CS:GO – Malta Vibes Week 10 Playoffs Preview

Die 10th and final week of Malta Vibes is already in full force. Today, we can see the Group D matches between Sprout, Wisla Krakow, sAw and North unfold. The two best teams will land a spot in the playoffs, where they will play for $40.000 alongside the likes of Gambit Youngsters and forZe. Just as with the last weeks of Malta Vibes, we’re casting the bracket in German!

With Sprout, a playoffs-participant of ESL One Cologne is part of this event. Denis “denis” Howell and his boys were able to impress during the Group Stage, but later fell decisively to Team Vitality. They really had some bad luck in drawing the Frenchmen and other teams would surely have been an easier task for them. They had to take this loss, however, cope with it, and then enter the new MDL season – so far to moderate success. In their match against HellRaisers, Michał “snatchie” Rudzki secured 26 kills and a 1.69 rating. Before that, however, the team lost to Galaxy Racer, who had recently beaten MIBR out of Malta Vibes.

Obviously this makes it quite hard to gauge the team’s form going into this event. Should they perform similarly to Cologne, we can expect some one-sided matches and a fast run through the playoffs by the Sprout side. But if the Sprout who lost to Galaxy Racer enter the server, then the playoffs spot isn’t entirely a safe bet. One team in particular is blocking their way.

HOW WELL ARE NORTH PREPARED?

The team around Mathias “MSL” Lauridsen just recently added the Swedish player Jonas “Lekr0” Olofsson. They now have a top player in the roster, which is something they have arguably lacked since the departure of Markus “Kjaerbye” Kjærbye. The team is in historically bad shape. All the talented players, the top performers and the promising youngsters, have left the team or bypassed it entirely for the likes of Heroic, Astralis, and MAD Lions. Still, the North roster boasts a lot of experienced players and in MSL, they certainly have one of the stronger in-game-leaders.

But is that enough? This early after their player change, they seem to not have found their footing just yet. In their last match on August 26, they lost to Wisla Krakow. However, an entire week has passed since then. We should expect them to perform better today. Should they win their opening duel versus sAw, they will probably go up against Sprout next.

Sprout have still not entirely recovered from their Vitality encounter, but they don’t really have to. With North, Gambit Youngsters, and forZe, they will have a much weaker playing field to contend with. Today, at 12:00 CEST, they start into the tournament against Wisla Krakow, with the playoffs commencing tomorrow. You can watch all of this unfold live on twitch.tv/fragster_de and twitch.tv/fragster_de_cs.