The group stage is over and we’ve taken a big bite out of the field in the Big Apple: four teams are left to fight for the lion’s share of the $200 00 prize pool, and while it’s been mostly as expected so far in terms of the big picture, the New York event already threw a couple of curveballs our way which should be factored into the analysis of the semi-finals. Here are our predictions and the schedule for the third day of the event:

Team Liquid vs Astralis – 13:00 EST / 19:00 CEST

The fact that the bookies consider Astralis fairly heavy favorites for this one seems pretty excessive to us – we simply don’t have a large enough sample size to compare the two teams in the period since the Danes started to take Counter-Strike seriously again, and they won’t have the option to surprise their opponents with the Vertigo pick like they did at the major. There’s also the fact that Astralis only managed to beat OpTic so far at the event, losing a close series to EG, which doesn’t necessarily inspire confidence either. As such, we’re going with Liquid for this one.

Bet on Team Liquid @ 2.11

bet on esl one new york 2019

Evil Geniuses vs G2 – 16:30 EDT / 22:30 CEST

By the same token, G2 owe their spot in the semis due to back-to-back wins over ENCE, and even though they’ve put of a decent fight against Liquid in the winners’ match of Group B, the upset never seemed like a real possibility for that one. There’s also the fact that they’re playing with a stand-in against a tactics-heavy side which seems to be in top form, so we can’t see the upset here.

Bet on EG @ 1.68

Photo credit: HLTV

Odds are subject to change.