This weekend we head to Boston to witness which team between the eight new legends will be the one to lift the trophy.

With the new stage introduced by Valve for this Major, let’s continue where we left off last week and predict what will happen with each team, alongside giving you tips to help you win the Gold Pick’em Trophy.

Before we get to the predictions we would like to remind you that the first match of the New Champions Stage of the Boston Major 2018 will be starting this Friday. Saying that thankfully Valve has already enabled the Pick’em minigame for those interested and just like last week we will be providing you with tips to get the most points in the game.

If you haven’t played the minigame or have any doubts, we put together a The Pick’em Definitive Guide – an introduction and general tips for the Pick’em

Below you can see an image of how the last stage of the minigame looks in-game:

This being clear, let’s take a look at the first matchups and the overall bracket then head directly into the predictions.

The Quarterfinals

FaZe versus Mousesports

Well, first things first, let’s talk about FaZe matchup.

Mousesports almost couldn’t make it to the playoffs, roughly managing to close their last game with Space Soldiers and demonstrating that they still have problems over consistency, a serious problems that won’t do them any favours.

FaZe on the other hand finished the Swiss Stage without losing any game and proving that they won’t make any mistakes like they did against VEGA Squadron, they are clearly an improved team from the FaZe we saw two weeks ago.

These two teams have a history between themselves, with the encounter at the ECS S4 Finals in a B03 and if back then ‘ChrisJ’ squad couldn’t take a win over FaZe, it won’t be now that they will be doing so.

For this pick, we recommend you go with FaZe Clan .

Natus Vincere versus Quantum Bellator Fire

Next match is Natus Vincere versus Quantum Bellator Fire, the up and coming team that surprised us all as they managed to advance to the final stage with only one loss on record. It’s a fact now that they never were the weakest team in the tournament, and that just like VEGA they brought a different game-style to the meta.

Now Na’Vi seems only seem to be getting warmed up but the problem with ‘S1mple’ team is that they just aren’t consistent enough to advance here. Of course, ‘Zeus’ is an experienced in-game leader but he won’t be able to do much not knowing how their opponents may do since there’s lack of information about QBF.

This is so important because while Natus Vincere will certainly watch the QBF match to plan a strategies and put tactics in place, there’s no way to predict how the team will perform in a B03.

With this in mind we recommend picking Quantum Bellator Fire .

G2 versus Cloud9

Coming next, we have G2 Esports and Cloud9 and this is certainly a match to watch.

While G2 took the North American without any problems in the Swiss Stage, now C9 has shown that their confidence is back after breaking their curses against Astralis and Virtus.Pro. They struggled to get a win against those two when it was needed but they finally managed to beat both here, so the Frenchmen have a lot to fight for if they want to secure a win here.

And the same goes for Cloud9, G2 appear to be a renewed French team as they have ‘shox’ back in his native role and so far, he’s is living up to his talent. G2 could possibly be the winners of the entire tournament at this point. This is a very important note to take because shox playing in his native role brought back a thing that G2 were missing – consistency.

While this match will be incredibly disputed, we do believe that the team with a clear advantage to win is G2 so you might head over Steam Market and pick up their sticker if you don’t have one yet.

SK Gaming versus Fnatic

Before the tournament, SK was clearly a team with an upper hand over Fnatic however now that the Swedish roster has been putting on a show that we never expected from them. Including a shining ‘Krimz’ who is returning to his prime of 2015 when Fnatic was the best team in the world.

Despite that lets not forget that SK is one of the stronger teams here – their run with ‘felps’ might officially finish this Saturday, especially if Fnatic can take one thing or two from the victory that FaZe achieved over the Brazilian team.

So, let’s be a bit wild and put Fnatic to be our winners here .

The Semifinals

Now, the next stage we will have FaZe v Quantum Bellator Fire and Fnatic v G2.

FaZe versus Quantum Bellator Fire

In FaZe v QBF, we do believe this match will be pretty much one sided. Even if Na’Vi was to win, things won’t be changing much in the semifinals as FaZe is a better team than both CIS teams and shouldn’t have problems in dealing with them.

The thing here is, FaZe will be able see how both teams will be playing in the day before so much of the mystery that involves QBF will be gone and there’s a giant disparity between the skill ceiling of those two.

QBF simply don’t have what it takes to beat FaZe.

We will be picking FaZe to advance over the finals .

G2 versus Fnatic

In G2 versus Fnatic, we believe that this will be the unfortunately dismissal of the Swedish team at Boston.

One thing that we have to consider is that Fnatic will have to play their quarterfinals match against SK on the same day, so they will be certainly tired with little time to fix any problems and this is a disadvantage big enough to almost guarantee ‘Flusha’ team’s an end to their major run.

The French squad at G2 is just too strong and if they don’t get ahead of themselves they absolutely will take a win over Fnatic putting France once again in the finals of a CS:GO major especially if they abuse Fnatic’s tiredness.

The Grand Final

If everything goes as we predicted, we will have one of the best finals that the Counter-Strike scene has ever seen – FaZe Clan versus G2.

Both teams come from a similar background:

G2 came together last year February to form the French super team. However the players have been disappointed with the results so far where they they won two big events last year. The team make some role changes before coming to the major and so far, so good. They haven’t lost a single match between a total of six encounters during this major.

FaZe also came from a deception, after a brief honeymoon period where the team won two big events back to back. Once SK Gaming got back on it’s feet acquiring Boltz to replace ‘felps’, they couldn’t claim a win anymore. In fact, their only tournament win after it was ECS S4 Finals where SK wasn’t present, now this is their chance to make it big.

So, who could win? What’s our pick?

We do believe that the Frenchmen can win this.

While FaZe has a lot of experienced players, being in a major grand-final will bring pressure that they still haven’t felt before. Not to mentione that communication aspect – as they won’t be able to speak their native language (every member is from a different country in the team).

G2 on the other hand has everything they need to win: the chemistry is there as the team hasn’t made a roster change ever since last year February and they finally seems to be covering for each other weaknesses. Nobody is playing a role they aren’t used to, they are in the best condition to win here and this is why they are our favorites – KennyS is almost reaching his insane skill level consistently, shox is showing why he is so good at being a lurker, and if this isn’t enough they’re getting consistency here.

With this, this is how our pick’em would look like:

We conclude our pick’em challenge and mostly important, on Sunday, we will witness which team will rise to the top and start a new era in the CS/GO pro scene.

Don’t get to check out our livescore for all the matches this weekend – Live Score for CS:GO Boston Major 2018

Match Schedules, predictions and betting odds here