It’s time, we’re on the way to the New Legends stage of Boston 2018.

With the first match starting this Friday, we’ve selected our picks for the gold pick’em badge for this major in CS:GO, so let’s take a look but before we do so, learn about this minigame that have been following for more than 3 years.

What is the pick’em minigame in CSGO?

The pick’em challenge in CSGO is a minigame that Valve enables for players during every major.

For this minigame your aim is to correctly select the teams who will advance to the next stage of the major, plus one of the squads that will be eliminated without a single win and one that will advance without a single loss.

Each correct prediction gives you points that after the major that you can exchange for an in-game badge that can be in Bronze, Silver or Gold, with the last requiring at least 75 points during all stages, plus you will be in the leaderboard with your friends with joined the trial, so you can prove your knowledge to be above them. Below you can check the official statement by Valve regarding the point system:

“You can score up to 111 points by making correct picks in the Team Pick’Em Challenge. During the Preliminary and Group Stages, you will earn points for each correct pick (9 points available in the Prelims, 27 points available in the Group Stage). During the Playoffs, you will earn 12 points for every correct Quarterfinal pick, 10 points for every correct Semifinal pick, and 7 points for correctly picking the Grand Final Champions (75 points available).”

How can I play?

It’s very simple!

First, make your picks following the model on the image above, of course you can also refer to ours picks which provides an explanation as to why we do believe in those teams to be the best choices for their respective categories.

Once you make your choices you will need to buy the respective team stickers.

To do this head to the Steam Community Market.

Make sure your wallet has some cash in it and buy stickers for the teams you will put in your pick’em. The average price is about $1 per sticker however you can often find them cheaper especially for less popular teams.

Once done, open CS:GO on Steam, go to the minigame page and just insert the stickers you bought in their respectively categories.

Now we will show which teams we picked and why.

Our Picks: The Team Without a Win

For this category, we must study who between those sixteen teams is the weaker and more prone to upsets. We quickly find Quantum Bellator Fire (QFB), the team who managed to enter in the New Legends Stage with 3 wins and 2 loses record after beating Flash, EnVyUs with a stand-in and AVANGAR, teams that are being considered some of the worst teams to make it to a major and with a reason.

So, is QBF a correct pick?

We do believe so! There first match will be against Virtus.Pro. Who doing badly but will probably put on a repeat performance as they need in the last major and beat the QBF – punishing their novice mistakes.

But remember – while you only need to pick one team, we will have two teams being eliminated without winning a match, so what will be the second team?

Our secondary pick if needed would be BIG – the German team has been disappointing ever since the last major and couldn’t win matches even against low tier 2 competition, and this will but them in a very difficult situation.

Our Picks: The Team Without a Loss

Which team will be the one to win every match in the swiss stage without losing anything ?

For this pick we’re recommend picking FaZe Clan or Gambit.

FaZe Clan will be fighting against Fnatic in their first match and if they win they will probably get ahead of SK Gaming, their biggest opponents here, and Astralis who will be looking to advance as quickly as they can. Gambit in the other hand is always a tricky choice as their performance is unpredictable but in the last majors they have been advancing with 3 – 0 and 3 – 1 records, which puts up a good history on their side.

And why not SK Gaming or Astralis ?

Firstly, the Brazilian squad will be using ‘felps’ as their stand-in and according to players they have been practicing much with him. As we saw previously, Space Soldiers, their first opponents know how to exploit this and already did it against SK itself, so they can put an upset for the first match. We have no doubt that ‘FalleN’ roster will be advancing, however a run without losses in this situation might be too much to ask from ‘Coldzera’.

Astralis is in a situation not that much different, the team is adapting since ‘dev1ce’ is back after not playing the last three tournaments with them. There first match won’t be easy as they will be facing Mousesports that surely can pull a win over them for their starting game.

So, we will be going with FaZe, but Gambit is a viable option too.

Our Picks: The Other Seven Teams Advancing

You must pick seven teams who will advance to the New Champions stage of the major that will start on 26 th of this month.

