What a slate we just had! I hoped all of you enjoyed watching it as much as I did. If you followed my post on the 2-23-16 slate you will see where one of my sample LU’s went off and one missed sadly. The one that did go off was a solid 515 score. I also managed to put together another 503 LU for this slate. Always fun, well as fun as this slate was I am actually looking forward to the 2-24-16 slate even more.

We have powerhouse matches all over this one, and we get 3 match ups to pick from which is the most we have had so far this season. For those who are new to CSGO DFS when power houses play each other anything can happen. Often the winner of the matches will be based on which value play goes off. If this was two NBA teams playing and both starting 5 were studs the winner would be found based on whose bench players have the better game. The studs will do what studs do here, and the winner will be based on the value player going off.

Before I break down each match, I want to go over each team that is going to be playing. The first teams playing will be Natus Vincere going against Ninjas in Pyjamas. NaVi has taken back their 2nd in the world rank by 2 rating points over EnVy. They are 11-5 on the year so far, and CSGO Lounge gives them the odds for the win. 66% on the first map and 64% for the second map. NiP still has very few matches under the belt, going 5-1 for the year, and 4-0 for February. The rust fear I had when NiP first came back to play never has seemed to show. They had no problem handling DIG, but they did have to play hard against mouz winning one in a comeback and going into overtime. The second map was close, but well handled in the end by NiP. Looking at the history here NaVi has had no issue handling NiP with a head to head record of 7-3 in the last 10 facings. Train and Mirage are the 2 expected maps to be played. Both of which tend to be CT sided maps, which could mean if you pick the winning teams side you could get great defuse points (Train 56.4% win rate, and Mirage 54.7%). Train allows for bomb plants, but the sites are hard to hold. Mirage has bomb site A which will see plenty of bombs planted, but hard to hold. This has to do with the multiple ways the sites can be taken, and retaken.

Next you will see Astralis facing Virtus.pro in what is my favorite match from a fan aspect. I look forward to seeing how this one plays out. AST is a solid team ranked 4th currently in the world, facing VP who finds themselves 16th. Normally this would be an easy all in call for AST, but VP might finally be back. They just finished a boot camp (basically a hardcore practice session teams do before big events) and they finished that because VP has a big event coming up, so maybe that is the motivation they need to get back into their old skill. While I will still target players from AST, it is important to remember this match should not be one sided as the ranks suggest. One more important note (there are a lot of them this slate I know) is that AST did just play fantastic in Barcelona and managed to take 2nd, playing it close and tight to the end against Fnatic.

In the finally we will get to see Fnatic take on SK Gaming. Fnatic as I am sure you figured out, just took first in Barcelona beating Envy 2-1, AST 2-0, G2 2-0, DIG 1-0 and gBots 1-0 (they are a small team in comparison to the rest). Many of those wins were clutch situation come backs. If you want to know why Fnatic is so good, it has nothing to do with their map planning or scheming. It is all thanks to straight skill. Sure they know all of the smokes they will need, but what it boils down to is the accuracy of their shooters. They also play fantastic under pressure, and if there is any team who can come back from 14-8 it would be Fnatic. This is also a match to target for our purposes. SK is ranked 10th in the world, and even though they have been a solid team even in loses. If they were going to face any team not Fnatic, I might even be focusing my LUs on them. This match however focus on Fnatic, but there will be more on that soon.

I do not know why teams cannot seem to make it easy on us when we are picking rosters. Everyone here has a +1 KDA, and everyone but Zeus has a +10 FPG. That should mean we can select anyone from either side and have about the same shot at taking good points.

The only thing that worries me is the odds given so heavy in favor to NaVi, and the fact that NaVi has been a little random in their play. For NiP the top three are solid options. They have high KDA, and their salary is manageable. If NiP keeps this match competitive it will be on their backs. I personally am a fan of f0rest and plan to use him when I can. For NaVi everyone can be played, but I would hold off on Zeus. If he was under 7k I would say he makes a great stud stack with cheap value play, but I think I could get better points out of friberg for 200 less.

This is probably our best match to find value because both sides could go off. I however will only be focused on using NEO from VP. He is on fire right now, and even though everyone from this team is playing like a pro CSGO player should, he is the only one I trust. Snax and TaZ being 6700 and 6600 could make for a great GPP play where you stack 4 studs and go with these 2 cheap. This would be a nice and solid GPP type LU with a lot of sexy stud players and some nice value. You will be able to see a sample of what I mean with my Sample LUs. AST will be the clear cut favorite here based on odds (74% & 61%) so make sure you keep your VP player usage light unless you are going for a GPP build.

Fnatic is expected to win this one without having to use both hands based on the odds makers. We have 84% and 91%, which is a good thing for us because these types of odds mean we should be able to bet with confidence on Fnatic. You will see that olofmeister is in yellow here. This is not because he is a bad play, I just think we can get more value/points from his team mates. Flusha and JW are actually the strongest players to select here. Their sub 8000 salaries will make their point total mean more. JW has had some nice AWPing in the last few matches, and if Fnatic does own this match like they should, the money to buy an AWP post round 4 shouldn’t be an issue. Olofmeister does a lot of lurking and while that is great for a player like Happy whose salary is lower. For olofmeister to pay off he might need to clutch some 3v1’s or get multiple 2v1 rotations. DFS rule number…I forget which number it is, but the point is, just because a QB can score 30 doesn’t mean it is worth rostering him at 9k because there are great value QBs at 8k who can also score 30, but give us 1k more for receiver or running back. There’s a little Geek education for the masses coming from the Nerd of the DFS Army!

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