What to expect from FURIA v. fnatic

Placed in the group of Fs with FURIA, fnatic, FaZe, and FORZE, the Brazilians are hoping to push their way past the normally tougher competition in fnatic and FaZe should they want to have a shot against FORZE, who have proven to be a quite a handful at Pro League. FURIA is looking to come back after a tough time at IEM Katowice where they went out in the Play-in at the hands of the Mongolians from IHC. With strong victories over Imperial, BIG, and Riders, the Brazilians are hoping to continue that form, especially thanks to the magical performances from Kaike "KSCERATO" Cerato.

It's time to get FURIAous

FURIA have had a bit of a break between their group play and the playoffs, but for some of the team, there has been no rest. With KSCERATO, Yuri "yuurih" Santos, and Andre "drop" Abreu needing to travel back to Brazil so they could handle visa situations ahead of the BLAST.tv Paris Major Americas RMR in Monterrey, Mexico. The travel and time away from practice obviously wasn't helpful, so maybe the team is a little on the back foot as of this morning.

• KSCERATO still somehow in best form of his life

• arT facing pressure from the community, does this change his calling?

• saffee continues to get better and better

I'm not really fnatical

The Europeans are continuously a good team, even when you don't always expect it. They're currently 9th in the world, just being Complexity by a single point, so really they're probably 8th when we look at them next week. the squad has been in decent form recently, with wins over Eternal Fire and the ever troublesome IHC, but also saw an online loss against Let us cook in the CCT North Europe Series 4. Not great, not bad, could write that one off, honestly.

• nicoodoz's form in better in Pro League than the last three months

• FASHR continues to be a reliable rock

• mezii's IGLing leads fnatic to strong victories in tough situations

Facing off, for the first time?

In a world where both fnatic and FURIA are top teams in the world, this is surprisingly the first time that either side will be meeting with the current cores. There really is not to extrapolate or predict from this game, but it will be fun to see the clash of styles and how one national Brazilian team faces off against a European amalgamation.

Ban, ban, ban! Pick, pick, pick!

FURIA knows exactly what they like to play, and turns out, it's exactly what fnatic doesn't. With the same token, it looks like fnatic loves to play what FURIA doesn't. I guess this just might go the distance today.

• fnatic will likely ban Anubis, one of their two perma bans

• FURIA should ban Overpass, their ban and one of fnatic's best maps

• fnatic will pick Vertigo

• FURIA will Inferno

• fnatic will ban Mirage

• FURIA will ban Ancient to play Nuke

The game is scheduled to start at 10:30AM this morning with the Brazilians looking to cause an on-paper upset.