What to expect from Wildcard v. Spirit

Wildcard have been dealt a difficult hand for their first LAN with their new lineup, with the team set to play Spirit. The Russian team is always a threat, but with the team coming off of a recent LAN win in Belgrade, Spirit are back to being red hot. With Wildcard's new roster being untested at this level, the expectation should be to take one map at least, but it's important for fans, and the team, to not read too much into what will be an incredibly difficult match.

52 Card Pickup

Wildcard have the deck stacked against them in their opening series against Spirit. The team head into this match with no LAN experience together and less than two months together as a lineup. However, the team is also on a 16-game winstreak and having been dominating NA teams, so perhaps there is some hope they'll be the next to break out internationally and at least find a map.

• stanislaw should have the experience to be calm in calling against a top team

• JBa is a Wildcard in his first international LAN

• vinS is a complete enigma when it comes to his coaching style on LAN

Spirit Bomb

Despite falling off the horse at IEM Cologne, Spirit managed to get right back on with their recent win at BetBoom Dacha Belgrade 2024 2, securing wins over MOUZ and Eternal Fire on the way to the trophy. As such, Wildcard cannot expect a team that is down in the dumps or off of their game.

• Spirit have tons of recent LAN experience

• Spirit have an immaculate map pool against tier-one opposition

• donk

Likely Vetoes

As always, these vetoes come with the caveat that they are highly speculative as they depend on whether Spirit, as the higher-ranked team at the time of seeding, chooses to pick first or ban last. We will assume they ban last.

• Wildcard ban Mirage (Permaban)

• Spirit ban Inferno (Permaban)

• Wildcard pick Ancient (24 maps played, 75% Winrate)

• Spirit pick Nuke (88% Winrate, recent wins over MOUZ and Falcons)

• Wildcard ban Dust2 (Spirit has an 86% Winrate, recent wins over Falcons, NAVI, Vitality)

• Spirit ban Vertigo (Less played than Anubis)

• Anubis as a possible decider

Analysis: Overall, this is going to be a profoundly difficult veto for Wildcard as Spirit's worst map that isn't either team's permaban, Ancient, is still a 50% Winrate for the Russian team. Outside of that, Wildcard's best maps, Dust2 and Anubis, are fantastic maps for Spirit with 80%+ Winrates.

This means that even if Wildcard start the series with an upset win on Ancient, it is very likely Spirit will be able to take back the series on Nuke and Anubis, or a number of other maps for that matter.

Wildcard will head into battle against Spirit tomorrow at 07:30AM.