Wednesday we are back with another huge 6 game slate of ESL One CS:GO. The tournaments are pretty decent on Draftkings, hopefully we can get them filled! Shoutout to IanJ, a regular in the TESD discord, on his 2nd place in the big $333 Tuesday, he was ever so close to the takedown. The games on the slate Wednesday are:
Complexity (78% implied win chance) vs MAD Lions
Navi (61%) vs Mouz
Faze (58%) vs Heroic
G2 (67%) vs MiBR
Liquid (82%) vs Cloud 9
EG (93%) vs Triumph
Most of these teams we have either seen since the player break or haven’t made any roster moves. The notable exception is FaZe. Bymas is out, now signed as the 6th man for Mouz, and Kjaerbye is in. This should be an upgrade (for now, Bymas is still very young and getting better) and I expect big things from this FaZe team.
Pricing/Ownership
Pricing is extremely tight on Wednesday, except for in 2 spots, one glaringly obvious and one that I’m hoping goes overlooked. The glaringly obvious spot is of course Grim. He is only $7.8k while teammates NAF and Elige are at $9.8k and $9.6k respectively. I have no idea why Draftkings keeps pricing team Liquid like this. I do think Grim is currently being overprojected across the industry, I think he should be more on par with the projections of NAF and Elige as they seem to take turns top fragging, but there is no way he should be $2k less than them. Everyone and their mother will be playing Grim, but it’s extremely hard not to given the lack of quality value plays on favorites. I’ll certainly have my fair share of him, at least in the flex.
The player I’m hoping Grim overshadows in terms of ownership, is Electronic. At only $7.6k he is the other player on a favorite that is anywhere remotely close to the top when you sort our projections by “value”. Since he is priced so similarly to Grim, I’m hoping that suppresses his ownership a bit. There will probably be quite a few lineups that play both and Electronic will also come in highly owned, but hey I can dream. Either way I will have quite a bit of exposure here. Speaking of Navi, S1mple is somehow not the most expensive player on the slate. S1mple in my opinion is the only player in the world on Zywoo’s level. He is not quite as good as Zywoo in terms of fantasy performance, but if Zywoo deserves to be $12k S1mple deserves to be $11.5k. On this slate, he is only $10k. I expect him to be high owned, but am hoping that with the lack of value his captain ownership stays fairly low.
As I’ve already mentioned, there is very little value on favorites, so where can we find value on this slate? I think the most popular places to get value are going to be Mouz and Heroic. They have the two best odds, and project pretty well. For Mouz it should continue to be the Ropz and Frozen show with a side of Woxic, and hopefully we are all familiar with Heroic at this point, any of Stavn, niko and Teses could be the top fragger on the day, and occasionally Cadian goes nuts with his AWP. I like all of these guys as plays, and will definitely run some lineups with players from both teams. Tuesday showcased how your team doesn’t necessarily have to win to put up a strong showing (Brollan, Hen1, Koosta, etc) so don’t necessarily think of it like you need a double upset for that lineup to be viable.
Along those same lines, there are 3 teams that I don’t think stand much if any chance of actually winning on Wednesday. Those teams are Mad Lions, Triumph, and Cloud 9. Mad Lions and Cloud 9 have both looked horrible since the break ended, although at least Mad Lions has the excuse of having lost Bubzkji, now playing (and looking great) for Astralis. Cloud 9 have just been bad. Triumph is still hurting from the loss of Grim, but I think they will continue to improve as they have some promising players. Now, if I want to be able to play S1mple (or anyone priced near him) at captain, I’m probably going to need to dip my toes into some players from these teams, as they are really the only players below $6k on the slate. I definitely wouldn’t play more than 1 player from any of these teams in a single lineup, and honestly I probably won’t play more than 1 player from all 3 combined in a single lineup. This will keep me from needing to string multiple low probability (putting up a respectable score when your team loses handily) events together in the same lineup. When I do play these players, I will limit my pool to Acor and Sjuush from MAD Lions, oSee and Floppy from Cloud 9, and Junior and Penny from Triumph.
I think the game that might go overlooked a bit as a whole is G2 vs MiBR. Neither team projects all that well and pricing for both teams is in an awkward spot. There are bigger favorites priced around G2, and smaller underdogs priced near MiBR. I will definitely be over the field on the G2 side here, as I think MiBR’s trademark Brazilian aggression will be punished by G2 in this matchup. I like Hunter is particular at $8.6k, he has upside to be the top scorer on the slate.
Top Captains
As I already mentioned, I think Grim will be far and away the most popular captain on this slate. I genuinely think playing this talented Liquid roster will limit his upside most days, so I plan on fading Grim here. He could legitimately end up north of 20% owned at captain, which is insane given that there are 6 games on this slate. I may have 1 or 2 Grim captain lineups as a hedge, but I much prefer a few other plays Wednesday.
One of those plays is Electronic. He makes for a direct pivot off of Grim captain, and if Electronic outscores Grim you pass a huge chunk of the field who will undoubtedly have similar lineup constructions outside of the captain spot. Again staying on Navi, I think S1mple is going to come in far too low owned in the captain slot. Most people will be unwilling to play anyone from the 3 big underdogs, and without a player from one of them it’s hard to make S1mple’s salary work. I will definitely be over the field here.
I also like Hunter quite a bit in the captain slot. I already mentioned I think he can put up the top score on the slate, and his captain ownership should be virtually non-existent. Sign me up for 5-10% Hunter captain lineups.
I plan on mostly fading EG as a whole in the captain slot. Vegas thinks they should dispatch of Triumph very easily, and I tend to agree. This will definitely attract a fair bit of ownership to them, but winning to easily can actually limit upside a bit. I am looking for 90+ in my captain slot and I think there are better choices at lower ownership to get me there on this slate.
From underdogs, I don’t think any of Ropz, Frozen, niko, or Stavn are going to be incredibly sneaky, as plenty will go there for captains to get salary relief, but I still like the plays, as “plenty” in this case means in the ballpark of 5% of lineups.
I may pivot off of S1mple to Blamef captain a few times, and both Obo and k0nfig make for interesting pivots off of Grim.
Lastly, I’ll have a couple of lineups with MiBR captains, as I think they will go virtually unowned, but possess high upside if MiBR can pull of the upset.
I will not be using any captains from C9, Triumph, or Mad Lions, I think it’s simply too thin on a play.
Good luck on Wednesday!
