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Liquid (World rank: #3) vs. MOUZ (World rank: #5) – 9:30 A.M. ET

Moneyline Odds: Liquid (-145) | MOUZ (+120)

Map Handicap: Liquid -1.5 (+205) | MOUZ -1.5 (-255)

This is a best-of-three on LAN for the quarter-finals of the ESL Pro League Season 16 playoffs.

Liquid - Rating at event: YEKINDAR 1.21 | EliGE 1.11 | NAF 1.07 | oSee 0.90 | nitr0 0.87

Liquid - Rating past three months: YEKINDAR 1.17 | EliGE 1.17 | NAF 1.09 | oSee 1.03 | nitr0 0.87

MOUZ - Rating at event: frozen 1.28 | JDC 1.13 | torzsi 1.01 | xertioN 1.00 | dexter 0.90

MOUZ - Rating past three months: frozen 1.20 | torzsi 1.09 | JDC 1.06 | xertioN 1.03 | dexter 0.99

H2H Data:

These rosters have never faced each other. 

Projected Maps:

MOUZ removes Dust2

Liquid removes Nuke

MOUZ picks Mirage

Liquid picks Overpass

MOUZ removes Vertigo

Liquid removes Ancient

Inferno is left over

Prediction: MOUZ wins 2-1.

MOUZ have a young, inexperienced roster, which might typically be a cause of concern for a LAN playoff match, but I don’t think that is the case here. MOUZ have been excellent since adding xertioN to the lineup with an 11-6 W/L record across 17 maps played, and in the group stage of this event they took down Heroic, ENCE, Complexity and HEET with their only loss coming against Astralis. Liquid had their share of struggles during the group stage, losing to FURIA and Eternal Fire. They did manage to beat Cloud9, but it was in a meaningless match for C9 with no playoff implications, and Liquid’s other losses came against two teams that were largely unimpressive: Movistar Riders & Evil Geniuses. MOUZ have a 1.07 Team Rating at this event compared to only 1.03 for Liquid, and MOUZ also have the superior Team K/D Ratio at 1.05 compared to 1.00 for Liquid. The North Americans continue to find ways to win close matches, but I think that type of success might be unsustainable. I’m also concerned with the fact that YEKINDAR is taking 42.3% of the opening duel attempts for Liquid. This type of aggression gives him a high ceiling for DFS, but it also means that Liquid lives and dies with his success, and we saw how that can backfire in their match-up against Fnatic. Luckily for Liquid, YEKINDAR top fragged on the decider map against Fnatic, otherwise they would have likely lost the series. YEKINDAR is an extremely talented player and relying on him heavily makes sense, but I just fear that Liquid are a bit *too* dependent on their star rifler. Liquid have a deep map pool, but MOUZ have shown a strong map pool so far with xertioN with a winning record on every map besides Nuke & Ancient, and Nuke is Liquid’s permaban. Thus, I think MOUZ are live underdogs here with all things considered. If this was still group stage, I think MOUZ would be considered favorites over Liquid. However, this is the playoffs now and there is a small crowd, so it will be interesting to see how MOUZ plays with the pressure on. The ESL Pro League playoffs seem like a relatively low pressure/low stakes environment compared to the other tournaments that these teams play, so the pressure of this single elimination playoff match is not much of a worry for me. I expect MOUZ to continue their form from the group stage, which should be enough to take down Liquid in this spot. MOUZ is my favorite team to stack on Draftkings, and YEKINDAR is my favorite one-off from Liquid given his entry kill upside.

  • frozen leads MOUZ with 0.12 opening kills per round, while xertioN leads with 23.6% opening duel attempts across 17 maps played.
  • On Mirage, frozen leads MOUZ with a 1.29 Rating and 1.38 K/D ratio across three maps played.
  • On Overpass, JDC leads MOUZ with a 1.52 Rating and 2.10 K/D ratio across two maps played.

Favorite Draftkings Plays (In order of priority): 

frozen ($10,800) | torzsi ($9,800) | xertioN ($7,600) | JDC ($8,600) | YEKINDAR ($11,600) | oSee ($8,200) | EliGE ($10,600) | NAF ($9,400) | Dexter ($6,600) | nitr0 ($7,200)