Grand Finals Predictions

As almost my entire prediction team, including guest predictors, are either from Knife or lessthanthree, this week's predictions will deviate from the norm. These will also be the last predictions I do for ENSL -- hopefully someone will step in and do predictions for Season 2 when the time arrives. With that said, let's go YEAHHH:

The two teams facing each other in the ENSL Grand Finals have been the top two undisputed teams in Europe for quite some time now. While Knife has historically been the stronger team, lessthanthree have grown gradually stronger, both by means of recruiting new highly skilled players and by constantly improving the skills of the rest of their team.

Both teams have their fair share of veteran players, with very strong all round rosters. While Knife can be predicted to have stronger Fade play -- although lessthanthree's fades are by no means unskilled -- Bugstah's Lerking aims to make up for that deficiency.

Probable lineup (lessthanthree):
- Bugstah! (Commander/early Lerk)
- BenjamiN (Fade)
- wltrs
- pui (aka. Pizza)
- anderval
- a.A
- Ed|Rush

Probable lineup (Knife):
- Fana (Fade)
- morphz (Fade)
- mu (Fade)
- b1
- Evilness (Commader/Lerk)
- frG
- Swirl

With both teams probably swapping out some players mid round to exploit the strengths and weaknesses of certain players. BenjamiN will for example probably not play on lessthanthree's marine rounds.

To do a bit of history, these teams have faced each other twice in officials, most recently in the GamingOrb semi-finals. Knife won that match 3-1, although lessthanthree were missing certain key players according to themselves. They also played in the first week on ENSL, which resulted in a 2-2 tie. In the ENSL both teams have mirrored each other, matching results in every round, finishing with 12/4 equal scores and one forfeit win each. While these teams have never faced each other officially on ns_veil, they marine tied on ns_lost in the ENSL week 1 match. It can be theorized that this is why lessthanthree picked that map for this match, hoping to capitalize on their apparent strength on it.

As already mentioned, lessthanthree picked ns_lost as their map, while Knife chose ns_veil. Both maps are known to be fairly marine biased, with ns_veil probably being the least marine biased of the two. Bugstah!'s early Lerk will probably be a big asset on both maps, especially on ns_lost.

What might be an issue for lessthanthree is their inexperience with big matches such as this, as they've never actually played in a tournament finals before. Although several of their players have with previous clans, this is their first collective chance to win an ns tournament. Knife on the other hand have been in several, always coming out on top in the end. Knife definitely has the experience advantage here, which could play a role in this match.

As I can't make an unbiased prediction for obvious reasons, I urge you all to add your own predictions to the comments of this news post. It's going to be a huge match, so be sure not to miss it (21:00 CET on Tuesday the 12th of July)!

Finishing off, I'd also like to congratulate Nirgal on his domination of the Predictors charts, finishing with an amazing 19/40 ratio, making 49% of the predictions.

Fana on 11 July 05 23:42

Comments

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Blank Mike

GL to both teams

knife 4>2 lessthanthree

12 July 2005, 07:56

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Blank Lance

Evilness, pls go early lerk! :-)

12 July 2005, 10:52

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Blank PoMMe

"knife 4>2 lessthanthree"

knife fourmorethantwo lessthanthree... ?

12 July 2005, 13:35

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Blank Calgar

12 July 2005, 14:08

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Blank CLS

they'll tie on both the maps. Then

12 July 2005, 15:13

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Blank PoMMe

"they'll tie on both the maps. Then

12 July 2005, 15:40

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Blank Shadow

pomme, don't you know they don't care?

Despite pervious results I predict a lessthenthree win, with both rine wins on veil.

Why you might ask? Because in recent matches vs lessthenthree and knife I’ve seen lessthenthree playing way more organised, better node pressure and overall better players.

It seems that knife has out of shape, with almost no pcw’s to play except vs some american clans. I’m sure they aren’t as good as a while back but still, this will be a exiting match. I’m sure to watch, and what will be the grand prize?

Glory and no not a single clan in Europe who wants to fight you!

hl & gf to both

12 July 2005, 16:27

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Blank Fana | Archaea

Actually we're as good as we've ever been right now.

12 July 2005, 16:36

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Blank C11H17NO3

i predict either knife or

12 July 2005, 16:44

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Blank PoMMe

Yeah Shadow, this is a fundamental data that I'm beginning to understand :o)

12 July 2005, 17:01

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Blank xassidy

3-1 for

12 July 2005, 17:51

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Blank Nirgal

I'ld like to thank every teams that accepted my money to allow me to predict with that precision.

:)

But i'll not predict the final as i'm watching it. 1-1 on veil.

Maybe a 2-0 for knife on lost.

12 July 2005, 19:57

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Blank Shadow

A perfect predetion by me, even the map wins where good :P

12 July 2005, 20:44

18

Blank mu

haha n1 fana you know that was a lie

12 July 2005, 21:11

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Blank Fana | Archaea

Meh a bad day doesn't make it any different, it's still true.

Kudos to lessthanthree for winning.

13 July 2005, 02:22

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