An Alliance team who has finally gotten their hands on their first win for this tournament look to keep building on their momentum as they face FlyToMoon, who have not yet tasted defeat. Alliance were swept in their first two matches while FTM have won by sweeping Ninjas In Pyjamas in their last outing.

Betting Lines

Alliance to Win (1.92)

FlyToMoon to Win (1.69)

Alliance +1.5 Map Handicap (1.25)

FlyToMoon -1.5 Map Handicap (3.6)

Over 2.5 (1.9)

Under 2.5 (1.7)

Previous Match Results and Statistics

These two teams’ most recent encounter was from the group stage of ESL ONE Birmingham Online 2020. The results went the way of Alliance in a best-of-three series.

The first game was a win for FlyToMoon as V-Tune carried his team to the win in the late game with an impressive farming rate of 660 gold per minute. After obtaining his Manta Style in 19 minutes, it was immediately followed by a BKB 6 minutes later and then an Eye of Skadi after another 6 minutes. GeneRaL also came up big with his Mars who bullied the enemy’s carry and even got an early killing spree streak. Alliance’s Nikobaby tried his best to carry his team with his Morphling who ended the game with a decent 13/5/3 KDA, however, his support duo in Handken’s Earthshaker and Fng’s Bane fed the enemy team too much with 8 and 10 deaths respectively.

The second game was all about Alliance as the other stars stepped it up to make it up for Nikobaby’s solo effort in game one. The biggest star of this game was their offlaner in s4 who was on-point with his initiations as he secured his blink dagger on Centaur Warrunner in just 15 minutes. He ended the game with a perfect no-death 8/0/11 KDA with 18.1K networth second only to his carry in Nikobaby’s Bloodseeker who finished with 21.5K networth. Limmp was also a big factor in this game accumulating 9 kills and 11 assists with just 1 death. The stat line may indicate a negative gameplay for Fng in this game as he had a 1/8/12 KDA, but the control that his Bane provided with his Nightmare and Fiend’s Grip enabled him to hold the enemy cores in place for his teammates to finish off.

Round three and it is now a sudden death match for both teams, Alliance had a good start with two early pick-offs on Iceberg’s Storm Spirit. He managed to come back into the game though and even finished with a higher net worth than his midlane match-up in Limmp. Nikobaby’s Faceless Void put up a lackluster performance here as s4 picked up the slack and was on point with his initiations on his Axe. It only took 31 minutes for Alliance to force FTM to call GG with a bottom lane siege.

Predictions

Alliance has been listed as slightly favored in this match-up based on what the betting lines suggest. However, they fell victim to the hands of Team Empire in the Vulkan Fight Series.

In their loss against Team Liquid, it was clear that their cores in Limmp and Nikobaby have been struggling despite their consistent performance because their support duo’s underwhelming gameplay. In their second loss of the tournament, Handsken and Fng had 1/18/18 and 3/12/28 KDA respectively for games 1 and 2 against Team Liquid combined. With this much deaths being given their opponent’s way it would be much harder for their cores to win the economic battle and catch-up against their enemy.

I am looking at FlyToMoon to continue gaining momentum here after stomping Ninjas in Pyjamas in their last match. However, it is also not impossible for Alliance to finally start a winning streak having found their rhythm in their last match, they were runners-up behind Team Secret in the Europe/CIS region of ESL ONE Birmingham after all.