Dust2.us Pick 'Ems for the Legends Stage

After four days of Challengers Stage where some wild results happened, the Legends are looking stacked as ever. This will complicate the pursuit of the acclaimed Diamond Coin.

At the beginning of the first stage, the spirits were as high as they could be, with everyone 100% sure they would get five correct predictions or more. However, from now on not everyone will be able to say that.

A quick recap of the Challengers Stage and a glimpse over the Dust2.us Pick 'Ems will show us that only one member of the staff team didn't get at least five correct picks. You guessed it, it was Ryan. The 3-0 faith he had in Vitality proved nonsensical as the French org was on the face of elimination at one point, but then turned things around and qualified 3-2. If only he had put them in the "teams that will advance" category...

But that's water under the bridge and the river doesn't stop running. Going straight into the Legends Stage teams, we have the top-dogs of FaZe and NAVI, followed by NiP, ENCE, Sprout, Heroic, Spirit, and Liquid. From the Challengers Stage comes MOUZ, Bad News Eagles, Outsiders, BIG, FURIA, fnatic, Vitality, and Cloud9. As you can see, only a few outliers are in this phase of the Rio Major, meaning the competition will be ferocious.

Right off the bat, two groups of teams stand out on the Dust2.us Pick' Ems: FaZe, NAVI, and Liquid and Sprout, BNE, and BIG. The first group was picked to advance by everyone, with no exception (just like OG, Vitality, Cloud9, and FURIA previously). No one here believes FaZe will go, or if they do believe, they chose not to take the risk and "guarantee" one correct pick. The same does not apply to NAVI and Liquid, as both have gotten two 3-0 believers each: Ryan and DuckMoriarty think NAVI is on another level, while CarbonDogma and Martin have full faith in Captain America and the (NA)vengers.

For the other group, things don't look good. Everyone believes neither one of those three teams will go ahead. Sprout was the team targeted for the 0-3 spot by four staff members and friends - Arnie, Gonc, Liam, and Waldo. BIG got picked only twice for that unremarkable record by Martin and Jeff, with BNE only being picked once as the 0-3 team by Ryan.

Moving to the non-unanimous teams, Dust2.us staff members and friends have high hopes for Heroic, as the Danish team was chosen by everyone except Scoobster. The Danes also got the most 3-0 picks out of everyone else, with Arnie, Gonc, Waldo, Dafydd, and Jacob praying for a strong BO1 phase for the roster. Ninjas in Pyjamas followed being picked one less time, with DuckMoriarty and Martin choosing not to buy into the Aleksib hype train. Vitality can also be put together with these teams, as the French org was chosen by nine members of our team, with the exception of Ryan, Gonc, Sam, and Waldo. ZywOo and company can very easily fall to 0-2 in this Stage, but they have shown some resilience during this Major.

The middle group of the Dust2.us staff members and friends Pick 'Ems is very close. Cloud9 and ENCE got eight picks each, with the European roster being chosen thrice to go 3-0 being the team with the second biggest 3-0/Pick rate as 37.5% of those who believe ENCE go through, do so thinking the team will go undefeated (Heroic has 41.7%). ENCE also got selected to go 0-3 only once by Dafydd (British people, go figure). Cloud9 on the other hand got no 3-0 picks, but the majority of staff members and friends who didn't pick the North American org are, surprisingly, North Americans, could this be the result of the org's apparent detachment from the NA community?

The most disputed teams were FURIA and MOUZ. The Brazilians got picked six times out of 13, with none being 3-0 our 0-3 picks. Despite the good showings after the opener loss, FURIA only convinced Ryan, Arnie, DuckMoriarty, Sam, Waldo, and Dafydd. MOUZ after the 3-0 Challengers Stage didn't get much support from the Dust2.us staff members or from our friends, with only Ryan, Gonc, Waldo, Martin, and Jacob believing dexter will be able to perform alongside his youngsters. Scoobster thinks otherwise, as he put MOUZ on the 0-3 spot, perhaps thinking the squad will choke under more pressure.

Outsiders was chosen by CarbonDogma, Sam, and Scoobster, as the rest don't think the level of performance shown during Challengers is enough to win two BO1 and one BO3. fnatic only got two British guys rallying behind them in Arnie and DuckMoriarty (Dafydd: "I threw up when I didn't put Fnatic through." At least he has a sense of patriotism). fnatic got the attention of more people but for the worst reasons, as CarbonDogma, Sam, and Jacob believe the Swedish org will go 0-3.

To wrap up the Dust2.us Pick 'Ems we have the case of Spirit. The semi-finalists from the last major gathered one 3-0 pick, one standard pick, and one 0-3. For Sam this is a "go big or go home" situation as he preferred a more exotic pick on the 3-0 spot to make sure he gets right those "certain to go through" teams. Martin does believe in the young Spirit squad, contrary to DuckMoriarty who thinks one roster change was very crucial for the Russian squad.

Finally, we asked our own Lukas to be the analyst of the Dust2.us staff members and friends Pick' Ems. Lukas agrees that Heroic is looking very strong coming into Rio and thinks they are the best option for the 3-0, accentuating even more what the rest of the staff members and friends think. FaZe, NAVI, and Liquid are definitely going through for him, as he is not surprised that everyone picked those three teams. Lukas believes that Vitality and Cloud9 will be going through, but it will be difficult. Although he has them in his Pick 'Ems, he won't be surprised if they end up eliminated. The final "team that will advance" that Lukas chose was Spirit. We haven't seen anything from Spirit this Major but during the Europe RMR A the Russian squad beat Cloud9, BNE, and GamerLegion, as well as NiP during the ESL Pro League Season 16. It depends on which Spirit we get but Lukas has faith in them. The remaining pick is the 0-3 team, which Lukas thinks will be Sprout, and is surprised that more people didn't choose them.