What to expect from M80 v. BetBoom

M80 have made it to LAN with a full roster for the first time in a long time, and there's good reason to be excited as they start ESL Pro League Season 19. In their debut with Elias "s1n" Stein, M80 managed to take down Liquid in the EWC NA Closed Qualifiers in impressive fashion, showing the team is coming along nicely under the German's leadership. With that, expectations are high for their LAN debut tomorrow as they take on the Russian BetBoom squad in Malta.

The tier-two squad should serve as a good litmus test for M80 as a squad just inside of the top 30 that has known players but isn't too prestigious or particularly accomplished in recent months.

Also read: Swisher: "It's always a nice feeling beating the teams that I know we are better than"

Is it a s1n to expect a 2-0 win?

M80 truly has a lot going for them in their LAN debut with s1n. Outside of the German IGL showing off good stuff in his debut event, the team have just returned from a European bootcamp, and the whole team appear to be in good form. Therefore, the main areas of concern are M80 being below 100% as they retool their map pool and positions under s1n.

slaxz- stacks up favorably against zorte
malbsMd has been an absolute firecracker lately, but is his playstyle sustainable in Europe?
Can M80 do great things while still under construction?

nafany's moment

For BetBoom, the onus is on Vladislav "nafany" Gorshkov as a theoretical tier-one IGL to outplay and out call s1n, especially as s1n is just coming into his new team. Likewise, while all of the players on BetBoom are quite good, they have had major ups and downs since this most recent iteration of BetBoom was formed. Overall, BetBoom will likely be strong competition for M80 but they don't feel indomitable.

nafany has much more experience on paper compared to s1n
BetBoom have been busy bees, playing 84 maps in the past three months
However, despite playing frequently they have also struggled against a number of teams around the top 30

Also read: s1n: "M80 is the best place where I can learn and grow as an IGL"

Previous Matchups

These two teams have never played each other.

Likely Vetoes

Looking at the vetoes, there's a lot of room for both teams as M80 are a fresh team with a new IGL while BetBoom have tons of recent playing experience from online EU events. As such, the big challenge for M80 will be to make BetBoom uncomfortable despite in any way they can, which will prove quite difficult.

As always, these vetoes come with the caveat that they are highly speculative as they depend on whether BetBoom, as the higher-ranked team on ESL's World Ranking, chooses to pick first or ban last. We will assume they ban last.

M80 ban Nuke (Two maps played, last played in February)
BetBoom ban Inferno (Permaban)
M80 pick Mirage (75% Winrate, some recency bias)
BetBoom pick Ancient (58% Winrate, 19 maps played)
Decider could be Anubis (11% Winrate Δ between teams, M80 are unlikely to float Overpass while BetBoom play much more Anubis than Vertigo)

Analysis: There's a very good chance this prediction turns wrong as we really don't know M80's map pool with s1n at the helm. For example, Mirage wasn't a common map for M80 but Mario "malbsMd" Samayoa has been looking absolutely gangbusters on it recently, so could it become a favorite of the team?

Additionally BetBoom are a super busy online team in Europe so they play everything but Inferno, so they have a lot of room to maneuver in the veto which may confound M80's best efforts to get maps they want to play. Therefore, BetBoom seemingly has the edge in the veto here.

Also read: M80 smash Liquid to claim Esports World Cup spot