ESL One Los Angeles 2020 playoff predictions expert tips

For 13 days played, the ESL One Los Angeles, which has been converted to an online format, will go into the playoffs in the most important regional league, the Europe & CIS region. Of the originally 16 participating teams, only eight are left to fight for the places in the Grand Final in the usual playoff format with upper and lower brackets. As usual, the losers in the matches in the lower bracket are eliminated immediately, while in the upper bracket the losing team gets a second chance in the lower bracket.

ESL Los Angeles 2020 – final tournament

Places 1 and 2 of both groups meet in the upper bracket, places 3 and 4 of the group phase are in the lower bracket. From group A, Virtus.pro and OG found themselves in the upper bracket as places 1 and 2, group B was led by Team Secret, followed by Team Spirit. Both VP and Secret went undefeated by 7-0 through their group and must therefore be clear favorites at this point.

In the Lower Bracket, Team Nigma and Vikin.gg are third and fourth of Group A Alliance and Chicken Fighters from Group B. The first encounters will already have been played to publish this article, so we cannot go into them here. The encounters are:

Lower bracket: Team Nigma vs. Chicken Fighters & Alliance vs. Vikin.gg
Upper bracket: Virtus.pro vs. Team Spirit & Team Secret vs. Upper floor

Both VP and Secret have to be clear favorites in these first playoff matches of the upper bracket, they dominated all opponents in the group phase and it would be surprising if both teams would not prevail here.

The hardest part will be Secret with OG, here it can get a bit narrower and go for a third card, but in the end we also expect the contenders to win their legendary team captain Puppey.

Our predictions in the Upper Bracket:

Virtus.pro vs. Team Spirit

Betting Tips: Victory Virtus.pro
Odds: 1.22

Team Secret vs OG

Betting Tips: Team Secret victory
Odds: 1.28

Our playoff predictions

Since, as already mentioned, the first matches can no longer be dealt with here, we will limit ourselves here to predictions about the finalists. We have already indicated that the two group winners, the Ukrainians Virtus.pro and the international team secret around team captain Puppey, must be considered favorites here. Especially the always highly esteemed boys from Secret did not show any weakness in the group phase, they won 14 out of 16 cards played, only against Chicken Fighters and Team Spirit it came from a third card. However, at no point have their victories been seriously jeopardized, so it is clear that they are the favorites to win the tournament.

VP also played a dominant role in Group A, with seven wins they are lonely at the top and were able to win every match. Now both are facing a team in the Upper Bracket against whom they would undoubtedly be favored under normal circumstances, so everything points to a meeting of the two in the next round, in the Upper Bracket Finale.

Virtus.pro meet another GUS team in Team Spirit in their match, they are clear favorites and we also agree with this opinion. Puppey and his boys have drawn the supposedly tougher opponents with OG, but here, too, you have to assume that the highly favored Team Secret will prevail.

In the current constellation, we assume that Team Secret and VP will meet in the next round, which means that one of the two teams will then meet the best team in the Lower Bracket, where they will again be the favorites. In our opinion, the most likely scenario is a repeat of the Upper Bracket Final in the Grand Finale, in two exciting games, VP and Team Secret will make up the title among themselves.

These matches will undoubtedly be the most high-profile in this tournament, YapzOr, Nisha and Puppey on the side of Secret against Solo, No [o] ne and Resolut1on as star players on the part of Virtus.pro promises fireworks for DOTA2 fans. It is not easy to make a prediction here, based on our prediction, the decision in the Best-of-5 in the Grand Finale will be made and considering the top form of both teams, there cannot be a clear favorite here.

Team Secret will be slightly favored, of course depending on the further course of the tournament, we also think that they have some advantages on their side. However, the best tip seems to be a bet on a long final, as a fan you naturally hope for an exciting five-card final game, and we think that is exactly what we will be offered here.

Even though it is not easy for us to commit ourselves at this early stage of the playoffs, we have some confidence in the scenario described above, so we would still like to risk it, so here are our predictions for the playoffs of the ESL One Los Angeles online tournament 2020:

Tournament winner: Team Secret

Final game: Team Secret vs. Virtus.pro (?) – total number of cards +4.5

Betting odds will follow.

Live ESL One Los Angeles?

They are also broadcast on Twitch. All games with English commentary can be followed on the official Twitch channel of the organizer ESL, the grand finale will take place on April 19 at 17:00 CET, the times and dates of the other games can be found on Liquipedia.net. There are always current results and further information as well as helpful links.