As Evil Geniuses and Astralis square off in the ECS Season 8 Semifinals in Texas, here's what you need to know, including live stream information, latest betting odds and predictions
Evil Geniuses vs Astralis is due to start at 6pm GMT / 7pm CET / 1pm ET / 10am PT on Saturday, November 30th, 2019.
Road to the Semi-Final
Astralis topped Group B with their nailbiter of an overtime win over Sharks on Nuke in the opener, then a clean 2-0 sweep of Fnatic to directly qualify for the semi finals.
Evil Geniuses took the long way through Group A, they won their opener over AVANGAR on Dust II, lost to Liquid 2-0 in the Winners' BO3, and then won an extremely close and contested decider BO3 against NiP 2-1.
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Who to watch
My key player for Evil Geniuses is still Vincent "Brehze" Cayonte. Earlier in the event I noted that EG has other talent to lean on, but when Brehze is shouldering some of the load, things get significantly easier on the rest of the squad.
Against NIP, Brehze decided outduelled Fredrik "REZ" Sterner 25-7 across the three maps, 73-52 overall, a good sign for an EG squad that will need to be firing on all cylinders to take down the ever dangerous Danish powerhouse. Ethan "Ethan" Arnold playing like he did today will be necessary as well.
One of the areas that I felt wasn't as much of an issue against NiP for EG as it will be against Astralis was the presence of a world class AWP. If Nicolai "dev1ce" Reedtz is able to be as disruptive with the AWP as he was against Fnatic, EG are in big trouble.
I think this tournament is Emil "Magisk" Reif's turn to be the star rifler, but we all know that Astralis is capable of having any of their four riflers produce MVP-worthy performances.
EG vs Astralis predictions
I think that this is the first big event that we'll have had in a while where it feels like any of the remaining teams are true contenders with skilled enough lineups to hoist the trophy. No team left is a fluke or a Cinderella story, these four are all legitimate threats to their remaining opponents.
Scoreline predictions for each map are below. Astralis have been one of the best in the world on Vertigo, so I think it's safe to assume that EG will continue to ban it.
Astralis are pretty committed to not dealing with Mirage. I think any and all maps will be close, maybe with the exception of Inferno if the snowball effect really gets going. Astralis should be victorious in a close match.
Nuke: 16-14 Astralis
Dust II: 16-13 Evil Geniuses
Inferno: 16-12 Astralis
Vertigo: Evil Geniuses Permaban
Mirage: Astralis Permaban
Train: 16-13 Evil Geniuses
Overpass: 16-11 Astralis
Fnatic vs Liquid up next
The winners of Evil Geniuses vs Astralis will face whoever triumphs in the other ECS Season 8 Semifinal - Fnatic vs Liquid, which is due to start at 9pm GMT / 10pm CET.
Don't forget, you can find the full ECS Season 8 Finals schedule updated throughout the tournament.
