This Monday, May 27th 2024, the first matches of IEM Dallas 2024 will take place. One of them will be a face-off between the Ukrainian organization Monte and the French Team Vitality. Well, while we have some time, let's make our prediction for this exciting match.
Recent Form
Let's start with Team Vitality, who have not changed their lineup since the end of 2023 and have been consistently training together. Their recent opponents were MOUZ, Astralis, and FaZe Clan. They managed to easily defeat everyone except MOUZ, who closed out their opponents with a 0-3 score in the ESL Pro League Season 19 finals.
On the other hand, Monte's situation isn't as sweet as it might seem. Just 15 days ago, they started training with two new players: Martin "STYKO" Styk and Ali "hAdji" Haïnouss. Despite this, they have already played several official matches against BLEED, Sangal, and others. So, the team is gaining form as the tournament progresses.
Team Dynamics and Map Pool Compatibility
This match will be played in a BO1 format. However, if we look at the map pool, Team Vitality are the clear favorites. But which map should we expect? Let's immediately rule out Ancient and Inferno, which are permabans for Vitality and Monte, respectively. One of Monte's strongest maps is Anubis, which it would be foolish for Vitality not to ban.
This leaves us with Dust II, Vertigo, Nuke, and Mirage. The chances that the teams will want to start the tournament with a new map in the pool are quite low, so someone will remove Dust and probably Vertigo. Mirage is likely to be banned as both teams are quite strong on it. This means the teams will play on Nuke.
But what about their recent clashes? Well, the teams haven't played against each other even once in the last 6 months.
Player Form
If we look at the in-game statistics of the players, Team Vitality clearly dominates their opponent, with Monte having a slight advantage of 0.7% only in headshots.
Conclusion and Prediction
The match between Monte and Team Vitality will take place on Nuke, where neither team will give up easily. This match will be a battle to the death. However, purely based on dry statistics and in a BO1 match, Team Vitality has a much better chance of winning. Monte simply hasn't had enough time to fully integrate yet.
Our prediction for this match is a victory for Team Vitality with a 1-0 score in maps, though the match will be quite close and Monte might still surprise us.
The match is scheduled to start on May 27 at 19:30 CEST.
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