What to expect from M80 v. 5yclone

Despite a great map one to start the day against Apeks, M80 ended up being absolutely obliterated on Mirage, much to the disappointment of those expecting an explosive international debut from the team. With M80 now being knocked into the lower bracket, their next match will be against Chinese squad 5yclone. While 5yclone are currently the best squad in China and one of the best teams in Asia, the expectation for M80 needs to be to win this series 2-0 to avoid being knocked down into the last chance bracket early.

For M80, this will also be a chance to put what Marcus "maNkz" Kjeldsen has been teaching the team about the meta into action as while 5yclone has an impressive track record in Asia, NAVI was their first match against European opposition in five months, potentially signaling they will be behind in their understanding of the European meta.

M80 need to Explode tomorrow

While Michael "Swisher" Schmid had a fairly strong EPL S18 debut against Apeks, his teammates struggled to come online in the way that is needed to get a win. In particular:

• M80's star rifling trio need to all show up at once

• WolfY needs to find himself on the AWP

• maNkz is doing well in finding impact rounds, keep it up tomorrow

5yclone's stars need to be stopped

For 5yclone their win condition is being able to outfrag and bully M80 on the server. If M80 want to avoid that, they need to isolate their stars and force them into unwinnable scenarios especially on their T-side.

• M80 need to neutralize Moseyuh and kaze as a priority

• maNkz need show he is more in tune with the meta than advent

Previous Matchups

These two teams have never played each other before.

Likely Vetoes

It's worth noting that both team's win rates are inflated by domestic competition. Interestingly, both teams also permaban Ancient so this will benefit M80 as the higher seed as they can also get rid of Anubis, a weaker map in their pool. As always, these vetoes are highly speculative as it depends on whether the high seed wishes to pick first or ban last.

• 5yclone will likely ban Ancient

• M80 will likely ban Anubis

• M80 should pick Inferno as their highest-winrate map

• 5yclone should pick Nuke as their highest-winrate map

• Overpass is a likely decider (Mirage could also be a neutral pick as 5yclone will potentially ban Vertigo and M80 may feel they can "out-aim" 5yclone however they may be a bit worried after the one-sided loss to Apeks)

M80 v. 5yclone will be bright and early tomorrow at 06:30AM.