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We continue to follow the action at Thunderpick World Championship 2024. The International is an interesting tournament, if only because of its substantial prize pool, which is, for a second, $850,000.
Let's talk about the group stage of the tournament, and more specifically about the D quartet. It will be opened by BIG and Aurora with their face-to-face match.
We're trying to figure out how this match will end and who will advance to the next stage of Group D.
Let's go.
BIG uniforms
We open the BIG vs Aurora match with an analysis of BIG's form. In this match, the German club plays as favourites with odds to win at around 1.4.
In the 2023 season, BIG participated in a lot of championships, but there were not many decent results. They started top-9 at BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2023, and went on to top-16 at IEM Extreme Masters Katowice 2023.
There was also an appearance at ESL Pro League Season 17 with a top-20 there. The failures partially managed to cap off the Top-4 at the Elis Invitational Winter 2023, where the team reached the Top-4.
In the middle of the year, the Germans failed to qualify for BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023, finishing top-11 at RMR Europe and then top-3 at qualification. In the second half of the year they started playing CCT Series championships, where it is worth noting CCT Online Finals #1, with TOP-4, CCT West Europe Series $4 with TOP-2.
Back to the S-Tier tournaments with BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2023 with Top-9, and then Top-24 at IEM Cologne 2023.
- BIG lineup: tabseN, Krimbo, rigoN, syrsoN, JDC.
Before the ESL Pro League Season 18 Long Convergence, the team played at Thunderpick World Championship 2023: European Series #1 with a top-2 finish. There was also a top-8 at CCT East Europe Series #7 and a win at CCT Europe Series #7.
At ESL Pro League Season 18 they debuted with a match against Monte. The Ukrainian club fought honourably, but in the end they were defeated by Ledgeil with the score 1-2, putting BIG in the semi-finals of Group B at ESL Pro League Season 18.
In the previous match, BIG made perhaps the biggest sensation of the tournament. The Germans defeated Heroic, sending them to the bottom of the group.
Next, BIG played another big European club - ENCE. The Finns failed to win (1-2), but BIG made it to the play-offs, straight into the second round. That's where their ESL Pro League Season 18 journey came to an end.
BIG Ledge and Eternal Fire in the second round of play-offs with the score 0-2. Thus, the Germans took the EPL S18 top-12.
In the match before that, BIG played against 9INE. The Germans defeated their visions quite easily, closing the match with a score of 2-0.
Afterwards, BIG outplayed ENCE and advanced to the finals of BLAST Premier: Fall European Showdown 2023. However, BIG were not enough for the final as C9 won 2-0.
Prior to the Roobet Cup 2023, BIG played two CCT tournaments. It was CCT North Europe Series #8 and CCT East Europe Series #3. They finished in the top 16 at the latter, but won the North European tournament, beating Spirit 2-0 in the grand final.
The Roobet Cup 2023 ended quite well for BIG. The team finished in the top 8, and repeated that result at Thunderpick World Championship 2023. They also played at CCT Online FInals #4, where they finished in the top 3.
In the first match at CCT Online Finals #5 BIG played Zero Tenacity. "The Germans proved to be stronger, easily defeating ZT. In the next game BIG met Guild Eagles and were stronger, and very confidently - 2-0. Next, BIG faced 9 Pandas and once again the Germans were no match for them. A confident 2-0 against the Pandas led them to the final of the upper grid. There they slammed Aurora without much difficulty and later repeated it in the grand final of the tournament.
BIG started the tournament with a rather lacklustre loss against Vp, but followed it up with a colourful and hard fought win against Heroic. Even more colourful was the victory over Cloud9 in the lower finals match, where BIG shut out the "titular" Americans 2-0. However, it was not possible to come out of their group victorious and Vp repeated their debut success. Next, BIG fought Astralis in the match for the BLAST Premier: Spring Finals 2024, but they failed there as well.
They played at IEM Katowice 2024, where they finished only in the top 20. Before playing at ESL Pro League Season 19, the team visited BLAST Premier: Spring Showdown, where they finished top-8, Skyesports Masters 2023, where they reached top-4 and Thunderpick World Championship 2024 with top-4.
At the ESL Pro League Season 19 BIG got into the group D and qualified there by passing the "middle grid". However, they didn't manage to play long at ESL Pro League Season 19: TOP-16. Before the BLAST Premier, the team played a number of "small" tournaments, including IEM Dallas 2024 (TOP-8), YaLLa Compass 2024 (TOP-12) and CCT Season 2 European Series #5 (TOP-8). They also attended BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2024, where they finished in the Top 9-12.
