On December 13 at 9:00 EEST in the opening match of BLAST Premier: World Final 2023 in CS2 will face Cloud9 and ENCE. In this article Bo3.gg together with Fedir KvaN Zakharov analyzes and makes a prediction on the outcome of this match.

Cloud9's form

After the departure of Dmitry sh1ro Sokolov, Cloud9 was left without a profile sniper. If not for this fact, perhaps the team would have better results on their account. If at BLAST Premier: Fall Final 2023 Kirill Boombl4 Mikhailov and company performed well, then at BetBoom Dacha they completely failed. The opposing players repeatedly noted the fact that it is easier for them to play against C9 due to the lack of a sniper in the team.

ENCE's Form

ENCE is experiencing a difficult restructuring. The team's captain, Marco "Snappi" Pfeiffer, who made the club what we know it as today, has left. As a replacement, the organization's management chose Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander. The Dane was recently inactive, and before that, he had a rough time with Astralis. The squad with the new captain has already attended Elisa Masters Espoo 2023 and gained some negative experience. If ENCE players have managed to draw the right conclusions in two weeks and play better together, the roster can compete with any opponent at the tournament.

Map Pool

Predicting the map pool for this confrontation is quite difficult, as both teams are in the process of forming their playing style and tactics. The statistics for the last six months indicate that most maps are stronger for C9. However, can these indicators be trusted, as after the change of captains in both collectives, the trends of their picks and bans are starting to change?

Prediction from KvaN

Fedir"KvaN" Zakharov, a caster from the Maincast studio who has been working in Counter-Strike since 2012 and has commented on many majors and S-tier championships, agrees with this statement.

In theory, we could have a rather interesting match, but everything depends on the level of ENCE's preparation. If gla1ve and the company come to BLAST in the same state we saw them at Elisa, we'll get an easy 2:0 for C9. On the other hand, it's worth remembering that C9 still lacks an AWP and overall, the recent results are not as promising as at the first tournaments after Boombl4 joined. I hope ENCE have managed to work on their mistakes and we will get a solid BO3 with a 50-50 chance. 

Fedir"KvaN" Zakharov

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BLAST Premier: World Final 2023 will take place from December 13 to 17 in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Teams will compete for a prize pool of one million dollars. For news, schedule, and results of the tournament, you can follow the link.