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We continue to follow the action at ESL Pro League Season 20. We're talking about Group C, where the colourful battles continue.
The International is all about the "middle" grid of Group C, where teams will try to make it to the later stages of the play-offs. And in the first round of the "middle" grid of ESL Pro League Season 20 we are waiting for the match between Astralis and Complexity.
We are trying to find out how the match between CoL and Astralis will end and which of the "big" clubs will make it to the next round of the middle grid, and who will have to fall even lower, to the last chance grid.
Let's go.
Astralis form
We open the Astralis vs Complexity match with an analysis of Astralis' form. In this match they will play as favourites with odds to win at around 1.4.
The Danish club had a difficult period. They have tried their best to "return" to the TIR-1 scene, but they have always fallen short: Astralis finished top-20 at ESL Pro League Season 17 and top-14 at BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023: European RMR B.
At lesser tournaments, however, Astralis fared well. The world's most titled team finished Top 2 at Brazy Party, won CCT South Europe Series #4 and finished Top 4 at Pinnacle Cup V.
Returning to the S-Tier Championships, Astralis took Top 6 at IEM Masters Dallas 2023 and Top 8 at BLAST Premier: Fall Groups.
Prior to the BB Dacha, Astralis attended a number of other events. Those were ESL Pro League Season 18 and Roobet Cup 2023, where the once stellar Danes finished in the Top 16.
Just before the Long Convergence, BB Dacha Astralis finished in the Top 4 at CS Asia Championship 2023 and Top 8 at BLAST Premier: Fall Finals. The swing in performance is primarily due to roster manipulation.
- Astralis roster: dev1ce, Staehr, stavn, jabbi, br0.
The debut tournament for the roster was Dacha, where the Danes took TOP-8. Then the new season began, which Astralis opened with a performance at PGL Major Copenhagen 2024: European Qualifier B. There they finished TOP-3, which was enough to get to RMR.
Before IEM Katowice 2024 they played at BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2024. According to the results of the championship Danes broke through to the TOP-6 and it was enough to get to the BLAST Premier: Spring Final. The IEM Katowice 2024 Astralis failed in the dust and dust: took the top 32, not passing the Play-In stage.
Then there were two attempts to get to the PGL Major Copenhagen 2024, but both were unsuccessful: TOP-11 at European RMR B and TOP-6 at European RMR Decider put an end to Astralis' participation in the home Major.
In the first match of IEM China 2024 Astralis played against steel helmet, as Monte could not make it to China. And if Monte had played there, the score would have been obviously not so crushing as 13-2 in favour of Astralis. Although, judging by the match against FaZe, where Astralis were a head and shoulders above FaZe, shutting down the top 1 team in the world with a score of 2-0, maybe Astralis are very energised for IEM China 2024. In the play-offs of the championship Astralis met FaZe Clan again, but this time they were weaker and lost with the score 1-2 and left the tournament.
Astralis visited ESL Pro League Season 19, where they reached the TOP-4, where in the match for the grand final Ledge and Vitality. Later, they had an identical result at CCT Season 1 Global Finals and YaLLa Compass 2024.
At BLAST Premier: Spring Finals 2024, Astralis played in Group A, where they finished in the top 3. They made it to the play-offs Ledge or Vp and left the tournament at the Top 6 stage. Later Astralis played at IEM Cologne 2024, where they finished top-12.
At the ESL Pro League Season 20 Long Season they were defeated by Fnatic (1-2).
Astralis Mapple
Astralis has two 100% maps. They are Nuke with 9 wins in 14 matches, and Anubis with 5 matches and 4 wins.
They also play Ancient (66% wins in 3 matches). Still playing Mirage (9 matches, 4 wins). Vertigo with 2 wins and 3 losses and Overpass (2 wins in 7 matches).
Do not play Inferno.
Form Complexity
We continue the analysis of the match CoL - Astralis with the analysis of CoL's playing form. In this match they play as outsiders with odds to win around 2.6.
Complexity played at IEM Masters Cologne 2023, where they finished early. CoL crashed out at the Long Island Play-In, losing to OG and finishing in the top 24.
- Complexity lineup: JT, floppy, Grim, hallzerk, EliGE.