BIG played at IEM Cologne 2024, where they lost in a blowout. There they took TOP-17-20, which is not an acceptable result if you want it to be. Later they visited BLAST Premier: Fall Showdown 2024, where they took TOP-8.
ESL Pro League S20 started with a loss to Imperial (1-2). Later they defeated Rooster (2-0) and Fnatic (2-0). However, they failed to advance far, as they lost to The MongolZ and finished in the top 16.
They also played at YaLLa Compass Summer 2024, where they finished top-8, as well as at CCT Season 2 European Series #12 and finished top-16. Partially broke the losing streak at the ESL Challenger at DreamHack Atlanta 2024, where BIG reached the Top 2.
BIG Mapple
BIG has 3 of the best maps in their arsenal. They are Overpass, Vertigo and Anubis with 5 matches and 3 wins on each.
The most played map is Ancient. BIG have played 14 matches there and have a 57% win rate.
The most unlucky map is Inferno with 2 wins and 2 losses. The worst map is Mirage (9 matches, 33% wins).
Aurora's form
We continue the analysis of the match Aurora - BIG with the analysis of Aurora's game form. In this match they play as an outsider with win odds around 2.4.
The only notable performances are the ubiquitous CCT tournaments, where Aurora have done really well. For example, they won CCT South Europe Series #2 and CCT South Europe Series #3. If we talk about more prestigious championships, then everything was much worse there.
Aurora participated in BLAST.tv Paris Major 202: European RMR, and twice. And both times they failed the qualifying stage for the only Major, being ranked first TOP-11 and then TOP-6. They also failed to qualify for Gamers8 and IEM Sydney 2023.
- Aurora lineup: Lack1, Norwi, KENSI, deko, clax.
Prior to the Long Convergence Roobet Cup 2023, the team made an appearance at the ESL Challenger at DreamHack Winter 2023: European Qualifier. And again top 4.
Where they were lucky was at Skyesports Championship 2023: European Qualifier. We defeated TSM in the final, thus getting a slot to the main tournament.
Roobet Cup 2023 is going well for Aurora so far. The team made it through the group stage with confidence, leaving Heroic and Eternal Fire behind.
The ongoing Roobet Cup 2023 continues to be the centrepiece of the 2023 tournament for the club. In the first round of the play-offs, Aurora stepped over OG very confidently, outscoring them 2-0.
However, Roobet Cup 2023 remained one of Aurora's main, if not the main, achievement. The team managed to make it to the play-offs and semi-finals before being knocked out by Monte.
Then there was a series of not very successful local tournaments. These included CCT Central Europe Series #8, with a top 8, CCT Online Finals #4 with a top 16, Pari, Please with a top 6 and finally qualifying for BetBoom Dacha with a top 4.
Aurora made their debut at CCT Onilne Finals #5 with a match against ALTERNATE aTTaX. The Germans were unable to put up a fight and Aurora advanced to the next round without a single problem, giving their opponent only 9 rounds per match.
In the semi-final match Aurora faced sAw. The Portuguese gave a great fight, but they were not enough for more than one map. Next, they knocked out G2, but lost to BIG in the grand finals.
In the 2024 season, Aurora kept trying to play in title tournaments, but rarely got there. Of the "big championships" there was an appearance at Dacha Belgrade 2024 #1 with a final top 8 and CCT Season 1 Global Finals with a similar result. The other tournaments where Aurora played were TIR-B and at best TIR-A.
Aurora Mapple
Some of Aurora's best maps include Anubis and Overpass. The former has 6 cards and 100% wins, while the latter has 5 cards and 100% wins.
Next is Inferno with 13 matches and 10 wins. Nuke (7-4) and Ancient (3-3) are playing.
Worst of all is Vertigo. There are 2 defeats there.
History of head-to-head meetings between BIG and Aurora
Aurora and BIG played each other often in the 2023 season, when BIG were frequent guests at TIR-B tournaments.
Predicted result of Aurora vs BIG at Thunderpick World Championship 2024
I'm expecting a roughly even matchup in this matchup. BIG is nominally tougher, but they haven't shown any impressive results that would make it possible to call the Germans the winner of the match. However, I still think they will win.
Bottom line: BIG wins.
