UPDATE (4/28/20, 8:45am ET): Per ESL Counter-Strike, Orgless “has decided to not compete in the rest of the ESL One Road to Rio and have disbanded”. Make sure you remove players from Orgless and Gen.G from today’s lineups.
The Road to Rio continues on Tuesday with several of the world’s top teams back in action. DraftKings’ featured tournament, the Pop-Flash, includes a $100,00 prize pool with $25,000 going to first place. It’s a big slate, so let’s get into it.
CS:GO Notes for Tuesday, April 28
DraftKings
- Astralis, FaZe, and 100 Thieves — all ranked among the world’s top 10 teams — are the three largest favorites on the board and all three teams will be popular stack targets on Tuesday’s slate. For FaZe, NiKo dominates the team’s kill share at 22.9%, but he is priced accordingly as the most expensive player on the entire slate. Since going off for 112 fantasy points on April 8th against Natus Vincere, NiKo has posted fantasy totals of 74, 63, and 70 in three contests against OG, North, and G2. At his most expensive price point to date and on a large 12-team slate, fading NiKo in FaZe stacks is a contrarian play worth consideration. Broky’s projection lags behind NiKo’s by only five points, but he comes $2,400 cheaper than the Bosnian gamer. Olofmeister is by far the cheapest member of Team FaZe at $5,000, though he has logged more deaths than kills in five of his last six matches. Still, it’s hard to pass on such a heavy favorite at that price.
- 100 Thieves feature a balanced attack with four of its five members sporting kill shares between 19.7% and 21.3%. Those numbers come at the expense of Liazz, whose 17.8% kill share is among the lowest on the slate. All five members of 100 Thieves have seen their salaries increase by at least $1,000 since the team’s Friday victory over Evil Geniuses, but they are still reasonable buys given the team’s -500 moneyline odds. Although Triumph was able to upset Cloud9 last Thursday as massive underdogs, the betting markets are not expecting them to put up much resistance on Tuesday against 100 Thieves.
- With losses to fnatic (twice), Natus Vincere, and mousesports over the team’s last eight matches, Astralis’ world ranking has fallen to #3, but the Danish squad is expected to rebound against Vitality. With no players priced above $8,500 on DraftKings, Astralis may be my favorite team to stack on the slate. Astralis stacks on DraftKings should start with device, who has been a beacon of consistency among the team’s recent struggles. Device has posted more kills than deaths in 11 straight matchups and his $8,400 salary is actually down $600 from Astralis’ most recent contest.
FanDuel
- On FanDuel, Xyp9x serves as the linchpin in Astralis stacks due to his $10,100 salary, which makes him $1,700 cheaper than device and only the 23rd-most expensive player overall. Xyp9x is currently the top value on the slate and he will be worth considering in all formats.
- The most expensive player on the slate, ZywOo has posted a 124:90 kill:death ratio over Vitality’s past two matchups, but he will be difficult to trust as a +280 dog on Tuesday. However, in lineups that fade Astralis, ZywOo will be an intriguing contrarian play — we don’t often have the opportunity to roster a player of ZywOo’s caliber at low ownership, as is shaping up to be the case on Tuesday.
