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The action started with a group stage where all six teams faced off against each other twice for a total of ten matches each.
The top four teams would qualify for the semi final stage of the playoffs, with the two bottom teams being eliminated from the tournament.
In the end it was G2 Esports and SuperMassive eSports that were the two teams that found themselves eliminated by a quite considerable margin. SuperMassive Esports won only one of their ten matches, while G2 Esports fared little better winning just two.
The two teams were quite some way behind the other four teams who finished with Royal Never Give Up at the top of the table with an 8-2 record, Counter Logic Gaming second with a 7-3 record and Flash Wolves and SK Telecom T1, third and fourth respectively both with 6-4 records.
The competition organisers also announced an All Tournament Team from the Group Stage with four of the Royal Never Give Up team being selected and one player from Counter Logic Gaming:
- Top – Looper (Royal)
- Jungle – mlxg (Royal)
- Mid – xiaohu (Royal)
- ADC – Stixxay (Counter Logic)
- Support – Mata (Royal)
After a short break following the completion of the league phase, the four teams that reached the semi finals will take each other on over the weekend with the first semi final taking place on Friday 13th May, the second on Saturday 14th and the final on Sunday 15th.
First up, the Group Stage winners Royal Never Give Up will take on SK Telecom T1 in what promises to be an intriguing match up.
Although Royal won the group phase, the eSports bookmakers have SK Telecom T1 as the favourites to win this semi final with Bet365 Sport having them at 1/2, while Royal Never Give Up are 6/4 shots, according to our eSports betting odds tracker.
That may contradict the standings in the group stage, but SK Telecom T1 are the current World Champions and in a recent tournament, they won the event after just about making it through the group stages, so it looks like the bookies may have this pitched about right.
In the second semi final Counter Logic Gaming are the 8/13 odds on favourite to progress into the final ahead of Flash Wolves, who are 6/5 to win the match with Bet365 Sport. This semi final should go more to the form book with CLG performing well in the league stage, although there was just one win difference between the two teams.
There’s plenty of top betting available across a wide range of markets for this big League of Legends events with Bet365 Sport at the moment, including the Outright betting market which still has SK Telecom T1 as the 4/6 favourites to win, while Royal Never Give Up are 7/4, Counter Logic Gaming 10/1 and Flash Wolves the 14/1 outsiders.
Dota 2 EPICENTER Moscow also reaches the playoffs stage
This new Defense of the Ancients 2 eSports tournament has been taking place in Moscow since the 9th May and Epicenter is one event that the top DOTA 2 teams will not be taking too lightly given the massive $500,000 prize fund on offer.
The competition began on the 9th May with a wildcard round where the four qualifiers battled it out to earn a place alongside the six directly invited teams in the Group Stage. In the end it was Newbee (from China) and compLexity Gaming from the Americas who progressed seeing off No Diggity (Europe) and Fnatic (Southeast Asia).
That earned compLexity gaming a spot in Group A alongside Team Liquid, OG and Alliance.
The qualifiers struggled in this tougher group and didn’t win a game to finish bottom of this section. Team Liquid finished top with two wins from two and in the deciding game for the Runner’s Up spot, OG defeated Alliance to earn that second berth in the semi finals, while the two bottom teams enter the Losers’ Round 1.
The other wildcard qualifiers Newbee were drawn into Group B where they too were expected to struggle against the seeded teams, however the Chinese qualifiers played a blinder, winning both their games to top the group ahead of Evil Geniuses who pipped Virtus.pro into second place with Team Secret finishing bottom of the pile. Ensuring they and Virtus Pro enter the Losers Round 1, while the top two move on to the Semi Finals.
The Semi Finals get under way on the 12th May with Newbee taking on OG and Team Liquid facing Evil Geniuses, while a day later the Losers Round 1 also kicks into action with Alliance versus Team Secret and compLexity battling Virtus.pro.
You can place a number of DOTA2 bets on this epic event with Bet365 Sport now including betting on all four of the matches in the playoff stages. Indeed there is a choice of around 20 different eSports betting markets on this eSports event alone with Bet365.
Who will make the ESL Pro League Playoffs?
We reported last week that the ESL Pro League Playoffs were getting under way and we now know that two teams G2 Esports and Ninjas in Pyjamas have made it through to the semi final by finishing top of their group.
However, which of the other teams will join them remains open for debate, although it will not be Astralis who have already lost two games in Group A and are thus eliminated.
In Group A, OpTic Gaming and Luminosity Gaming will battle it out for a place in the Semi Final, while in Group B, there are two games left to be played with Cloud9 taking on Team Liquid in the first, with the winner of this match then going on to face Fnatic in the final game in the group, the winner of which will claim the final place in the Semi Finals.
The Group Stage games are taking place behind closed doors at ESL headquarters in Leicester, but the Semi Finals will see the event move down to the 02 in London on Saturday 14th May.
There’s still plenty of action to enjoy in terms of CS:GO betting on this popular event which has a prize pool of $512,000 up for grabs for the top teams and you can enjoy betting on a wide range of markets on the remainder of this event at Bet365 Sport. Some other eSports betting sites worth checking out include Betway, Ladbrokes, and AlphaDraft.
