As I mentioned, we would see some surprises during the play-in, although i will admit that expectations from the higher ranked teams were not met; FURIA and C9 were a bit disappointing and im not sure if there is more that they havent shown us yet.
Dear Felipe, are you SURE you want to pick hooxi? personally, i really like the guy, but some players might be cheap, but is that advantage compensated by the NiKo's and ZywOo's in the Fantasy team? Ehhhh, Im not sure... Last year, Karrigan was probably one of the better low value picks, at least for me.
I think Valve's top 3 ranking is mostly on point:
github.com/ValveSoftware/csgo/blob/main/..
For Kato, i still have serious issues with believing in teams like G2 and Vita. Both won a respectable event last year, but i cant say with confidence that they have what it takes to take the trophy, especially with these competition of other teams.
I want to go with VP here. Playing with another name obviously didnt make any difference last year, it just shows how much of a joke the embargos against Russia are, life just goes on whilst the war machines keeps pumping, for almost a year now.
Anyways, VP didnt play officials after BLAST where they lost to G2 (basically to m0nesy) and Liquid. VP dumped norbert for Kairon, i still dont know why cuz they seem quite similar in stats. Apparantly, Jame seems to be a true believer in Kairon's potential (link) for a long time already, therefore i will put my faith in him too:
hltv.org/news/33093/top-20-players-of-20..
Surely VP are able to make their opponents struggle and keep them guessing until the last 20 seconds on T-side, whilst being an impenetrable line of defense on CT-side. VP won Rio and ROtterdam last year, and i think the Russians will be victorious again in Kato.
Like i said, Finn is a solid low value, high expectations pick for me. Havard has been solid for a while now, and FaZe still seems to be able to beat anyone. From the international lineups, FaZe just seems to have the best balance.
To round out my lineup, i chose Casper (CadiaN); with the addition of Jabbi, he has been getting space to improve his rating, and it definitely shows, and thats something i didnt expect from him. I really love how HEROIC has developed into the Danish number one team recently.
TLDR by Bruce Banner;
Virtus PRO will be the REMAINING and UNDISPUTED Major winning CHAMPIONS of KATOWICE !!
(yes, i know i picked 3 IGL's LMAO, but not just any, and there's still time to change the lineup tho^^)