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We continue to talk about what's happening at Thunderpick World Championship 2024. The group stage of the $850,000 tournament is underway.
We're interested in Group C of The International, where Imperial and NiP, among others, will be battling it out for the play-offs. I would call this the centre match of the tour in Group C.
Let's try to see how the match between Imperial and NiP will end.
Form Imperial
Let's open the analysis of Imperial vs Ninjas in Pyjamas match with the analysis of Imperial's form. In this match they play as favourites with odds to win at around 1.5.
The World 16 team spent the first half of the year at various qualifying events and TIR-2 tournaments. Among the rare results is a victory at the local championship TG Masters Spring 2023. We can also mention the failure at EPL Season 17, where Imperial finished in the top 32.
Imperial's main Milestone was the performance at American RMR B, a qualifier for BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023. There, the Brazilian club finished in the top-12. Later there was a disappointing IEM Masters Rio 2023 and top-16 there.
- Imperial lineup: latto, dumau, NEKIZ, b4rtiN, saadzin.
Prior to the IEM Cologne 2023 Long Convergence, Imperial won the ESL Brazil Premier League Season 14 and finished in the top 4 at BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2023.
On top of that, Imperial have invited felps and HEN1 to join the team. The team's rookies lost their debut match at the club. They were run over by Monte, who won at Nuke 16-9. Next it was no better and as a result Cologne Brazilians took the top 20.
Later, they finished top-28 in ESL Pro League Season 18 and tried to make a name for themselves in other tournaments. They played at local championships like CBCS 2023 Season 1, Copa BetBoom, Game Arena and so on, but failed to achieve success there. Imperial looked better in the 2024 season.
So far, the main achievement of the year was winning the home PGL Major Copenhagen 2024: American RMR and making it to the Major itself. There, the team went 3-2 in the Opening Stage and then won the Legends Stage 1-3, which is pretty good.
They opened ESL Pro League Season 19 with a match against FaZe Clan, where they lost 0-2, but showed their teeth. In the middle set of ESL Pro League Season 19 Imperial played against Eternal Fire, where Ledgeila with a score of 1-2. Next was a loss by sAw and an elimination to the top 32.
Later Imperial won 2 "small" tournaments like Thunderpick World Championship 2024: South American Series #1 and ESL Challenger League Season 47: South America.
They got to IEM Cologne 2024 thanks to the top 2 at Intel Extreme Masters Rio 2024: South American Qualifier. In the end, they finished in the top 24, but failed to make a miracle.
ESL Pro League Season 20 started with a 2-1 win over BIG in a very even match. Then they defeated MOUZ 2-0 and lost to M80, but made it to the second round of play-offs. However, they could not move further and finished in the top-12. They made their mark at IEM Rio 2024, but only made their mark: TOP-16.
Mapple Imperial
Imperial's best maps are Ancient and Inferno. The former has 3 wins in 4 maps, and the latter has 5 out of 7.
Don't mind playing Overpass either, where Brazilians have 57% wins in 7 maps. Can also play Nuke with Vertigo, where they have 50% wins at 6 and 4 mapx respectively.
Do not play Anubis.
NiP Form
We continue the NiP vs Imperial match with the analysis of NiP form. In this match the "ninjas" play as number two with odds to win around 2.5.
In the first half of last year NiP were remembered only for getting to Paris Major 2023 after 7th place at European RMR B, and then TOP-8-11 at the Paris tournament itself. It got better after coming out of the competition break.
NiP lost to Last Change Qualifiers at Gamers8 on the Long Crest of the second half of the year, but then played solidly at BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2023. They managed to reach the Autumn Finals quite easily, beating grands like Vitality.
NiP are approaching IEM Cologne 2023 in full readiness. Before the tournament, the team had no substitutions. This will clearly play to the Swedish club's advantage.
In the first round of the Play-In IEM Cologne 2023 Ninjas in Pyjamas met Into The Breach. The match ended in NiP's easiest outing at Ancient with a score of 16-5.
In the match to advance to the group stage of IEM Cologne 2023 NiP played against MOUZ. The mice beat the Swedes on class, giving them 19 rounds in two games. The tournament ended with NiP in the top 16.
In the 2024 season NiP seriously changed their roster, having actually carried out a complete renewal of the team.
- NiP roster: REZ, maxster, r1nkle, isak, MisteM.
In the 2024 season NiP failed in PGL Major Copenhagen 2024: European RMR A, finishing in the top 16. In the second half of the year the situation improved a bit: they were TOP-2 at YaLLa Compass 2024, TOP-4 at FiReLEAGUE Global Final 2023. From the TIR-S tournaments the best performance was at BLAST Premier: Fall Groups, where NiP managed to beat C9 and FaZe, but then Astralis happened and fell to the top 8.
Later NiP played at BLAST Premier: Fall Showdown 2024, where they failed to repeat the success of the previous BLAST Premier tournament and as a result at the Fall Showdown "ninjas" took TOP-16. Later, they finished in the Top 28 at ESL Pro League Season 20 and Top 16 at CCT Season 2 European Series #13.
Ninjas in Pyjamas Mappool
The top 1 map Ninjas in Pyjamas has had in the last 3 months is Mirage. Ninjas in Pyjamas has a mind-blowing winrate of 92% with 13 games played.
They also played Inferno where they won 5 matches out of 7 games. Nuke is also in plus winrate, where the "ninjas" have 3 wins from 5 matches.
The most not favoured card for NiP will be Vertigo. NiP has 6 cards and only 1 win.
History of head-to-head meetings between NiP and Imperial
Previously, the teams have not played each other since 2023.
Predicted result of NiP vs Imperial at Thunderpick World Championship 2024
Despite Imperial's clear nominal advantage in this match, I don't think they'll have any trouble handling NiP. In my opinion, the Ninjas have every chance to clinch the match and I will believe in their success.
Bottom line: NiP wins.