Spirit vs. Heroic, Preview & Prediction - Free 2/19 CS:GO

Spirit is a slight favorite in this Best of 3 encounter when they meet Heroic in the Group A upper bracket semi-final of the IEM Katowice 2021 on Friday. The winning team will progress to the Group A Upper final and take on a winner of the clash between Evil Geniuses and Astralis. On the other hand, the loser will drop down to the Lower bracket and face a winning side from the game between mousesports and Gambit.

Spirit Team Stats and Latest Results

Spirit is looking to get into the top 10 in the CS:GO rankings, but they will have to do well at this tournament and secure the playoff spot, at least. They impressed at the DreamHack Open January 2021 Europe, where they beat Sprout, BIG, and FunPlus Phoenix, among other teams, to win a trophy and $35,000. The Russian team continued with a fine form at the IEM Katowice 2021 and defeated Cloud9, BIG, and G2. Spirit won 11 of the previous 16 matches.

When it comes to the maps in the last three maps, Spirit was decent on Dust2 (77.8% win rate), while they failed to impress on Overpass (33.3%). Spirit assembled its current lineup in January 2021 and appeared on 16 maps with a record of 13 wins and three losses. The team members are chopper (1.04 rating), mir (1.21), sdy (1.07), degster (1.30), and magixx (1.03).

Heroic Team Stats and Latest Results

Heroic is ten spots ahead of Spirit in the rankings but they are playing in a hot and cold form recently. The Danish team participated only at the cs_summit 7 prior to this tournament in 2021 and beat MIBR twice and OG before fnatic stopped them, so Heroic had to settle with 4th position and $17,500. In the opening match of the IEM Katowice 2021, Heroic defeated BIG 2-0. Heroic won seven of the last 14 games.

In the previous three months, Heroic was strong on Nuke (75.0%) and played well on Mirage (66.7%), Overpass (66.7%), and Vertigo (66.7%), while they failed to get a win on Train (played four times) and was below average on Inferno (37.5%). Since November 2020, Heroic is playing with the same squad that appeared on 34 maps with a record of 18 wins and 16 losses. The lineup consists of cadiaN (1.07), b0RUP (0.91), niko (1.01), stavn (1.08), and TeSeS (1.06).

Spirit vs. Heroic H2H Record

These rivals have met on three occasions before, and Heroic leads the series 2-1. They won the most recent clash at the DreamHack Masters Winter 2020 Europe in December 2020.

Spirit vs. Heroic Betting Preview

I am leaning toward Spirit when it comes to the winner of this match. Still, I am not going to back the winner, but I am going with Over 2.5 maps despite the fact that none of the previous three H2H duels produced a maximum of three maps. I usually go with the betting trends and H2H trends, but on this occasion, I will skip that rule and back Over 2.5 maps. I expect to see an exciting duel.

The Pick: Over 2.5 Maps (-108 @GG.BET)