by ESL Pro League Season 10 Asia will enter its second and final stage on Wednesday, November 13, with four teams fighting for the continental title and a place in the US $600,000 ESL Pro League Finals in December. Let’s check out the opening two fixtures of the second stage, where we will see TYLOO take on Lucid Dream and ALPHA Red clash with Invictus Gaming.
Invictus Gaming vs ALPHA Red
Invictus Gaming (-312.5) and ALPHA Red (+202) finished the first round of ESL Pro League as the second seeds in their respective groups.
IG lost their opening fixture against TYLOO (1-2), defeated ViCi in the second fixture (2-0) and dismantled MVP.PK on the last day (2-0) to secure a spot in the second round. A-Red edged past BOOT.ds (2-1) and Big Time Regal (2-1) but fell short against Lucid Dream (0-2) on the final day of the group stage.
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Invictus will enter this fixture as short-priced favourites, and it’s easy to see why. Not only did they perform far better than ALPHA in the opening stage of the tournament, they boast a far superior team all-round.
That said, Wednesday will mark the first time these two sides meet on the battlefield, which will introduce some level of uncertainty.
Global power rankings show IG are the stronger side, but we cannot disregard a-Red here. They put together some solid performances in the OMEN Challenger Series, which makes us believe they can at least chip one map from IG.
Prediction: Alpha Red +1.5 – -140.85 at BetOnline
TYLOO vs Lucid Dream
The clash between TYLOO (-625) and Lucid Dream (+337) is expected to be a one-sided affair, and the odds provided by esports bookmakers reflect that.
TYLOO entered the tournament as the strongest Chinese team and as undisputed favourites to win it all. They sit 35th in the HLTV world rankings, while Lucid Dream sit 35 ranks below them at 70th.
After starting the first round with a thrilling 22-18 overtime win against Invictus Gaming, TYLOO dismantled MVP.PK (2-0) and ViCi Gaming (2-0) to make certain of top spot in the the East Asian Group. Lucid Dream, meanwhile, took down Big Time Regal, Boot.ds and a-Red without losing a single map, making them the only team to enter the second stage with a perfect record.
In team news, Lucid Dream benched Phoomphat “qqGod” Phojjanart last week and replaced him with 18-year-old Teerapat “Akino” Jinyong, who formerly played for Astro. He made his his debut on Tuesday, November 5 in the Qi Banja Luka Asian qualifiers, where LD lost to 0-2 to MVP.PK. Akino earned a praiseworthy 1.05 rating on that day, but it remains to be seen whether he is an upgrade on qqGod.
Looking at what the teams have shown so far, it would be hard to side with LD over TYLOO. The two sides have met twice this year and both times it was TYLOO who convincingly won 2-0. Adding to that is the LD’s recent defeat against MVP.PK, who were crushed by TYLOO in the group stage.
Lucid Dream can have their moments of greatness, but TYLOO are heavy favourites for good reason. Expect a dominant performance from the Chinese contenders.
Prediction: TYLOO -1.5 – -153.85 at BetOnline
