Cloud 9 vs Ninjas in Pyjamas – Blast Pro Series Istanbul

After the FACEIT Major, we welcome the Blast Pro Series 2018, Istanbul. The competition is set to host six big teams of the competitive circuit of CS:GO. The competition will include two stages. The group stage and the playoffs.

In the group stages, all the six participants will be placed in a single group where all the games will be played in the best of one format. The top three teams will progress to the next stage while the third ranked team will pick their opponent from the bottom three teams. This will surely be interesting to see in the coming days. At the Ülker Sports Arena, the competition will take place from 28th to 29th September. Just like in the Blast Pro Series 2017, Copenhagen the prize pool of the competition is $250,000 USD prize pool.

The reason we have picked this match for you is the fact that both teams have their fair share of troubles in the past weeks. One team, Cloud9 started the year arguably the best team in the world but is currently winless in its last four games. Meanwhile, NiP against all odds has shown glimpses of resurgence. Therefore, predicting the outcome of this encounter for you will be an exciting job for us.

Cloud 9 vs Ninjas in Pyjamas (BLAST Pro Series: Istanbul 2018, September 29, 2018 – 06:40 PDT, Best of One)

Cloud 9

Arguably the most inconsistent tier one team of the year is Cloud 9. After lifting the trophy of the ELEAGUE Major, the team seems to be struggling in the competitive CS:GO. Their whole 2018 season can be summed by their performance a couple of weeks ago in the FACEIT Major. In the biggest CS:GO competition they showed horrible results. The team didn’t have to play qualifiers of FACEIT since they won the previous major. However, in the group stage, the American organization was eliminated by tier two teams. Looking at the lineup of Cloud 9, they were expected to mount a serious challenge for the title. But the team lost three from the four games played against HellRaisers, Vega Squadron, and G2 eSports. Their only victory was against the newbie team of WinStrike.

After this series of terrible results, it was inevitable that Cloud 9 will make changes to their roster. They have signed a new player by the name of Robin “flusha” Rönnquist, who was moved to the bench last week. To make room for flusha, Cloud9 has removed STYKO from the first team. STYKO is currently playing as a substitute for mousesports.

However, it looks like changing one player won’t solve the troubles of Cloud 9. They really need to refresh themselves and changing just one play just won’t do it for them in our opinion. The team is coming up against one of the most legendary teams of CS:GO, NiP. It is highly unlikely that this little change would influence Cloud 9’s victory path.

Ninjas in Pyjamas

In contrast to Cloud 9, Ninjas in Pyjamas have been a solid team but they did have their fair share of bad luck. The team had to play one more round in the FACEIT Major where they finished 3-0 sharing the first place with Team Liquid. In that 3-0 result, they beat Virtus.Pro, Tyloo, and the eventual champions of the competition, Astralis. In the group stages, NiP, unfortunately, got tougher opponents. They had to face the likes of Liquid, Natus Vincere, and a tiebreaker against MiBR. Even though they lost these encounter, it was not an easy win for their opponents. NiP did win against Vega Squadron which decimated Cloud 9 with ease.

After watching the performances of NiP, it is fair to say that the team has improved by leaps and bounds. Since NiP assigned Lekr0 the role of in-game leader, the team’s performance has been improving. Even though the player doesn’t get most kills on the team, his scouting in the game is proving vital for NiP.  From the information gathered by Lekr0, GeT_RiGhT and Rez have been doing the dirty work, getting a great sum of kills. The legendary CS: 1.6 player f0rest have also shown resurgence with some impressive performances in recent weeks. The only downside of NiP lineup is dennis. His individual stats are impressive with a 50% headshot average; however, he lacks team chemistry. But with time he should settle with the team.

There were rumors that NiP was going to make changes to their lineup after FACEIT. The potential signing of olofmeister or KRIMZ was on the cards. But for an unknown reason, the rumors were shut down by the organization. This lineup of NiP has the potential to make big upsets. If Lekr0 shows further progress in his technical ability in the coming games, then with any doubt, NiP will progress into the semifinals of this competition.  But first they will have to see off Cloud 9 and looking at how the team is performing, NiP could win by a landslide.

Final Verdict

The exciting prospect of this match is the fact that it will be played on Mirage. The fact that both teams have a 60% win-rate on it is what makes it interesting. However, in the FACEIT Major, NiP played on this map five times and against four teams: Virtus.Pro, mousesports, MiBR, and Astralis. The team was victorious on Mirage. They were beaten once on it by Liquid. While Cloud 9 played on Mirage on one occasion in the competition and lost. So NiP is far more practiced on this map compared to Cloud 9. After going through every statistic of the past weeks, it looks like Cloud 9 will certainly need a miracle to win against NiP.

NiP 1 – 0 Cloud 9

Odds on bookmakers

Bookmakers	NiP Odds		Cloud 9 Odds
	European	American	European	American
EGB.com	1.38	-263	2.65	+165.00
Betway	1.40	-250	2.75	+175.00
Loot.bet	1.42	-238	2.85	+185.00
GG.bet	1.40	-250	2.96	+196.00
Bet365	1.40	-250	2.75	+175.00