IEM Rio 2023: Who are the Favorites?
IEM Rio 2023 is finally starting and over the course of one week, 16 of the world’s best CS:GO teams will compete for a prize pool of $250.000.
All of the 16 teams are highly skilled. Otherwise, they wouldn’t compete at such a prestigious event. But some of them are considerably better than others. In some cases, it’s not the strength difference that makes the participant one of the favorites, but the fact that the whole arena will be cheering for them.
Here are four of the IEM Rio 2023 favorites:
Natus Vincere
https://twitter.com/natusvincere/status/1647660878601256966
Several months ago, we no longer knew what to believe about Na’Vi. They seemed to be losing their prowess and motivation, and their newest member looked significantly weaker than he turned out to be.
But now that the new roster has been competing together for nearly four months, it’s probably safe to say that Na’Vi are once again a formidable opponent for anyone.
At the recent Paris Major Qualifiers, Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev’s team had to play against FaZe Clan in their third match and won the battle with ease. We still need to see how strong they are against a team like Heroic or Team Vitality. But at this point, the odds are certainly in their favor.
When you have the best player in the world on your roster and his teammates are also among the best of the best, it’s hard not to be the favorite in almost any dispute.
Team Vitality
For a long time, Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut has tried to win another important trophy. The last one was won at ESL Pro League Season 16, but that was more than six months ago. Vitality need to do a lot better and the potential for greatness is clearly there. IEM Rio 2023 would be a great place to start winning S-tier titles in the new CS:GO season.
In recent months, Vitality finished in the top eight at several events. They also qualified for the Paris Major and will compete at the tournament as one of the eight Legends. This is a big advantage because the first stage of the competition will be tough.
Heroic
Heroic are looking to confirm their strength at this event. They already showed us what they’re capable of at IEM Rio Major, where they finished second, BLAST Premier Fall Finals 2022, where they won, and IEM Katowice 2023, where they finished second once again.
In the qualifiers for BLAST.tv Paris Major, Heroic easily secured their spot with a perfect run.
FURIA Esports
https://twitter.com/FURIA/status/1647238916901326849
FURIA are the crowd’s favorites. They may not be a top 10 team on paper, but when you compete in front of a passionate crowd, a lot of good things can happen. We’ve already seen this in the case of Cloud9, in 2018, as well as FURIA themselves, at IEM Rio Major 2022, where they finished third-fourth and defeated Na’Vi in the process.
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