Spirit vs. Cloud9, Preview & Prediction - Free 2/16 CS:GO

Spirit is a firm favorite in this Best of 1 encounter when they take on Cloud9 in the Upper bracket round 1 of the IEM Katowice 2021 Play-In on Tuesday. The winner of this duel will progress to the Upper quarter-finals and meet a better team from the tilt between BIG and Movistar Riders, while the loser will go down to the Lower bracket.

Spirit Team Stats and Latest Results

Spirit wasn’t very active in the last few months, and they played just five games in 2021, all five at the DreamHack Open January 2021 Europe. That was enough for them to win a title and $35,000 for 1st place. The Russian team beat forZe, Sprout, BIG, and FunPlus Phoenix in the Grand Final to get the trophy, and they haven't played a single game since (January 31). Spirit won eight of the previous 13 matches.

When it comes to the maps in the last three months, Spirit was decent on Dust2 (77.8% win rate) and Mirage (71.4%), while they failed to get a victory on Overpass (played twice) and didn’t impress on Inferno (33.3%). Spirit has played with the same lineup since January 2021 and appeared on ten maps with a record of eight wins and two losses. The team members are chopper (1.01 rating), mir (1.20), sdy (1.04), degster (1.32), and magixx (1.04).

Cloud9 Team Stats and Latest Results

Just like Spirit, Cloud9 didn’t play a lot of games in the past few months. They participated only at the cs_summit 7 in 2021 and failed to earn any money after losing to FURIA twice and fnatic. Cloud9 did defeat NIP and MIBR, but that wasn’t enough for one of the top six paid places. Cloud9 didn’t play in the last two weeks. They lost eight of the last 15 games.

In the previous three months, Cloud9 was fine on Dust2 (75.0%) and average on Nuke and Overpass, while they didn’t play well on Train (33.3%) and Mirage (33.3%). Cloud9 also assembled its current squad in January 2021 and appeared on 15 maps with a record of seven wins and eight losses. The lineup consists of ALEX (1.01), es3tag (1.04), floppy (1.04), Xeppaa (1.03), and mezii (1.00).

Spirit vs. Cloud9 H2H Record

These rivals have never met before.

Spirit vs. Cloud9 Betting Preview

We have a duel between the top 20 teams, and although it’s going to be a close encounter, I am giving a slight advantage to Spirit. It’s a Best of 1 match, so the teams will not have a lot of room to make mistakes and everything will count. Cloud9 has the quality to beat Spirit and I wouldn’t be surprised if they make it. However, I am going with Spirit in this one.

The Pick: Spirit to win (-161 @GG.BET)