Welcome back! Congratulations to Navi, who took down the Blast Premier Global Final on Sunday after running the gauntlet thru the losers bracket. Have no fear though, the next tournament starts immediately, as CS Summit 7 kicks off on Monday. It’s a 6 game slate for the main slate, so I recommend checking out the article I just posted about lineup construction for 5+ game slates. Do keep in mind that most of the slates were 5 gamers and this is a 6 gamer, but I don’t think the strategy will change that drastically. Lock is at 8:00 am EST, and the games are:
Fnatic (52% implied win probability) vs Complexity
OG (87%) vs Dignitas
Mouz (57%) vs Faze
Heroic (85%) vs MiBR
Furia (69%) vs Cloud 9
VP (55%) vs NiP
Sub Risk/Roster Changes
Buckle up because this is going to be long. Fortunately, there’s minimal sub risk, but boy are there a lot of roster changes. I’ll go in the order I listed above:
Fnatic – Flusha has stepped down, they’ve signed jackinho to replace him. He’s a 21 year old with minimal experience outside of Sweden, but has a won and played very well in a bunch of Swedish tournaments in 2020. He also apparently plays matchmaking with Brollan frequently. However, he is an AWPer who will apparently not be AWPing, as he said in an interview that JW will remain the primary AWP at least for now. Take any projections for him with a grain of salt as his only stats are from those Swedish only tournaments where his team’s dominated (he was playing with a couple NiP guys in the most recent one).
Complexity – Jugi is still standing in for Poizon, same as Blast
OG – No changes or sub risk
Dignitas – No changes or sub risk
Mouz – acoR has been brought in to replace ChrisJ, who has been benched, and take over the AWP role. It’s also been rumored that Karrigan will be leaving, and when the team tweeted about the acoR signing (1/23) they mentioned more news “shortly”. HLTV still has Karrigan listed as playing, but frankly it doesn’t really matter as Karrigan should be nowhere near your lineups no matter what on this 6 game slate.
Faze – No changes as of yet, it’s been rumored that Twistzz is going to sign with them and also maybe that Karrigan will. I’m not sure who Twistzz would be replacing, but Karrigan would be replacing Olofmeister, who reportedly wants to retire. Again, much like Karrigan himself (for Mouz) Olof should be nowhere near your lineups no matter whether or not he’s playing.
Heroic – No changes or sub risk
MiBR – This an entirely new team. They signed 4 members from Boom, who were far and away the best Brazilian team in 2020 (Furia and MiBR not counting since they play in NA/EU). Unfortunately for MiBR, the one member they didn’t get was Felps, Boom’s best player, who has joined Taco and other Brazilian veterans as a part of the new Godsent squad. Instead, MiBR got Danoco, who was solid for his team, Bravos, but is definitely not on the same level as Felps. A quick note here on their projections, they’re all super inflated because their stats are all from SA tournaments, where they dominated. Take them with a massive grain of salt as like the odds show, they’re likely to lose pretty handily to Heroic.
Furia – Junior has not yet made it to Europe, don’t play him. Honda will be filling in again. Honda is unfortunately not in the player pool.
Cloud 9 – Woxic is evidently one of the worst teammates known to man, as he’s been benched for non-CS reasons by Cloud 9. They’ve brought in Xeppaa. This of course leaves the AWP role open, as Xeppaa is going to be entry fragging for them. I’ve seen chatter that Alex or Es3tag will be the new AWPer. It’s worth keeping an eye on, as the AWP role could increase the DFS value of either player, assuming they are at least decent at it.
VP – No changes, no sub risk
NiP – No changes, no sub risk
Actual Slate Analysis
For the 1st time in what feels like forever, we have a Tier 1(ish) slate that doesn’t have S1mple or Zywoo (or both) on it. The first thing I do on these big slates is check if there are any teams I can eliminate completely. On Monday for me it’s Dignitas and MiBR. Dignitas are just not good. In their only match in 2021, they got swept by Sinners. They are dirt cheap, but even so I’ll pass as it’s unlikely anyone gets to the 60-70 point range, which realistically you’re looking for to win a tournament even with their depressed prices. MiBR I have some hope for, but they draw a tough matchup against Heroic to start the tournament. It also hurts that they’re a (likely) worse version of Boom, who already would’ve been a big underdog in this spot. I mentioned this above, but be very careful if you decide not to totally take them out of your player pool, they all have inflated projections because of playing in Europe. I have at least some interest in the other 10 teams.
There’s one player who stands out to me in particular as being mispriced, and that’s Issaa. Yes, he struggled a bit to close out 2020, but most people, myself included, would still consider him OG’s 3rd best player. He’s priced as their bottom fragger, a full $1,000 cheaper than NBK at only $6.4k. He may not be a completely free square, but he’s close to it. We have seen OG lose as gigantic favorites before, but that was to a Gen.G team that was an unknown quantity, who proved to be at least a bit better than the odds in that first matchup dictated. I don’t expect a repeat here, and thus I’ll be locking in a lot of Issaa.
Another player who is wildly underpriced is Krimz. After looking like Fnatic’s best player for much of the end of 2020, he’s somehow priced as their 4th most expensive, and is only $6.2k. They’re much smaller favorites against Col than OG is against Dignitas, but Krimz (and Brollan for that matter) frequently put up solid scores even in FNC losses. I’ll have a ton of Krimz on Monday.
Lastly, all of C9 except for Xeppaa are pretty underpriced. They’re fairly large underdogs against Furia, who did look to have only missed the slightest of beats with Honda replacing Hen1, but I do think they are very live in this matchup. Obviously whoever ends up on the AWP actually being good at it is hugely important, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take in order to get the cost savings they provide. Alex in particular is already a good fragging IGL, him AWPing too would just be an added bonus. I like him and Floppy a lot at their prices.
With all those underpriced players you can afford to pay up for some studs. My favorite studs to target are Ropz, who himself is honestly mispriced at only $8.0k, the Heroic studs, who should benefit from some of that patented Brazilian aggression in that MiBR likely won’t go for saves all that often, and of course OG, where Valde and Mantuu are appropriately priced but still strong plays.
Top Captains
Ropz is my favorite captain play on the slate from a raw points perspective. I expect the addition of acoR to be a boost for Ropz, as acoR should help win more rounds, which means a higher percentage of rounds where Ropz has a rifle in his hands (and ideally, his opponents don’t). Ropz insane kill share may come down a tiny bit, but I expect that will be because his teammates are getting more kills, not because Ropz is getting less (again, a product of winning more rounds). The only drawback I see here is ownership, as Ropz could easily be the most popular captain of the day.
Stavn is also a strong captain play. He’s the most expensive player on the slate, which should keep his ownership down a bit, but he has the upside to absolutely clean up against this new look MiBR team. Same goes for Valde, who is the 2nd most expensive player on the slate. He has tremendous upside, particularly if OG stomps Dignitas as expected.
I also don’t mind playing value captains on this slate. I expect Issaa to be fairly popular, and I’ll likely fade him for that reason. Krimz will be my pivot here, and while he may not be super sneaky the slate is big enough that I’m not worried about him carrying massive ownership. I also don’t mind dipping down to Alex or Floppy, as they’ll both let you load up on studs elsewhere.
That’s it for me, good luck on Monday!
