IEM Chengdu Group B Favorites

Both groups of IEM Chengdu are scheduled to start on April 8. In group B, four strong teams are fighting for three qualification spots.

The other four participants are doomed from the start because they don’t have good enough rosters to compete at this level. They would need to play the best CS of their lives to cause any serious upset.

FaZe Clan finished PGL Major Copenhagen in 2^nd place. Cloud9 were also in the top eight. Virtus.pro did not qualify for the playoffs, but competed in the tournament’s second stage and finished with a 2 W – 3 L record.

Against these three teams, Astralis will almost certainly struggle. But it’s enough to beat one of them to qualify for the playoffs.

Group B Participants and Favorites

Here are the eight teams that will compete in group B at IEM Chengdu:

• FaZe Clan
• Nemiga Gaming
• Astralis
• Monte
• Cloud9
• FlyQuest
• Virtus.pro
• Wildcard Gaming

As I mentioned above, the favorites are FaZe, Cloud9, Virtus.pro, and Astralis, in this exact order. It would be quite an achievement for any of these teams to move up the ladder.

If there’s anyone to do it, it would likely be VP. They have the potential to beat Cloud9 in round 2 and qualify for the playoffs regardless of what happens in the upper bracket Final.

Watch the full interview 👇https://t.co/x55FEIn99Y

— Astralis Counter-Strike (@AstralisCS) April 5, 2024

For Astralis, the situation is tricky because the departure of blameF left a huge open space that needed to be filled. Ultimately, dev1ce decided to become the team’s new IGL and br0 was signed to replace blameF.

But now the team has a major problem. Nobody is a dedicated AWPer. This means that the team as a whole will be lacking versatility. Stavn plays with the AWP to some extent and dev1ce could potentially continue to use the weapon, but it will be tricky.

With so many changes and so little time to integrate them, Astralis seem destined to fail at IEM Chengdu. Perhaps in three months, they will be much stronger. But for now, there is little hope that they’ll upset the best teams in their group.

For Nemiga, Monte, and Wildcard Gaming, the situation looks rough. Monte used to be a much stronger team, but they lost sdy. So now they’re back to their usual and far less impressive level.

Header: FaZe Clan