The first day of the ECS Season 8 finals delivered no upsets – though perhaps Liquid’s win over Evil Geniuses turned out to be somewhat more straightforward than it’d have initially seemed like. Day 2 of the event will determine the playoff bracket in its entirety, and the day will begin with elimination matches. There are no easy wins from this point on: every series for the rest of the event is a best-of-three.

Group A elimination match: AVANGAR vs NiP (10:00 EDT / 16:00 CET)

The Ninjas seemed even more destabilized than before, with rumors of f0rest’s impending departure for the Dignitas project getting stronger by the minute. Though their historic matchup stats against Liquid were pretty awful to begin with, the limp nature of their performance suggests that the CIS side is more likely to make it to the decider against EG later during the day.

Bet on AVANGAR @ 2.10

Group B elimination match: Sharks vs MIBR (13:00 EDT / 19:00 CET)

It’s a Brazilian derby (of sorts) over in Group B, and perhaps it’s a testament to how far FalleN’s side has fallen that the underdogs are only offered at 2.50 at the time of writing to upset the legendary core. With such odds, we’ll actually suggest the “sane” wager on MIBR, but with the caveat that we definitely would have gone the other way had the lines been set differently.

Bet on MIBR @ 1.50

Group A decider match: Evil Geniuses vs AVANGAR/NiP (16:00 EDT / 22:00 CET)

Group B decider match: Fnatic vs Sharks/MIBR (19:00 EDT / 01:00 CET)

Odds are, of course, subject to change.

Photo credit: HLTV

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Check out the schedule and our predictions for day 1 of the ECS Season 8 Finals here

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