It's no secret that we've been doubtful about Kinguin as their hype train continues with people going as far as claiming Kinguin is a Tier 1 team which is completely false. They are Tier 1 players in a Tier 2 team as they rely on individual skill for many of their rounds, which isn't at all bad as they have some insane skill stacked onto the team, but it takes more than aim to become a Tier 1 team, and it takes more than wins vs T2 teams such as E-Frag and Space Soldiers.
This will be the first game Luminosity play with their newly acquired Brazilian roster after KeyD Stars dropped them. In the past, we've seen some really strong play from the former KeyD Stars and Kabum before that. This time around, they've replaced zqk with Cold, a player whom we've only heard good things about and who is rumoured to be one of the top upcoming Brazilian talents.
The former Keyd/Kabum team surprised last year with some really solid teamwork and synergy as they played a lot like Na'Vi, relying on working together rather than individual plays. We saw them dominate the NA scene for the short while they played with a solid win at the iBP invitational over Liquid and C9. More recently, we saw them take down TSM thanks to their strong teamwork at the ESL ESEA finals on Inferno.. arguably one of TSM's best maps.
It often feels like the average CSGO bettor's memory span only lasts a couple weeks and it definitely looks this way when looking at the odds of this match as this Luminosity roster has shown us that Brazilian CS didn't die when CSGO left 1.6 in the dust.
OUR CHOICE here will be Luminosity as they showed us some great CS back when they were KeyD and Kabum before that. At the time of writing this, odds sit at 75/25 which we feel is insane as Kinguin has never really shown us much in the form of tactics/strategy which is what is most important in a tournament this size.