Here is our picks and a brief justification – teams must win 3 matches without losing more than 2, so they will be advancing with records of 3 wins and a maximum of 2 loses.

SK Gaming : the best team in the world will be playing with a stand-in but this isn’t sufficient to stop them. We don’t have a single doubt that Coldzera’s team will be advancing for the major last stage.

Astralis : the Danish best team have been in a pretty difficult situation in the last months but with dev1ce back they will be going to advance for sure as we’re talking about the winners of Atlanta 2017 here.

Virtus.Pro : On Krakow the Poles proved to us that they can be deep in a slump but there’s not slump for them in a major and even if only two times per year, the plow will surge once again to guarantee their place among the Legends.

North : the ever-disappointing team is going through a very difficult period after closing last year with very negative results, but if we can trust MSL, they will be back for this major, and they already showed that they can resurge when it’s needed.

Gambit : champions of the last major that now have been showing some underwhelming performances, ‘Hobbit’ squad have the necessary to advance but probably won’t be going further than the quarterfinals stage unfortunately.

Cloud9 : The North America best team as now have everything they need to advance in Boston and might even go to the semifinals stage depending on the seeding used in the New Champions stage then.

G2 : it’s time to G2 finally get their Legend status, the team have everything to make a good run in Boston and while they are prone to bad matchups, they can overcome them are between the five best teams in this tournament.

And with this you will have fully completed your pick’em for this stage of the tournament.

The Ones Who Could Also Make it

Here are three teams who could make it. We’re going to talk a bit about each one as a secondary option.

Mousesports

First, we have Mousesports. The European mix managed to win ESG Tours Mykonos last year and almost win against FaZe Clan in the grand finals of ECS Season 4.

The team however shown a lot of inconsistency during the first stage of the major, losing to Space Soldiers and getting smashed by Cloud9 and while they were clearly one of the best teams there, advancing with 3 wins 2 losses record don’t make us confident on their chances to advance.

Surely, they can pull some upsets here and there but unless they get a very favorable matchup over the entire stage we probably will be seeing Mousesports getting eliminated earlier once again.

Fnatic

Another team that could make it is Fnatic. The Swedish organization that once was considered the best in the world with ‘olofmeister’ now find themselves in a pretty harsh situation, almost not getting Legend status in the last major.

‘Golden’, their new in-game leader made the team put some great performances previously in the last tournaments of 2017 but this time they won’t be counting with an easy road as their first opponents is one of the best teams in the world, FaZe Clan.

Hence unless they get very lucky in the loser’s bracket being matched against teams like Liquid, QBF and Na’Vi, they won’t be making it.

VEGA Squadron

At last we have VEGA Squadron. The CIS team managed to beat FaZe, Renegades and Liquid in the previous stage of the major and they have showed that if their opponents don’t take them seriously, they will take advantage of it and pull upsets every now and then.

Their first match is against North and if MSL can’t make k0nfig and the rest of the team play to their best, VEGA can be stealing their Legend status here as North would be probably going out earlier instead.

However they’re so dependable in putting upsets that isn’t viable to make them as our choice this time.

Final Thoughts

It’s important to note some things here before buying stickers.

Firstly, remember that 100Thieves won’t be making to the major so they aren’t a selectable team for the pick’em . Second, always take a look on the overall sticker prices, sometimes for less popular teams, the Holographic version can be cheaper than the normal version . Also, if you aren’t comfortable with buying stickers from the Community Market for some reason, you can buy it directly from the in-game menu, maybe a bit expensive but your sticker will be coming directly from Valve. At last, remember to make your picks quickly , as soon as the first game starts you won’t be able to join the pick’em for this stage.

With this we conclude our pick’em analysis and we do believe that with this you will be set for at least a silver trophy and depending on your previous stage performance, the gold trophy be on your way!

And don’t forget that once this phase of the tournaments ends we will be putting our predictions for the New Champions Stage, so be sure to follow up.