What to expect from M80 v. Rebels

After beating Rooster earlier today, M80 are one series away from making their way into the IEM Katowice 2024 group stage. While Rooster was as close to a walkover as one can get, Rebels are a fairly lucky matchup for M80 as well. Considering the Polish quad have next to no big LAN experience and currently sit out of the Top 100 on HLTV's world ranking, if M80 can leverage their strengths in this series they have a clear path to a win.

M80 have a will... and a way

We'll get into it more in the Likely Vetoes section but M80 should have a very good veto heading into this series, which will help immensely. As such, the team should be able to leverage their strengths against the Polish squad as they look to make it into the IEM Katowice 2024 group stage.

• Huge experience/ranking gap between the two teams

• dephh has shown he can frag well against lower-ranked teams

• slaxz- has been in killer form this event with a 1.58 rating

Rebel Yell

While Rebels come into this match with a huge gulf between themselves and M80 in ranking and experience, they cannot be underestimated too much, Cloud9 made that mistake and they're still recovering. However, that was a Bo1 and with this being a Bo3, their map pool and underperformances from the majority of their lineup may become more apparent. However, only time will tell.

• SZPERO is an insanely tenured coach

• They're going to be eaten alive in the veto

• Another player needs to step up with olimp

Previous Matchups

These two teams have never played each other.

Likely Vetoes

As always, these vetoes come with the caveat that they are highly speculative as they depend on whether M80, as the higher-ranked team, chooses to pick first or ban last. Additionally, as Rebels is a relatively new squad, there isn't as much data as normal to determine their veto habits.

• Rebels ban Overpass (Permaban)

• M80 ban Mirage (Permaban)

• Rebels pick Ancient (Most-played remaining map, 56% Winrate)

• M80 pick Vertigo (100% Winrate)

• Decider could be Nuke (Rebels unlikely to float Anubis, leaving M80 to pick best remaining map)

Analysis: Overall, this veto seems like it should be a walk in the park for M80 as they look to choose the best maps possible to make their way into the IEM Katowice 2024 group stage. Considering Rebels have banned Overpass in every single game they have ever played and M80 has a 100% winrate on it, it feels like they have to ban it here.

The problem then for the Poles is that this decision will allow M80 to pick their best map, Vertigo, which they are currently 19-0 on, which should help them close the series or in a worst-case scenario force map three. From there, Rebels would seemingly be unwilling to float a 0-3 Anubis, meaning the decider has a chance of being Nuke, which is a good decider for M80.

Overall, if the veto is played well, M80 will have a win rate of >50% on all three maps they play tomorrow. Of course, we'll have to see when M80 takes on Rebels tomorrow at 01:30PM.