ESL Pro League Group D promises to be the wildest of them all

The final group of ESL Pro League is going live tomorrow. Five out of six teams have a real chance to make it out of this group, making it the most exciting of the four.

When it comes to CSGO betting, this is by far the most interesting group to bet on because most favorites are right here in this group. Let’s get straight into the facts, match breakdown, and our picks and predictions.

ESL Pro League Group D Team Analysis

Just like every other group in the ESL Pro League, there are six teams that will fight for three spots in the playoffs. The best-ranked team in the group stage advances through to the Play-Ins where they will wait for seeding to be done. Teams that rank at #2 and #3 will book themselves a spot in the knockout stage of Round of 12. Last but not least, all of the matches are played in the best of 3 format.

As mentioned in our main ESL Pro League article, Group D is all about Astralis and which team will manage to steal a WIN against them. But this is not the only metric to judge teams by. Every other team in Group D (except Endpoint) is neck and neck in terms of performance and power rankings this spring. This makes every single match all the more exciting, especially when we take into account each of the five main organizations are absolute CS:GO legends.

Astralis and Virtus.Pro are the group favorites as both organizations are playing out of their minds this spring. Their head-2-head match will likely decide the group winner. Liquid, Fnatic and Evil Geniuses are locked in a three way battle for the remaining spot out of groups. CSGO odds wise, FNC are considered the worst of the three after they fumbled their IEM Katowice showing. In relative strength however, these five teams can all take a series off one another on any given day.

*due to the competitiveness of Group D, we believe that outright/group betting is an excellent option. For more information about this type of betting, go over our GG.bet review where you will find the necessary information.

ESL Pro League Group D Picks

Group D matches will start on March 25th which leaves you more than enough time to place your bets. Below, are the picks for our opening matches.  You will find our reasoning behind each prediction and the best way to bet, so do not miss out.

Virtus.pro vs Endpoint

Virtus.pro is playing out of their minds lately and they are a couple of tiers above Endpoint. To be honest, there is literally nothing Endpoint does better than Virtus.pro. VP is likely better on all maps, including Train which is their worst. Any player to player comparison is not worth the word count.

There is no need to spend much more talking about this match-up, even odds on Virtus.pro winning outright are not even worth it. We are going for that 2-0 victory that rewards us with at least 1.7x return at most esports bookmakers.

Liquid vs fnatic

Recently, Liquid stepped up, as the addition of Fallen really benefited them. On the other hand, fnatic is far from their best, and them making roster changes did not help all that much. It is also important to mention fnatic lost three in a row.

Individually, we feel like Liquid is one step above the Swedes currently. However, fnatic is always up for a game and even though Liquid won most of their matches, they did not do it convincingly. The safest pick here is to opt-in for the over total 2.5 maps played as it provides the most value.

Astralis vs Evil Geniuses

Lastly, the reigning kings will once again battle it out against Evil Geniuses. These teams play against each other quite a lot recently and the results are mixed. Yet, Astralis have won 4 straight maps against EG and that says a lot about this matchup.

Right now, neither Astralis nor Evil Geniuses are in a winning form but this does not mean much, especially for Astralis who took a break after losing to Virtus.pro in the IEM Katowice 2021 quarterfinals. All in all, Astralis is a safe pick but odds represent that as well. Do keep in mind, EG is the only team that gave Gambit pause during Katowice as well, so they are able to give out a flash of brilliance now and again. We keep with tradition and give this win to Astralis outright. Betting on this match as a singles pick is not worth it, but its a nice one to tie down a 3 match accumulator betslip.

Read next: Gambit looks to maintain Katowice form at ESL Pro League Season 13