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The group stage of ESL Pro League Season 20 is heating up. We continue to look at what's going on in Group C.
We are interested in the first round of the top grid games. Among the participants of Group C are BIG and FURIA, who will open EPL S20 with a face-to-face match.
We're trying to figure out who will be stronger in the BIG vs. FURIA match and advance to the next round of the top set, and who will have to cope with the difficulties in the lower set.
Let's go.
BIG Form
We open the BIG vs Imperial match with an analysis of BIG's form. In this match, the German club plays the number one side with odds to win at around 1.8.
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 continued to the 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, prosus, syrsoN, JDC.
Before the ESL Pro League Season 18 Long Convergence, the team played at Thunderpick World Championship 2023: European Series #1 with TOP-2. 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 attended BLAST Premier: Fall Showdown 2024, where they finished in the top 8.
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).
Form Imperial
We continue our analysis of Imperial vs BIG match with the analysis of Imperial's form. In this match they are playing as number two with odds to win at around 1.9.
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 win at the TG Masters Spring 2023 local championship. 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 line-up: VINI, HEN1, felps. noway, decoy.
Before the Long Convergence of IEM Cologne 2023, 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, such as 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. And in the end, they finished in the top 24 without pulling off a miracle.
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.
They don't play Anubis.
History of head-to-head meetings between Imperial and BIG
The last time the teams played each other was back in 2022.
Predicted result of BIG vs Imperial at ESL Pro League Season 20
Despite the nominal advantage of BIG, bookmakers expect a close game in this match. In principle, we can agree with them, because BIG can not be called a team that can close the class, as well as Imperial, in general. I'm waiting for a full-fledged Bo3.
Bottom line: total +2.5.
