What to expect from Complexity v. Heroic

Not long ago Complexity was on top of the world after besting Aurora and Falcons en route to an event victory and trophy lift at ESL Challenger Jönköping. With that significant momentum, the NA faithful hoped a deep run at the Esports World Championship was soon to follow, but instead found themselves stunned by group-stage elimination at the hands of a domestic rival, M80.

Flip a Coin

The reality of being a Complexity fan is that there are the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Complexity is incredible when they're firing on all cylinders and can go toe-to-toe with the best in the world without question. But with one piece out of sync we get the version of Complexity that isn't even convincing against a strong domestic challenger. Group A is very strong, even a win here likely means a date with Danil "donk" Kryshkovets and Spirit afterwards. But a confidence-building win here could mean the world for Complexity's mental game in this tournament.

• It's a new event, write the story for Copenhagen, not Riyadh or Jönköping.

• Play with the confidence of a top-ten team in the world, because you are one.

• Neutralize degster, either with force or utility.

HEROIC but static

It's been a little while since HEROIC have had an official match, and YaLLa Compass wasn't perhaps the result they were looking for in the UAE. They'd like to bounce back from that result just as badly as Complexity would like to bounce back from their own visit to the Middle East. Only one team can do it.

• NertZ is an ever-present and more-than-credible rifling threat.

• hallzerk needs to outduel degster or watch him rip apart the riflers like he did in their YaLLa wins.

• Recent matchups favor the North Americans, is there a mental edge to be had?

Previous Matchups

Complexity beat HEROIC 2-1 with map wins on Vertigo and Anubis, while conceding Nuke. However, HEROIC has swapped out Nico "nicoodoz"Tamjidi and replaced him with Abdul "degster" Gasanov since then. Thus, this is the first meeting between Complexity and this iteration of HEROIC.

Likely Vetoes

As a reminder, this will be a best-of-three series and we presume COL will ban second as the slightly higher ranked team in this matchup of world #9 and world #10.

• HEROIC ban Inferno (Permaban)

• Complexity ban Mirage (Permaban)

• HEROIC pick Nuke (beat COL on this map last meeting)

• Complexity pick Vertigo (COL has 100% win rate on the map)

• HEROIC ban Anubis (COL has better win rate, despite recent losses their wins are quality ones)

• Complexity ban Dust2 (If you're trying to minimize the AWP's impact, this is a hard pass)

• Ancient will be played (COL winners in 6/8, Heroic winners in 2/4 in the last three months)

Complexity will want to jump on HEROIC and take advantage of whatever rust they have to deal with in what will be their first official in a month and their first best-of-three in two. That'll mean being aggressive and taking it to the European side on their own pick and cleaning this series up in two maps for their best shot at advancing in the upper bracket. It'd be wishful thinking to hope that degster isn't comfortable in his new roster by now, as he proved very reliable at YaLLa Compass 2024.

Complexity and HEROIC will square off tomorrow at 8:30AM EDT.