Astralis Heavy Favorites to Win CS:GO ESL Pro League Finals Season 10

• The ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals begin on December 3rd and run until December 8th
• Astralis are the usual favorites as they come off a recent win at the ECS Season 8 Finals
• Team Liquid and Evil Geniuses are looking to get revenge after losses to Astralis

Fresh off the back of the ECS Season 8 Finals, the best CS:GO teams in the world head immediately to the ESL Pro League Finals. Jet lag will definitely play a factor as the busy tournament schedule has caused teams to constantly travel. Despite all external factors, Astralis are favorites to continue racking up wins and become the ESL Pro League Finals champs.

ESL Pro League Finals Season 10

Odds taken Dec. 3.

Riding the Wave of Wins

How could you possibly bet against Astralis? On December 1st, Astralis became the ECS Season 8 champions as they defeated Team Liquid in the grand finals.

Prior to that, Astralis had ripped off wins over Evil Geniuses and Fnatic, so they’ve picked up wins over their toughest challengers as recently as this week. It could be argued that Astralis has looked human over the backstretch of the year.

Sure they’ve lost to EG at ESL One: New York, and to Fnatic at DreamHack Malmo, but right now Astralis has regained their form and appears to be untouchable. That was crystal clear at IEM Beijing where they didn’t drop a single map on way to another tournament win.

Defeating Astralis will be even more difficult since teams that competed at the ECS finals will have minimal time to prepare. Being unable to gameplan for Astralis because of the non-stop schedule is extremely detrimental. Expect Astralis to win yet again, I just can’t bet against them here.

Fighting for Second

Although Astralis look to be clear bets for first, there are some interesting bets that you could make on who will take them on in the finals. One team that’s been on the rise is 100 Thieves. Even before the former Renegades roster joined forces with 100T, the mostly Australian roster has been rather successful. Back with Renegades, they finished top four at both StarLadder Berlin and StarSeries & i-League Season 8. Then under the 100 Thieves banner, they made it all the way to the grand finals of IEM Beijing after wins against Vitality and ENCE.

While teams like EG and Liquid have been busy competing in a flurry of events, 100 Thieves have had time to prepare exclusively for the ESL Pro League finals. While so many teams come in exhausted, 100T are fresh and are worth a bet to reach the grand finals.

Any North American Hopes?

The usual suspects to make the grand finals are the two top teams from North America. Both Team Liquid and Evil Geniuses have been in contention recently. Team Liquid had appeared to be in a sizable slump but shook that off at the ECS Season 8 Finals to make the grand finals. In the battle of best in NA, TL 2-0’d EG to top Group A and showed that they could very well still be the best team out of North America.

The problem for TL is that they’re in the same group as Astralis and that’ll make their road to the grand finals that much more difficult. It’s much more likely for the top team from Group A to make it there, and that could definitely be Evil Geniuses.

Picks: To Win – Astralis (+125), To Reach Finals – Astralis (-200) & 100 Thieves (+325)