We have another 2 game slate on Tuesday. Lock is again at 10:30 am EST and the games are:
G2 (55% implied win probability) vs Complexity
Vitality (78%) vs EG
****UPDATE 2/9 9:30 am EST***
Apex is stepping down for a bit to deal with some personal issues. I wish him all the best and hope he’s able to come back soon. That said, this totally changes things for Vitality in DFS. Both Nivera and Shox will now be playing all maps, no more subbing. Apex of course was IGL, so the impact on Vitality as a whole will likely be more than just his fragging potential. This does 2 things. It makes EG more live today. We don’t know how much Nivera has practiced with the team outside of his normal 3 maps. We also don’t know who is going to IGL. However, if you believe in Vitality as a team still, it makes it much easier to stack them. Nivera becomes probably my favorite play on the slate, and Shox is definitely viable now as well. I’ll have lots of Nivera in both the flex and cpt slot, as his cheap salary lets you jam in the other studs on the slate.
Sub Risk/Roster Changes
No sub risk or roster changes for EG, G2, of Complexity.
Vitality are still the same situation, Nivera subs in for Shox on Inferno and Misutaaa on Dust 2 and Nuke. Unfortunately this is the late game on Tuesday, so we won’t know the maps before lock like we did on Monday. We’ll have to take our best guesses at map picks for this series.
In 2021 EG have played 5 matches against European teams, so not counting the matches against Liquid and Furia. In 4 of those matches, EG have banned Dust 2. In the 5th, EG left Dust 2 open against Big, who promptly picked it and won 16-6. I am going to build my lineups under the assumption that they ban it again here. We then know Vitality will ban Train, as they always do. EG have picked Inferno in all of their recent series, even picking it into Furia. There’s a strong chance they pick it again in this spot.
If EG pick Inferno, it puts Vitality in an interesting spot (assuming Dust 2 is banned, if Dust 2 isn’t banned I’m very confident they’ll pick it). The only other map EG have played more than twice over the past 3 months (again, assuming Dust 2 is banned) is Nuke. They have a respectable 57% win rate on it. Vitality could either A) Decide to pick Nuke for that very reason, they have plenty of film to study from EG their and Vitality believes they are simply the superior team and doesn’t want to run into any surprise strats they aren’t ready for. Or B) They pick a map EG doesn’t play too often in the hopes that EG is either rusty on it or doesn’t have great strats. This is basically what Vitality did against Complexity on Monday, picking Overpass when they could’ve picked Inferno. Vitality promptly lost that map 16-2. Now, Vertigo is a map that EG don’t like very much (it’s what they ban when they don’t ban Dust 2), and Vitality do seem to like to pick it from time to time, so I could see this being their pick.
If EG don’t pick Inferno, the likeliest pick for them would be Nuke. This would leave Inferno open open for Vitality to pick, but everything I said above would still apply, so I could see them going to Vertigo still. It’s worth noting that on Monday when given the choice between Nuke and Inferno for map 3 in the Complexity series, Vitality picked Nuke (banned Inferno), so it is possibly they’re looking to switch things up and play Inferno less frequently.
Long story short, I’d be surprised if Inferno wasn’t one of the first two maps played in this series. I think there is a moderate chance Inferno and Nuke are the first two maps. What this means is I won’t be playing any Shox (who is expensive anyways at $8.8k), but will have a bit of Nivera, in Vitality 3 stacks. Those 3 stacks will not include Misutaaa, as I expect the 2 maps would be Inferno and Nuke as EG appear likely to ban Dust 2. I will have a bit of Misutaaa in 3 stacks that don’t include Nivera, although Nivera is cheaper and a better player.
Slate Analysis
Someone at DK must really love Cerq, because they keep pricing him at the very bottom to ensure his ownership is through the roof. $4.4k for him is an absolute joke. jks is also still bottom barrel priced at only $5.0k. Again, either or both guys really open things up to get to the higher priced plays. I again expect Cerq’s ownership to dwarf jks’, especially since Vitality only has 3 guys you can confidently play.
For whatever reason, there’s something about playing with Poizon that unlocks K0nfig. In turn, this makes Complexity as a whole a dangerous team, as evidenced by how close the odds are against G2. K0nfig is expensive at $9.0k, and with BlameF well below him K0nfig likely won’t have insane ownership even after going off on Monday. I do think Complexity are live in this spot, and will certainly have a few 3 stacks.
On the other side, G2 swept EG on Monday, but their fantasy scores left a lot to be desired. Amanek topped fragged for them while KennyS and Niko bottom fragged. While all 5 players are definitely in play since it’s only a 2 game slate, I wouldn’t expect this to become the norm, so don’t overreact to Amanek’s performance. There’s definitely a case to be made for him as a value play, but don’t expect another 70+ point performance. You’re essentially banking on him to score 50-60 points and for that to beat others at his price point (namely Cerq, jks, and Nivera).
The Vitality vs EG game is interesting in that do you choose to listen to narrative/eye test or the Vegas odds. Throughout the broadcast on Monday the announcers were mentioning how Apex’s tilting might be affecting Vitality’s play, and that he himself had acknowledged it. Well on Monday he basically tilted off the face of the earth, and it’s hard to blame him. After jumping out to a 10-3 on Mirage, Vitality lost the rest of the series by a round score of 29-3. Twenty nine rounds to three. Even Zywoo fell apart, going 2-17 on Overpass. The question becomes can they regain their composure in time for Tuesday’s match vs EG. Vegas seems to think so, installing them as huge favorites. I’m not so sure. While I definitely don’t expect Zywoo to struggle again like he did on Overpass Monday, Vitality as a whole have looked very beatable lately. I doubt I’ll run any EG 3 stacks, but EG 2 stacks with Zywoo are definitely viable. While I’ll mostly use Cerq, using a Brehze + Ethan combo is still pretty cheap and should be low owned with everyone gravitating to the basically free Cerq.
I already outlined above that I’m only going to use a little bit of Nivera because of the uncertainty around whether he’ll get to play the first 2 maps, and the low odds he plays all 3, but IF I knew he was going to play at least the first two maps he’d be one of my favorite plays. At only $5.2k he would be just as underpriced as Cerq or jks. I like him a lot as a pivot off of them.
Top Captains
After letting down an absolutely massive chunk of the field on Monday, I’ll be going right back to Zywoo on Tuesday. I expect him to bounce back in a big way in this series.
Outside of Zywoo, Niko was also a big letdown on Monday, even though his team swept. While I’m not as confident he’ll bounce back, as G2 does distribute their kills a bit more evenly than Vitality, I do like him as a pivot off Zywoo. I also like K0nfig on the other side of the game. With his price inflated he likely won’t see a ton of captain ownership, but he does have huge upside.
In the midrange, I expect BlameF to pick up a decent amount of captain ownership. I don’t love the play because of that, but he definitely has big time upside.
I don’t mind Cerq or even jks at captain as a way of cost savings, but my favorite cheap captain play is Nivera. Much like in the flex, I won’t be doing this often, but I do think the upside is worth the risk in maybe 1 or 2 lineups. Playing him allows you to get a unique lineup construction and he should have virtually 0 captain ownership. Realistically, if he sits a map it’s going to kill your chance to win a tournament whether in the flex or captain slot, so even though it may seem extra risky to play him at captain the risk in my opinion is effectively the same. Sure, captain Nivera sitting out a map hurts your chances to min cash more than flex Nivera sitting out a map, but if I was playing to min cash I’d play a double up (where Nivera would be nowhere near my lineup, just to be clear on that).
That’s it from me, good luck on Tuesday!
