Ninjas in Pyjamas vs Astralis Prediction: Swedes are more likely to win

The qualifier series for the next CS:GO major, IEM Rio 2022, begins Tuesday, October 04. In the European RMR qualifier Group A, Ninjas in Pyjamas and Astralis will face off in the first round.

Intel Extreme Masters Road to Rio 2022: European RMR A is a qualification tournament for the upcoming second major 2022 in the CS:GO, IEM Rio 2022. The European qualification is divided into two groups, A and B, respectively, with 16 teams from Europe and the CIS fighting for eight berths to the major tournament of the second half of the year. The tournament has no prize pool, only the top eight teams in each of the two groups will get a ticket to the major in Rio de Janeiro.

The Swedish team has played well at the BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2022 tournament after the vacation and made it to the finals, but at the next big event in ESL Pro League Season 16 the Swedes failed to make it out of the group, losing to three opponents: Team Vitality, Fnatic and Team Spirit.

It was not their EPL failure that pushed the Swedes to change their line-up, but rather the unsatisfactory play that NIP have been showing in the last month. Yes, sometimes the Swedes are up to snuff, like against Heroic in the BLAST Premier or NaVi in the EPL, but after one good match comes a streak of bad ones. The Swedish team decided to get rid of Plopski, replacing him with the ex-captain of G2 and OG, the Finn Aleksib.

Without moving away from the transfer topic, the fate of the Danish sniper dev1ce is very interesting, who was bought from Astralis for a huge amount of money, but the legendary player particularly does not want to play for NIP. Some sources put dev1ce again in Astralis, but the Swedish organization wants their million back, which the Danish organization does not seem to agree with. Therefore, the story doesn't end, and it is unlikely we will see him in the lineup of any of these teams in October.

On the previous PGL Major Antwerp 2022, the Danish team Astralis showed almost the worst performance in the history of the series. But before the vacation, the Danes suddenly started playing well: Pinnacle Cup Championship (2nd place), Roobet Cup (3-4th place) and the most important — Intel Extreme Masters XVII - Cologne (3-4th place). The Astralis players went on vacation in a good mood, because there was some game which was suddently gone during the downtime.

The first problems after the vacation appeared in the open (!!!) qualifications for this RMR tournament. Astralis was losing to teams such as: Aurora Gaming, Neon Rangers, los kogutos, SAW. Only with the last fourth qualification the Danes managed to enter the list of the participants of this RMR tournament. Astralis could have been left without the major unusually fast, and it wasn't necessary to fail the previous event and open qualifications would have been avoided...

The BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2022 tournament was going on in parallel with the qualifications for the major, and Astralis won Group A in BO1 matches. After losing the starting Overpass to the Swedes from NIP, the Astralis players, surprisingly for everybody, simply destroyed the lower bracket, beating OG, those same NIP and even Team Vitality in the final. But in the tournament's playoffs, that confident play disappeared. In the first game for a slot in the Global Finals, Astralis lost to OG without a chance (0-2), and in the second attempt the Danish players were stronger than FaZe (1-2), thus sending them to play the Fall Showdown in the near future.

Next came ESL Pro League Season 16, where Astralis, like NIP, didn't make it out of their group. All the troubles started with a historic failure against Complexity (1-2), where the Danes shut out American peak Inferno without a chance, didn't realize five matchpoints on their Nuke, and were defeated by an outsider on Dust 2. The Danes overcame this shock and the next day defeated the MOUZ team (2-0). Many thought that the defeat at the hands of Americans was an accident, but then there was a failure in the match against HEET (1-2). In the EPL playoffs, the Danes were shut by the Danes from Heroic, but it's fair. Astralis need to work on their game if this legendary tag wants to see themselves among the participants in the Brazil major.

These teams played each other in the same group at BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2022. NIP won BO1 on Overpass (16-10) and Astralis took revenge in their next BO1 match on Ancient (16-9)

Ninjas in Pyjamas and Astralis are both very unstable teams. It's hard to guess which team will be in better shape, but we'd give more credence to NIP's success. The new captain and enough time to prepare, after all, so we suggest betting on the victory of the Swedes with odds of 2.05 at Betway.

Whichever map they play, we believe that it will end with Total Rounds Over (26.5), and 1xbet offers odds of 1.83 for that option.

Astralis play more clearly on pistol rounds, and it’s no suprirse with shooters like blameF and k0nfig in the lineup. So we suggest betting on the Danes victory in the first pistol round with odds of 1.83 at Bet365.