Preview of EPICENTER 2019

General information

EPICENTER 2019 will start on 17 December and end up on 22 December. Crocus Expo Center in Moscow will be the venue for the event. From 17 to 19 December, the matches of the group stage will be held. 20 December will be a day off for the teams. On 21-22 December, the meetings of the final stage will be taking place. All the battles of the tournament will be held in the Bo3 format including the start meetings and the grand final.

As for the prize pool, it will consist of $500,000, $250,000 out of it will be received by the winner. The vice-champion will get the second main prize which is $120,000.

Favorites of the tournament

mousesports (position in the HLTV rating — #5)
Win odds: 3.30

mousesports is considered to be the main favorite both in our list and among sportsbooks. This European team won three tournaments in a row and earned $561,500 in three weeks which proves that their gaming shape is great. We should mark that at the last championship mouze even did not play in their full swing as they were taking part in the competition with a substitute and their battle at the grand final took place with two substitutes but, nevertheless, mouze won. ropz said in his interview that EPICENTER 2019 is a high priority for the players while their participation in cs_summit 5 is a chance not to lose their shape and play at the professional matches.

Along with us, experts from sportsbook companies believe in the victory of the European team more than in anyone else’s and evaluate the chances of the roster as 3,30. The team got to Group B together with EG, forZe, and Virtus.pro. ropz and his teammates are to make it to the playoff and the grand final.

mousesports roster and rating of the players:

Chris ‘chrisJ’ de Jong — 1.00
Robin ‘ropz’ Kool — 1.22
Finn ‘Karrigan’ Andersen — 0.94
Özgür ‘woxic’ Eker — 1.15
David ‘frozen’ Čerňanský — 1.14
Allan ‘Rejin’ Petersen — coach

NAVI (position in the HLTV rating — #9)
Win odds: 4.00

Unlike the other favorites of the tournament, “Born to Win” will have an advantage which is the support of the audience. Natus Vincere got to the easiest Group A, which also includes EHOME, Heroic, and Team Vitality. None of the opponents is a great threat to them and that is why we ignore the questions like ‘Will “Born to Win” make it to the final stage?’. NAVI is likely to make it to the semifinal and perform on stage in front of the spectators, and there the team will get extremely motivated thanks to the audience. Natus Vincere must have the biggest fan base and huge number of the fans lives in the CIS region. Many viewers will make it to Moscow to root for NAVI and some of the best players in the world who represent “Born to Win” are to lead the team to the grand final at least, but it will be hard.

NAVI roster and rating of the players:

Egor ‘flamie’ Vasilev — 1.09
Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev — 1.31
Denis ‘electronic’ Sharipov — 1.24
Kirill ‘Boombl4’ Mikhailov — 1.07
Ladislav ‘GuardiaN’ Kovács — 0.98
Andrey ‘B1ad3’ Gorodenskiy — coach

Teams that have a chance

Team Vitality (position in the HLTV rating — #8)
Win odds: 4.00

Despite the fact that the experts from sportsbook companies defined Vitality as one of the main favorites, we do not agree with this opinion. This championship has at least two clearer contenders to victory and we have already told about it in our today’s material. As for Vitality, the players are in poor game shape and they have not participated in any LAN tournament for more than a month. It may affect the team’s results at the upcoming tournament negatively. As a reminder, the renewed team and shox performed well at the LAN final only once and it happened approximately two months ago at DreamHack Masters Malmo 2019. We do not see any premise for Vitality’s victory at EPICENTER 2019. Will the French make it to the semifinal? Definitely. The players got to Group A together with NAVI, EHOME, and Heroic. Will they get to the semifinal? If they are lucky, yes. But we will not expect to see them at the grand final as it is likely to be difficult to do for Vitality.

Team Vitality roster and rating of the players:

Dan ‘apEX’ Madesclaire — 0.96
Cédric ‘RpK’ Guipouy — 0.95
Mathieu ‘ZyWoo’ Herbaut — 1.28
Alex ‘ALEX’ McMeekin — 0.94
Richard ‘shox’ Papillon — 0.98
Rémy ‘XTQZZZ’ Quoniam — coach

Evil Geniuses (position in the HLTV rating — #3)
Win odds: 4.50

As for EG, it is not so black-and-white. On the one hand, it is one of the strongest teams in the USA, on the other hand, the team plays poorly at the fourth LAN tournament in a row. The team is to make it to the playoff and maybe right to the semifinal but we think that these five players are unlikely to pass to the grand final getting way to mouze, VItality or Natus Vincere, for example. Let’s mark the fact that the players of Evil Geniuses are bat adapting to the climate and lately they have been traveling around the world trying to have a successful performance. In our opinion, EG will take the 3-4 place in the tournament bracket.