We managed to partially cover the failure by winning the local Thunderpick World Championship 2023: North America Series #2. Nouns were defeated in the grand finals.
In the first match at the EPL S18 Complexity faced 9INE. The Poles put up a good fight, but couldn't pull out a win - the result was 2-1 in favour of CoL. In the match to come here Complexity surprised, perhaps, everyone. They ran over Cloud9 with an ice rink, closing the series 2-0 in their favour. They didn't manage to play long in the play-offs. CoL went straight to the second round of the main stage, but there they lost to Monte with a 1-2 score, finishing in the top-12.
Before the IEM Sydney 2023 Long Convergence, Monte fuelled themselves with a win on American Blast. They defeated Team Liquid 2-0 in the grand final of the qualifier, thus earning themselves a place at the autumn finals.
In the first round of IEM Sydney 2023 CoL played against Monte. Ukrainian club gave a fight, but the forces were enough only for 9 rounds. Next, the Americans met with the "samurai" from G2 Esports. They gave a fight, but it was not enough: as a result, G2 closed the series with a score of 2-0, giving the Americans a total of 14 rounds. After the defeat from G2 in the group stage, Complexity seemed to go off the chain: the club started to gain momentum and go head-to-head: first 2-1 against Cloud9, then a confident 2-0 against Monte, and then - play-offs. In the main stage of IEM Sydney 2023 CoL ran over BB Team (2-0) in the first round, and in the semi-finals they avenged their group loss to G2 Esports by knocking M0nesy and company out of the tournament with a 2-0 win.
After a top performance at IEM Sydney 2023, CoL travelled to play Thunderpick World Championship 2023. There the result was more modest - now top 9 with a 1-2 loss to MOUZ.
At BLAST Premier: Fall Finals 2023 Complexity got into Group A, where they played two matches. In the first, they beat Astralis 2-0, followed by Ledge and Vitality (1-2) in the play-offs seeding match. In the first round of play-offs Complexity played against Natus Vincere. The match ended in favour of the Americans, although the game was close (2-1).
CoL finished their way through BLAST Premier: Fall Finals 2023 in the second round of play-offs, and fell out after a meeting with FaZe. As a result, CoL finished in the top 4 at BLAST Premier: Fall Finals 2023 and lost their chance to play at the World Final.
Next up was Elisa Masters Espoo 2023 and ESL Challenger at DreamHack Atlanta 2023. At the former CoL finished in the top 8, and at the latter they finished in the top 6.
The 2024 season started with a victory at the American PGL Major Copenhagen 2024: North American Qualifier, but then - failure. It happened at the BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2024 tournament, where the Americans took TOP-16. In addition, they played at PGL Major Copenhagen 2024, where they finished in the top-11.
Before playing at IEM Dallas 2024 CoL visited ESL Pro League Season 19, where they reached TOP-4. At IEM Dallas 2024 Complexity made it to the Top 16, then made it to the Top 8 at YaLLa Compass 2024 and won ESL Challengers at DreamHack Summer 2024.
They also attended ESports World Cup 2024, where they failed to make it out of the Opening Stage. They got to IEM Cologne 2024 thanks to ESL NA rating. At the championship itself they played very "average", ranking TOP-9-12. In addition, they played at BLAST Premier: Fall Showdown 2024, where they finished at TOP-8.
ESL Pro League S20 opened with a match against M80, where they lost pretty much without a chance with a score of 0-2.
Complexity's Mappool
Complexity's mappool is pretty sad. The most successful map is Overpass with 5 wins in 9 matches.
They can also play Nuke, Ancient and Anubis. But they have 33% wins each, with a very poor record of 6 and 3 maps respectively.
History of head-to-head meetings Complexity - Astralis
Previously the teams played each other several times in the season 2023.
Predicted result of Astralis vs CoL at ESL Pro League Season 20
As we have seen on Long Cognega EPL S20, both teams are far from optimal conditions and play very unclean. I always say that in matches like this it is best to take the total +2.5, but if we talk about the winner, I think it will be a more comfortable match for CoL and they can take the series for themselves.
Bottom line: CoL win/total +2.5.
