“Always bet on the underdog. They’ve got ambition and nothing to lose.” — Clint Borgen

We are only hours away from the start of the Asian minor and of course this minor has yet again raised questions from the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive viewers. The representatives from this minor are often rather lackluster at majors and while teams such as ViCi and CyberZen have a good chance to atleast make it to the so-called minor playoffs, teams such as mousesports and Valiance are left out of the major for sure.

Despite these discussions I still found it rather interesting to delve deeper into the asian scene and take a look at the dark horse teams for this minor.

ViCi, the Chinese powerhouse

(Source: HLTV)

The weeks of practice and scrims [ViCi] got over in Europe should provide them with a unique edge over all teams except Renegades.

First off I will take a look at ViCi. This team has not really lived up to its potential in my eyes but they can turn that all around by making it to the major. This team thrives on the fragging power of Malaysian superstar kaze, aswell as the rifling skills of Freeman. Despite zhokiNg also putting up good numbers I would still say that these two players are head and shoulders above the rest of the team, as they can both turn a game around with their raw skill.

To prepare for this minor ViCi have bootcamped in Europe, which grants them an edge above almost all other teams in this minor. It is rare to see an Asian team prepare in Europe before tournaments, but teams such as TyLoo have shown in the past that even a short lasting bootcamp can improve the performance of an asian team in any tournament. This does not come as a suprise to me as most asian teams mostly lack fundamentals and experience. Small things that are normal in European CS are not as normal in Asian CS and even playing against low tier European teams should help improve any asian team by a lot. Having said that, this ViCi squad have disappointed during their stay in Europe; the only tournament they contested in had them going out without any wins nor map wins. They got beaten by Vega Squadron in overtime, which is not something to be ashamed of, aswell as losing out to Superjymy, a Finnish squad. Still, the weeks of practice and scrims they got over in Europe should provide them with an edge over all teams except Renegades.

Now believe me or not, I actually think that ViCi have quite a good chance of making the major, unlike what some might believe. I rate them above MVP PK, although these teams are alike in the way that they both play around their AWPer, I still think ViCi is better than MVP PK because kaze is just the more consistent AWPer. ViCi’s map pool is also quite an unknown quantity since they have not played a lot of officials with this lineup and them scrimming in Europe should not provide MVP PK with too much info. I would say that this team can also take on Grayhound. Yes, Grayhound has had some really high highs but I don’t have enough faith in sterling as of right now. Grayhound have also seemed to have problems in situations where they are considered as the favorite, which can also weigh upon this team.

MVP PK, a mix of experience and talent

(Source: HLTV)

Xeta boasts a 1.22 HLTV rating during his time on MVP PK and meanwhile XigN has achieved a 1.24 HLTV rating in the past six months.

MVP PK has a unique team composition, consisting of both experience and young blood. With zeff, solo and glow this team has experience in players which played international CS way back upto Counter-Strike 1.6, while they also have XigN and xeta, two of the biggest prospects of Korean CS and maybe even South East Asian CS. Xeta has recently gotten a lot of praise, deservedly so, for his standout performances at LANs. This minor should tell us whether he can keep that up.

As one may expect, XigN and xeta also provide most of the fragging that this squad possesses. Xeta boasts a 1.22 HLTV rating during his time on MVP PK and meanwhile XigN has achieved a 1.24 HLTV rating in the past six months. This should testify of the potential that this squad possesses in these two youngsters.

Now what makes me doubt this team are the other three players. Yes, they bring a whole lot of experience with them but they also bring a lot of inconsistency with them. When looking at the statistics of these players you will quite quickly discover that there is little to no consistency to these players and while they can show up in quite a huge way, they can as easily also get caught slacking.

To compare this MVP PK squad to the other teams I would say that they have a way better understanding of basic CS over a lot of the other asian teams but they don’t have that much special besides these basics and often rely on insane plays from their two youngsters. I just believe they miss an impulse of firepower to make it past the fourth place during this minor.

Conclusion

To conclude this article I still think it is good for me to get my picks out there. Now the obvious first place team here would be Renegades. They have more firepower, experience and resources put into them. Having said that I will actually pick ViCi to come in second, I really believe in them to be able to beat both MVP PK and Grayhound. The third place should be taken by Grayhound but MVP PK has a lot of upset potential here, since they are always scary when they have the underdog role. This prediction is also taking the fact into account that Grayhound have both Renegades and CyberZen in their group, while ViCi only has MVP PK to worry about.

If you enjoyed reading this article I’d love to get feedback so I can improve my writing in the future (this is my first article so I still have a lot to learn!)

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