Nordavind vs. HONORIS Preview & Prediction - Free CS:GO Betting Picks 7/30

Nordavind and HONORIS are set to square away in the Group A Opening Matches of the Eden Arena Malta Vibes Cup 5. The 16 participants are broken into four double-elimination groups where the Opening Matches are single map matches while the rest in each group are best of three. Each of the top two teams in each group will advance to the single-elimination Playoffs stage to compete for their share of $40,000 USD. This will be the first time these teams have ever played against each other.

Nordavind comes into this contest ranked 40th in the HLTV world rankings. They have won three of their last four series with impressive wins over sAw, HellRaisers and Gambit Youngsters along the way. Their most recent loss came against forZe who is an inconsistent team, but they are still a good team. Train is the only map that Nordavind really struggles on and they regularly ban this map. Their results on Nuke and Overpass haven't been quite as good as they'd like, but they still have win rates of at least 40% on these two maps.

The Polish squad of HONORIS enters this battle ranking 73rd in the world. They've dropped three of their last five matches and their only two wins came over Excellency and Singularity, both of which aren't very impressive wins. HONORIS has a lot of talent on their roster and they are competitive in games, but they can't seem to get all the way there sometimes. This is reflected in their win rates on the maps as Vertigo has been their best map over the last three months with a 43% win rate.

Pick: Nordavind Spread -4.5 Rounds (-104 @ Pinnacle)

This play seems like a no-brainer. It's worth noting that this is a single map match, and most of these fall on a map that both teams want to play so this does give HONORIS slightly better odds of winning. I'll take my chances on fading them however as HONORIS hasn't been able to finish games while Nordavind is rolling. Nordavind has wins over sAw and Gambit Youngsters recently, and both of those teams are much better than HONORIS. Expect Nordavind to finish this one with a score of at least 16-11, although I realistically don't expect HONORIS to win more than nine rounds.