ESL Pro League Season 17 Group D: Team Spirit vs ForZe Preview and Predictions 

It’s the Russian civil war all over again as Team Spirit face forZe in Group D of ESL Pro League Season 17 

Battles between Russian teams are nothing uncommon in gaming, with many storied houses of esports locking horns in prolonged, climactic engagements. These two teams have been at each other’s throats for a while, but usually with less at stake as it’s mostly for a lower-tier tournament and not a spot in the Playoffs of an ESL Pro League. Both teams looked great on the first day, so it’ll likely come down to individual performances to split them up for a result. For CSGO betting enthusiasts or lovers of the game, here is our preview and predictions.

Team Spirit 

Spirit are undoubtedly the public favorites going into this, and their butchering of Astralis would support this, but they have long been a momentum-based team that can topple giants but proceed to get crushed by minnows. In terms of individual skill they’re rock-solid, but despite decent team chemistry, their core group hasn’t been able to improve much over the last year or so. Nevertheless, the two teams know how the other plays, and their battle promises to be a fantastic match.

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Players

Leonid “chopper” Vishnyakov

• HLTV Rating: 0.96
• Impact Rating: 0.99
• Kill/Assist/Survived/Traded: 69.9%
• Average Damage Round: 72.0
• Kills Per Round: 0.65

Boris “magixx” Vorobyev

• HLTV Rating: 1.05
• Impact Rating: 0.98
• Kill/Assist/Survived/Traded: 71.6%
• Average Damage Round: 70.8
• Kills Per Round: 0.65

Robert “Patsi” Isyanov

• HLTV Rating: 1.09
• Impact Rating: 1.15
• Kill/Assist/Survived/Traded: 69.5%
• Average Damage Round: 79.7
• Kills Per Round: 0.71

Pavel “s1ren” Ogloblin

• HLTV Rating: 1.03
• Impact Rating: 0.96
• Kill/Assist/Survived/Traded: 71.4%
• Average Damage Round: 71.4
• Kills Per Round: 0.66

Ihor “w0nderful” Zhdanov

• HLTV Rating: 1.20
• Impact Rating: 1.12
• Kill/Assist/Survived/Traded: 74.6%
• Average Damage Round: 76.8
• Kills Per Round: 0.76

Player to Watch

As he proved beyond a doubt yesterday, w0nderful is a brilliant AWPer and we’re going with him once again as the player to watch on Spirit.

ForZe

It’s not very rare for a relatively unknown team from Russia to punch above its supposed weight at a big tournament, and forZe are the newest name in a long list of such squads. They came back from being a map down to send the mighty Natus Vincere into the Mid Bracket, which is the first time the latter has been defeated by a lower-seed team at a big tournament in a very long time. Now they have to take on regional rivals Spirit, and after what we’ve seen yesterday, it’s well within their means to take the W. 

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Players

Andrey “Jerry” Mekhryakov

• HLTV Rating: 1.06
• Impact Rating: 1.05
• Kill/Assist/Survived/Traded: 70.9%
• Average Damage Round: 76.5
• Kills Per Round: 0.68

Vladislav “Krad” Kravchenko

• HLTV Rating: 1.06
• Impact Rating: 1.09
• Kill/Assist/Survived/Traded: 68.6%
• Average Damage Round: 76.4
• Kills Per Round: 0.69

Aleksandr “zorte” Zagodyrenko

• HLTV Rating: 1.14
• Impact Rating: 1.14
• Kill/Assist/Survived/Traded: 72.6%
• Average Damage Round: 73.3
• Kills Per Round: 0.72

Evgeniy “r3salt” Frolov

• HLTV Rating: 1.05
• Impact Rating: 1.07
• Kill/Assist/Survived/Traded: 68.8%
• Average Damage Round: 76.1
• Kills Per Round: 0.69

Aleksandr “shalfey” Marenov

• HLTV Rating: 1.12
• Impact Rating: 1.10
• Kill/Assist/Survived/Traded: 71.7%
• Average Damage Round: 77.8
• Kills Per Round: 0.71

Player to Watch

The team has a real bevy of talent, but we’re going with their in-game leader Jerry as the talent to keep an eye on for this match.

Predictions 

We might bite our tongue for this later, but we’re going to say it’ll be a 2-1 win for ForZe. They’re on a roll and they’re going to keep up the good work.

Maps 

Spirit will likely pick Ancient after yesterday, while forZe are possibly going to go for Mirage. The third map could likely be Inferno.

Score 

Map 1: forZe to win with Spirit <10.

Map 2: Spirit to win with forZe >10.

Map 3: forZe to win with Spirit <12

Top Fragger

We’ve got zorte from forZe as our top fragger for this match. The sniper is prolific on the Big Green, and he was solid yesterday.

Match Links

You can check on the action on Twitch or YouTube, with coverage set to begin at 07:30 ET/06:30 CST/05:30 PT.

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