Team Aster vs Fnatic Prediction: Aster to beat Fnatic for the first time ever

One of the most important international Dota 2 tournaments, the PGL Arlington Major 2022, will continue in the United States on Wednesday, August 10. Team Aster and Fnatic will face off in the fourth match of the upper bracket quarter-final series.

PGL Arlington Major 2022 is a major international cyber-sports tournament in Dota 2. The tournament in the U.S. will be the second and final major event of the 2021/22 DPC season. Top 17 teams from around the world will compete for the prize pool of $500,000 and 4,570 DPC points from August 4th till August 14th.

This is a hard time for Team Aster. The Chinese won Group B with confidence, but the playoff stage of the international tournament is not certain to go as well. They have problems at these stages of the internationals, but it seems that Team Aster has worked on their mental state. Though, the stage and prime time can play a cruel trick on them, especially considering that Fnatic has three players from the American squad TSM.

Before heading to the U.S. major, the guys from Team Aster decided to give themselves a little warm-up and participated in closed qualifications for the August major international tournament ESL One Malaysia 2022. Notably, of all the tops, only Team Aster players volunteered to participate in this mini-tournament. The slot, as expected, went to them without any problems.

Team Aster players followed suit with PSG.LGD and played the summer round of the DPC league without stress. On the whole, Team Aster finished well in the final league, securing second place in the replay. But more important for the team is a successful performance in the LAN tournaments, the Major, and ESL One Malaysia 2022, where the guys should sail through these qualifications. This will help them feel confident on the LAN, because so far they are the kings of the online, and the team has big problems on the stage.

Team Aster had a mixed success in the spring tour, especially comparing to them in January: the team won second place in the first DPC league, in the replay the team defeated the resistance from RNG. Then the guys reinforced the result with a championship at the Intel World Open Beijing, which was not an incredible sensation, but the result was still unexpected. After the Chinese New Year, the players began to perform more relaxed. Extremely poor performance in the regional finals of the DPC leagues (3rd place out of 4), then not reaching the finals of the OGA Dota PIT Season 6: China (3rd place). All that doesn't change the main point — Team Aster remains one of the main favorites to start the third cycle of the 2021/22 season, the more so in the second regional final.

Team Aster is one of China's youngest teams, formed in late 2018 and already a top team in its region. Last season was a mixed bag for the guys; if we evaluate their results within the Chinese region, they are very cool: vice-champions of the first DPC league, champions of the second DPC league, champions of two seasons of i-League 2021. Even PSG LGD can't boast the same results in China, but on the international scene, Aster played just awful: only 9-12th place in the two majors in Singapore and Kyiv, an unsatisfactory result in TI10 as well — 13-16th place. You can look for excuses, they didn't play in full squad in Singapore, and at TI10 the whole team suffered from COVID, but the fact is that nobody makes concessions to the top Chinese team.

Something had to be done and the bosses of the organization made two substitutions in the squad: Ori, who moved from Vici Gaming, will play in position two and Siamese.C, who spent the last season in the Aster Aries youth team, has arrived in the five position.

A very strange situation: as many as three players at Fnatic did not get visas and the Major organization allowed this Asian team to play with three (!!!) substitutes at once. It is noteworthy that a trio of players were found in TSM, so it is rather an American team, because Asians are in the minority in this temporary stack called Fnatic. Everyone immediately buried this team. However, they continue to surprise, having lost only once, and that to the undefeated PSG.LGD. At the same time, they became fourth in a tough group that A is. Fnatic beat Team Liquid (2-0) and drew five times with RNG, Outsiders, OG, Talon Esports, and Thunder Awaken. And the guys obviously have no intention to stop there!

After TI10 there were changes at Fnatic: Armel, an experienced player from TNC Predator, sat on the mid, while Jaunuel from OB Esports x Neon got the hard-support. In January the team was completely re-synchronized and Fnatic became an powerful once again.

At the end of the first DPC they managed to make a comeback and reach the Majors, which was canceled at the last minute. In the second DPC league there were no such problems, they quietly occupied the top-3 preparing for the majors.

In Sweden, as part of the group stage, the magic of numbers followed the team. They finished the entire first stage with the statistics of 2-2-2, which did not allow them to start in the winners. In the first match of the playoffs, the guys received a familiar opponent — T1, overcoming them with a score of 2-1. And then there was the game with OG (1-2), which was also supposed to have ended with a victory, only for the Europeans to make a comeback on the third map. After that OG couldn't be stopped. Fnatic finished the major in 7th-8th place, which is not bad overall.

It's been a long time since these teams have played each other, namely since early 2020. Historically, Fnatic easily handled Team Aster, but times are different now.

Team Aster will win this match with a handicap of -12.5 frags, odds on that are 1.83 at 1xbet.

The individual total of Team Aster's frags in the match will be more than 61.5, the odds on it are 1.70 at 22bet.

In general, I think that this match will not do without three maps played, so I suggest betting on Maps Total Over (2.5) for 2.20 at Bet365.