Evil Geniuses roster and rating of the players:

Vincent ‘Brehze’ Cayonte — 1.14
Cvetelin ‘CeRq’ Dimitrov — 1.14
Ethan ‘Ethan’ Arnold — 1.12
Tarik ‘tarik’ Celik — 1.00
Peter ‘stanislaw’ Jarguz — 0.99
Chet ‘ImAPet’ Singh — coach

Heroic (position in the HLTV rating — #17)
Win odds: 13.0

Heroic is not the weakest Danish team that holds the 17 position in the world rating. The roster got renewed in October and over the last two months, the roster has performed at two championships. At DH Open Rotterdam 2019, the team got placed on the second position and won DreamHack Open Atlanta 2019. We should mark that the local teams will be much stronger than the participants the Danish faced at the previous competition. Heroic is likely to make it to the final stage and make it to the semifinal in the best case, but not further. We think that Heroic is to take the 5-6 position.

Heroic roster and rating of the players:

Patrick ‘es3tag’ Hansen — 1.11
Martin ‘stavn’ Lund — 1.18
Johannes ‘b0RUP’ Borup — 1.08
Marco ‘Snappi’ Pfeiffer — 1.04
Casper ‘cadiaN’ Møller — 1.13
Frederik ‘LOMME’ Nielsen — coach

Virtus.pro (position in the HLTV rating — #15)
Win odds: 26.0

We could get satisfaction from watching the roster when it performed as AVANGAR. Recently Jame and his teammates have moved to Virtus.pro and now they are going to uphold the honor of the famous organization based in the CIS. The majority of Virtus.pro’s fans are located in Moscow itself and, of course, they are to root for their favorites which will surely help them out while playing at the playoff they will make it to in our opinion.

Virtus.pro roster and rating of the players:

Timur ‘buster’ Tulepov — 1.12
Alexey ‘qikert’ Golubev — 1.13
Dzhami ‘Jame’ Ali — 1.23
Sanjar ‘SANJI’ Kuliev — 0.98
Dauren ‘AdreN’ Kystaubayev — 0.95
Dastan ‘dastan’ Akbayev — coach

Outsiders

forZe (position in the HLTV rating — #16)
Win odds: 34.0

In our opinion, forZe is one of the main contenders to the quickest leave at the tournament. They got to Group B together with such teams as mousesports, Evil Geniuses, and Virtus.pro. As for mousesports, EPICENTER is a prioritized tournament for the team, while Virtus.pro is extremely motivated to show their best at the championship and VP’s fan base is bigger than forZe’s. It could sound very strange, but the only thing the players from forZe should hope is Evil Geniuses’s bad shape and its likelihood is rather low. It results in the conclusion that forZe is the main outsider of Group B.

forZe roster and rating of the players:

Dmitrii ‘facecrack’ Alekseev — 1.07
Andrei ‘Jerry’ Mekhriakov — 1.03
Almaz ‘almazer’ Asadullin — 1.02
Bogdan ‘xsepower’ Chernikov — 1.19
Evgenii ‘FL1T’ Lebedev — 1.14
Anatolii ‘liTTle’ Iashin — coach

EHOME (position in the HLTV rating — #78)
Win odds: 201.0

It is almost impossible to believe in EHOME’s success. They cannot be treated as dark horses. This roster is not the strongest in the Chinese division that is considered to be the weakest in the CS:GO sphere. EHOME got to Group A where they will have to play Heroic, Natus Vincere, and Team Vitality. The performance will be good for they if they can win at least 1-2 maps from their opponents. There is a chance of making it to the playoff for them but it is low. We should add the problem of flying far for them as this can cause additional pressure on the players. In total, EHOME is the main favorite for the 7-8 place in the tournament bracket.

EHOME roster and rating of the players:

Tzu-Chi ‘Marek’ Huang — 0.96
Kelun ‘SLOWLY’ Sun — 1.21
JiaMing ‘DeStRoYeR’ Gu — 1.10
BingDai ‘4king’ Xue — 0.96
QingHui ‘equal’ Kong — 0.92
HaoZhi ‘Despair’ Xie — coach