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Hola CS:GO fans! ESL One is back with more action all the way from the wonderful country of Brazil! It will be held in the city of Belo Horizonte, which is the sixth largest city in Brazil. The tournament will have $200,000 in prizes and it will be played on the wonderful Minierinho Arena.
ESL One will start on June 13th and will run all the way up until the 17th. This tournament is also part of the Intel-sponsored Grand Slam which has its own prize pool of $1,000,000. In this article, you will find more information about the event itself, as well as our betting tips for the opening ESL One matches.
Format
This will be a short tournament with only 8 teams on the roster. Four teams will get their seeds by way of invites and the other half gets their spots through regional qualifications. The invited squads are FaZe Clan, Team Liquid, mousesports and Brazil’s own, SK Gaming. The remaining 4 invites are Space Soldiers and BIG from the European qualifier, Ghost Gaming from the North American Qualifier and another Brazilian squad, Nao Tem Como from the South American Qualifier.
Roster changes
There are a lot of roster changes as well that happened right before the tournament. There are minor changes then, there are big changes. For the minor ones, Oskar from mouse sports will not be playing but n0thing, who used to play for Cloud 9 and Old Guys Club will act as a stand-in player.
We were also excited with the news of Olofmeister returning to the FaZe lineup but was disappointed again as he will not be playing due to personal reasons. Cromen from Heroic will act as a replacement for Olof, but that means that Xizt is no longer in the lineup of FaZe Clan. BIG also signed Smooya from Epsilon eSports.
On to the major changes. First one is Ghost Gaming. Torqued was originally the squad that was going to play in Belo Horizonte. However, due to their disappointing run during the Dreamhack Open Tour where they were eliminated in the first round, Swag and AZK left the team. That left 2 open slots on their roster. The remaining players Steel, Koosta and Pollo were later on acquired by Ghost Gaming including their coach James. The slot was given to Ghost since most of the Torqued team is still on the roster.
The second major roster change is Nao Tem Como. They are actually somewhat of a super team, comprised of stars from SK, Luminosity Gaming, and Immortals. Their IGL Bit came from 100 Thieves, kNgV- and Fnx used to play for Immortals, Felps came from SK and lastly, Chelo and the coach Apoka came from Luminosity Gaming. The team is also founded by FNX and this is going to be their first major match.
CS:GO ESL One 2018 Belo Horizonte betting tips
Now with those out of the way, the tournament is going to feature a double elimination format during the group stages. The playoffs will be single elimination. All matches will be on a Best of 3 format while the grand finals on a Best of 5. Group A is comprised of FaZe Clan, SK Gaming, Space Soldiers and Ghost Gaming. Group B is comprised of mousesports, Team Liquid, BIG and Nao Tem Como.
The opening matches to watch out for are the FaZe vs Ghost match in Group A and the Mouz vs Nao Tem Como match in Group B.
vs 
vs First, for the FaZe match, I predict them winning in their opening match. The Ghost Gaming lineup has just been reformed recently and they have not had much practice yet and that will affect the way they play against an established team. Even with a new player on the roster, FaZe is still going to be ok due to Guardian and Karrigan being the anchors of the team.
This will also be another attempt for them to gain another win for the Intel Grand Slam Series, which gets them closer to that $1,000,000 cash prize. With Astralis out of the tournament, and their only Grand Slam rival in the tournament, SK, out of the cash prize, there is no one that can stop this FaZe Clan march all the way up to the grand finals.
vs 
vs Second opening match under my radar is the Nao Tem Como vs mousesports match. This will be Nao Tem Como’s first major match, but then again, the members are not strangers to the big stage. As I explained earlier, the lineup consists of players from 3 of the biggest squads that Brazil has, which are SK Gaming, Luminosity Gaming, and Immortals. They are the dream team that the Brazilians have been wishing for a very long time.
However, they will be facing a mousesports squad that is hot on its trail right now. Mouz has recently been on a hot streak, with first place finishes in Star Ladder and Budapest, then coming in on the semi-finals during Sydney. Aside from that, Jordan “n0thing” Gilbert has been on a very hot streak while playing in the ESEA open with his other team, Old Guys Club, which comprises of Shroud and Sean Gares, which are all from old Cloud 9.
Even with a stacked line up of Nao Tem Como, I still would think that Mouz will come out of the top. With their own current streak and also n0thing on his own hot streak on ESEA, this opening match is one of the ones that we should watch out for when June 13 hits.
Now, this would not be complete without the semi-final predictions and also the teams that would reach the grand finals, so let’s go on with it! The first team on this list would be for sure FaZe Clan. If you are still asking me why, then you either do not follow the CS:GO Pro scene closely, or just a casual FaZe hater.
They have been one of the most successful teams recently along with Astralis and Natus Vincere. Without those two other squads in the lineup of this tournament, this should be an easy Semi-Finals and also a Grand Finals spot for FaZe Clan. Also, they are still chasing the Grand Slam win, and going one up against Astralis for the $1,000,000 prize is what they surely have in mind going into this tournament.
Second semi-final slot is most likely going to SK Gaming. Even though they are inconsistent recently, they still have that advantage over other Group A squads. That advantage is the experience that they have in the big stage. As inconsistent as they are, the other two squads are going to have a hard time to climb to get that slot. With Space Soldiers showing a streak of inconsistency as well and Ghost just being newly formed, I see that SK will still take matches away from them and run with it all the way to the Semis.
Next up are squads from Group B. The first Semifinal slot would be taken by Mouz for sure. Although they have competitors in the group such as Nao Tem Como and also Team Liquid, it’s their current form and performance that will push them all the way to the playoffs. As much as I like all-star lineups such as Nao Tem Como, I think that will still play against them when playing against well established squads such as Mouz and also Liquid.
I also thnk that the second semi-final slot goes to Liquid with the same reasons above. Liquid will just steamroll BIG in their opening match due to the vast experience difference that they have. Although BIG could surprise us, I’m not holding my breath for that.
NTC’s inexperience on the big stage as a team could also work against them, thus I am giving Liquid the second slot. Although NTC is a very strong contender, unless either Liquid or Mouz makes a very big blunder that could cost them the game, I do not see NTC advancing to the Semifinals.
Thank you for reading our CS:GO ESL One Belo Horizonte betting tips till the end! Check out our other esports predictions and tournament previews and good luck!
