Are we going to witness the creation of another CSGO superstar in the WePlay gauntlet? Who gets to be the Academy king? – It will all come to head between February 11-13, as four teams make their way to the WePlay Academy League Season 3 Playoffs.

Sadly, this event will be played fully online, but that does not mean the matches become less tough for each team. Some might even rejoice, since online play feels more natural than LAN to them. Let’s break it all down and set our expectations.

BIG Academy vs Spirit Academy

The first upper bracket semi-final match brought together two solid academy rosters that are evenly matched. In their last five matches, BIG Academy stumbled a bit as they suffered three defeats and two victories. On the other hand, Spirit Academy is riding a six-match win streak.

We have a general feeling on how the map veto will go in this match. Spirit Academy is definitely banning Ancient while BIG Academy will have to think about what they want to ban in this match. If BIG Academy wants to have any chance in this match, they will have to permaban Mirage. We simply do not see them winning this map.

This leaves us with not so deep map pool for these two teams. Vertigo seems like a solid choice for BIG Academy while their CIS rivals will probably go for Nuke. With that being said, Overpass seems like the most obvious choice for a deciding map.

All in all, this match is hard to predict, and betting sites acknowledged that. Currently, betting on this match is a coin flip, odds-wise. The fact is, Spirit Academy is in the shape of their lives while BIG Academy struggles. However, if the German-based roster removes Mirage, Spirit could find themselves in a world of problems.

The best way to approach this bet is to simply avoid betting on match-winner and rather focus on maps that are played. There is a strong chance that we are seeing all three maps in this one, and for the same odds, we are definitely in a better position than we would be if we tried to predict a winner of this match.

Prediction: Total Maps Played – Over 2.5
Odds: 1.90

MOUZ NXT vs Astralis Talent

The fact is, we are high on MOUZ NXT and we strongly believe that they are by far the best academy roster in CSGO right now. In their last five played, MOUZ NXT dropped three games while winning two. Bear in mind that they did not play against academy rosters, but tier 2 teams such as K23, Tricked, SAW, etc.

Astralis Talent, however, won three out of the last five played. Most of their victories came against academy rosters, and they struggled in those matches.

We know for a fact that MOUZ NXT does not play Overpass and this is for sure their first ban in this match. Astralis Talent can play Mirage, but they definitely do not want to compete on this map against MOUZ NXT, so this will definitely be their first ban.

Let’s go over the possible picks. The Danes can go for a comfortable pick for themselves, that being Vertigo. But, it is important to mention that MOUZ NXT is very strong on this map as well. Because Astralis Talent will remove Mirage, MOUZ NXT will probably go for Nuke and this should be a free map for them. Inferno should be a deciding map, but we do not think that teams will compete on this map, and here is why.

As we mentioned above, MOUZ NXT is by far the best academy roster. They already proved that they can compete against professional teams and they can make things competitive. Astralis Talent did not show that much, as they still struggle to beat academy teams.

From our point of view, MOUZ NXT is going to be a big favorite in every single map picked in the map veto and they will close this match out without dropping a map, especially if things end up on Vertigo and Nuke.

Prediction: MOUZ NXT to win 2-0
Odds: 1.75

The CSGO odds in our selection are courtesy of Parimatch, the official partner of WePlay Academy League. Check our Parimatch Review to find out more.