Guild Eagles (formerly Bad News Eagles) enter this tournament hoping to improve on their 9th-12th result at CCT Online Finals #4. Since then, they have attended A1 Gaming League Season 7, where they showed little and crashed out in the second round of the playoffs.

VERTEX Esports Club have established themselves as the second-best team from the Oceanic region since the transition to CS2, claiming silver medals at CCT Oceania Series #3 and #4 as well as ESL ANZ Champs Season 17. However, they have not played a European CS team since Intel Extreme Masters Sydney 2023 in October, when they lost 2-13 against MOUZ and 0-2 against Apeks.

VERTEX certainly lack the quality to compete for top spots, but they face a struggling team that has only looked good against lesser opponents. Given Guild Eagles’ shaky results, VERTEX can win at least one map.

Sprout finalised their Counter-Strike roster on Tuesday with the addition of Anton “Anlelele” Huynh from Espionage. However, while Antele is a solid signing, it’s unlikely that Sprout will manage to reach the same heights they did with Ihor “w0nderful” Zhdanov.

Since the departure of the Ukrainian AWPer to Natus Vincere, Sprout have not looked the same. That said, they are now on a four-game winning streak.

Meanwhile, Anonymo Esports enter CCT Online Finals #5 with just one victory over their last six games, including bouts against lesser teams such as Premitta Esports, Nemiga Gaming, and Rounds GG. Perhaps Anonymo didn’t care too much about the ESEA Season 47 Advanced Division Europe Regular Season, but that’s no excuse for losing those games.

Team Space are one of the leading candidates to crash out of CCT Online Finals #5 in the first round. SAW aren’t expected to make it far either, but the Portuguese squad is at least in good form.

After a long dry spell, Christopher “MUTiRiS” Fernandes and his crew won their first CS2 tournament, Master League Portugal Season 12, last week and added another gold medal from XL Games Clash 2023. Neither event featured top-tier teams, but at least SAW are winning games.

As the Counter-Strike betting odds suggest, SAW should defeat Team Space without any issues, and it’s tough to argue with that. While SAW looked shaky early in the CS2 era, they now look more than capable of sweeping Team Space.

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Into the Breach have not produced much over the last month, except for a runner-up finish at RES Western European Masters: Fall 2023. It was also their first tournament with Aexey “Qikert” Golubev and Kévin “misutaaa” Rabier, who averaged 1.03 and 1.08 ratings respectively.

Aurora have not made any roster changes since June, but perhaps they should’ve. The Russian squad has not won a tournament since March (CCT South Europe Series #3) and haven’t looked good across the last few weeks, with just three wins across the last eight outings – against AiMMERS (16-10) and bsmpeeek (16-10, 16-10).

Aurora look stronger on paper, but considering their poor form, this looks like a 50-50 match, making ITB a better choice at outsider odds.

Last week, 00 Nation suffered a huge upset loss against Endpoint at Thunderpick World Championship 2023: European Series #2. It was a bad defeat, but also 00 Nation’s first since July 23.

Since the complete roster revamp midway through August 00 Nation have won the Pinnacle Cup V and are 7-1 across their last eight outings. So even though their defeat against Endpoint is concerning, 00 Nation are in good form and have previously beaten much stronger teams.

Sprout parted ways with Daniil “alpha” Demin at the end of August and have yet to announce a replacement, which isn’t optimal. On a more positive note, Sprout are 5-2 across their last seven, but that number is a bit misleading as it includes mostly wins against lesser teams.

00 Nation are in much better form than Sprout, have won against more formidable opponents, and don’t have to deal with finding a stand-in. We don’t expect a clean sweep, but 00 Nation shouldn’t struggle to beat Sprout.

OG’s roster revamp during the summer break has not led to any notable results for Nemanja “nexa” Isakovi? and his crew. Even though OG weren’t particularly great before July, their recent results are very concerning.

Over their last six games, OG have only beaten TSM (2-1), EYEBALLERS (2-0), and KnasigT (2-0) but lost against SAW (0-2), BetBoom Team (0-2), and Ninjas in Pyjamas (1-2). Still, it’s fair to assume that OG should do fine against Fake Natty.

The Brazilians looked great while playing under 00 Nation when Marcelo “coldzera” David and co. won TH Masters Fall 2023. Since they went solo, Fake Natty haven’t placed higher than the top 16 across three tournaments.

Considering Fake Natty’s poor form, OG will likely win; however, at the offered esports betting odds, backing the outsiders to win at least one map is a wiser choice.

HAVU have fallen off hard since the start of 2023, going from top 30 in the global CS:GO rankings to no.79 ahead of their opening match at CCT Online Finals #3. MiBR are in a similar boat as a former high-ranked team that fell off, but unlike HAVU, MiBR have been playing well recently.

MiBR haven’t placed higher than fifth-sixth across the last four tournaments, but we have to consider that they have attended CCT Online Finals #2 (5th-6th), Gamers8 2023 (9th-16th), and ESL Pro League Season 18 (17th-20th).

At ESL Pro League, MiBR did well for their standards, with wins against Evil Geniuses (2-1), MOUZ (2-1), and Monte (2-1), and they even stole a map from ENCE (1-2). Their win rate since the start of August (53.85%) isn’t great, but MiBR have accomplished it while facing relatively strong CS:GO esports teams.

This is a match between two second-division teams, but there’s no hiding that MiBR are in a much better spot than HAVU.

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