Only eight teams remain in the playoffs for the Starladder I-League Season 4. The format for the Group stage was the Best of Three Swiss formats. This has not been implemented before in Counter-Strike and provides has several pros and cons.

This is the first Big International LAN event after the Eleague Boston Major. The event which created records for concurrent viewers on Twitch saw Cloud9 win the first Major for North America. The home crowd advantage was a big contributing factor along with several clutch plays from Skadoodle and Tarik. But things are already changing at Starladder with Cloud9 unable to reach the playoffs.

The eight teams remaining in Starladder I-League Season 4 are :

Mousesports

G2

Team Liquid

SK Gaming

Natus Vincere

Astralis

Faze Clan

Renegades

In this article, we take a look at a few of the teams in the tournament. Mousesports, Na’Vi, Astralis and Faze are in a process right now.

Mousesports

The Mousesports team has always been a roster that can compete at the highest level. But the team has been inconsistent throughout their performance over the years. The current period for the team remains one of their best periods with several deep tournament runs. They featured in the ECS Season 4 finals against Faze, they reached the quarterfinals of the Eleague Boston major. Starladder is already a successful tournament for the Mousesports team with a quarterfinal appearance and the possibility of more.

Can Mousesports continue their good performance as we head into the knockout matches for Starladder I-League Season 4? That is a question that does not have a right answer. Mousesports have had a history periodic good performances. They end up being a team competing against the best teams toe to toe for months on end. But then the team slips into oblivion losing out to weaker, sometimes unknown teams. This inconsistency has tortured Mousesports for a long time.

Oskar

Oskar has been one of the most consistent performers on Mousesports. He can play the AWP as well as the rifle regularly. His consistency has helped Mousesports reach several of the deep runs that they have accomplished in tournaments recently. He has maintained a rating above 1.0 consistently for most of the past year. His ability to perform at the same level, no matter the importance of the match, is what sets him apart from the remaining members.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have Ropz, who has a very high skill ceiling. However, what he has in skill is lacking in terms of experience. The clip showing Ropz killing his teammate just shows how the nerves are getting the better of the players.

Mousesports have a decent map pool and can contest against their opponents in the quarterfinals. They are matched up against G2, a team notorious for their force buys and aggressive plays. If Mousesports understand their opponents correctly, they can come out of this match with a Win.

Natus Vincere

Na’Vi have some of the most veteran players in Counter-Strike. The team, however, has seen a steady decline in their performance despite having probably the best player in the world. Simple’s presence on the team always makes them a threat, but the lack of steady performances from the rest of the team is a big setback.

Natus Vincere is in a very different stage of the team right now. The Na’Vi team has definitely improved over the course of the last few weeks, but they still rely heavily on an individual performance by Simple.

Na’Vi has not been doing well lately including a Quarter Final loss to Epsilon at the Farmskins tournament. They have fallen from the grace of being a top-level team to a team that’s struggling to find its feet. They have added Electronic who definitely provides a lot of firepower on the team. However, they have not been able to use him to achieve better results.

Maps

Na’Vi have always removed Nuke in their map veto. This is usually followed by a Cache ban, which has been one of their worst maps of all times. The map pool for Na’Vi is definitely suffering from any opponent easily able to read their veto. Nuke and cache are the two standard map vetoes.

There is a lot of ground for Na’VI to cover before they can be considered to be a top-level competitor again. For now, they rely on their small map pool and exceptional individual plays in order to be able to have an impact. Mirage is a map that Na’Vi have excelled on in the past, but they have not come up with new things.

Will Na’Vi take advantage of this ‘Home tournament’ and perform better? We can only find out after their match against Astralis.

SK Gaming

SK Gaming is also a team that has made changes to their roster. While this change was made several months ago, they were forced to play the Boston Major with their old team. SK Gaming is always a team that can be a potential threat. The team has not looked too good with their full roster including Boltz.

But the matches that they have since played have mostly been online. LAN setting brings out different energy amongst the Brazilians. One of the highlights of their run at Starladder so far has been the knife attempt by Na’Vi. Na’Vi tried to knife Coldzera in a 4v1 situation. It backfired, not only did Coldzera win the round but he went on to have a very strong map.

Coldzera is a very passionate player and such incidents can definitely bring out a new strength in him. SK Gaming has a very deep map pool and that is what sets them apart from the competition. However, they are also the team which is under a lot of scrutiny by their opponents. As such, they always have improvised and change their tactics. Despite Fallen being a very capable AWP and IGL for the team, the team has been middling out in their results lately.

Astralis

The Danish team came into this tournament with a new member of their team. The addition of Magisk was out of necessity rather than choice. Kjaerbye’s departure from the team left many players and fans surprised. There were no indications of a roster change and Kjaerbye definitely kept things under wraps.

The Danish team managed to submit a roster before the ESL Pro League roster lockdown. They added Magisk, who has been one of the strongest upcoming Danish players in CS GO.

Astralis have been strong so far in Kiev. They have won all but one match in the Group stage. Their only loss comes to G2, which is a team with probably the highest skill ceiling in the tournament. Astralis will need to utilize Magisk and his raw skill to its full potential. Magisk has shown us intermittent bursts of his skill, one of the reasons why he was chosen by top teams. However, he has periods of lulls in between wherein he simply cannot keep up the same form.

Astralis had a poor time at the Major with Device falling ill before the Boston. They swapped roles between Device and Dupreeh and this ended up hurting the team. However, the Danish team have had problems since Eleague Atlanta Major. After winning the Atlanta Major, they have only managed to win one big LAN tournament and have failed in their other attempts.

They face off against Na’Vi in the quarterfinals and is an opportunity for them to create a chance for themselves.

Faze Clan

Starladder I – League Season 4 is a revenge tournament for Faze. The disappointment was written on their faces after they lost out to Cloud9 in the Major finals. The Major remains an elusive title for several of their players.

This is the first big LAN event after the Boston Major and Faze look unbeatable so far. With a 3-0 score, they top the table. They have an impressive round difference of +51 in three series. This includes their dominant performance against Cloud9 ( 16:1, 16:8 ).

Faze have an impressive roster, but they also have an equally impressive map pool. They are one of the best teams on Inferno and Mirage. These two maps are very convenient for the Star-studded team led by Karrigan. Of course, their individual skill means that the team is able to simply out-skill their opponents on less favoured maps as well. Faze have one permanent ban which is Nuke, but the remaining bans are mostly dependent on their opponents.

The Faze roster is out for revenge and we don’t expect any substandard performances from them. They have been dominant with Olofmeister returning to form recently. As the team gets more time together, we will see the veterans on the team returning to some of their old form. We have already seen Karrigan put on a stunning performance against NaVi.

They are the favourites to win the tournament and the hunger and revenge are just driving them towards success.

Final Thoughts

The quarterfinals have some exciting matchups. Mousesports vs G2 & Liquid vs SK Gaming has the potential to be really close matches. This is the first big LAN tournament after the Major. It includes several teams with roster changes and new roles within teams. It will set the pace for the rest of the season which will conclude with the next Major.

Let us know who you think is the team favoured to win Starladder I-League Season 4 in comments below. You can catch all the action on Twitch.