This article is part of our CS:GO series.
Group Cis underway in ESL Pro League Season 15 so it's time to look at our players to target and players to fade for the penultimate group!
Players to Target
sh1ro
sh1ro won't be easy to fit into most fantasy teams, but despite what is surely a sky-high salary, he is worth the investment. The keystone of Players' (renamed from Gambit due to sanctions against the Russian Federation) success, sh1ro is one of the best in the world. With a somewhat easier group to go up against it's likely that sh1ro will be the top fantasy performer over the entire group stage. The only match that could be potentially troublesome for the young AWPer is against BIG Clan, who's superstar sniper syrsoN, can match sh1ro. Otherwise it's full steam ahead for sh1ro in the easiest group of ESL Pro League.
syrsoN
Everything that rings true for sh1ro chimes once more for syrsoN. This is a group with a very weak set of snipers outside of sh1ro and syrsoN and should be a group these two dominate. While BIG Clan are less of a sure thing than Players are, syrsoN is still clearly one of the strongest players in the group. There's more potential for BIG Clan to drop some surprising games, but all-in-all they are likely to be firmly stapled to the top of the table. syrsoN has a 1.21 rating over the last three months, as well as rarely dying with only 0.58 deaths per round, an astounding tally for the AWPer. syrsoN opens the group stage against Team Liquid.
dumau
In all reality, it's hard to target anyone not on Players, BIG Clan or Team Liquid, but it wouldn't be fun to just say "Ax1Le, Sh1ro, syrsoN, tabseN, Krimbo" and pretend like there weren't six teams in this group. So, enter dumau. GODSENT are a strange roster in the ESL Pro League, as they are a mix of veteran and underwhelming talent with HEN1 and TACO, as well as somewhat underwhelming youngsters in latto and b4rtiN. Then there's dumau, the crown jewel of the side, and a young talent. At only 18, he's garnered attention in Europe for his talent on rifles, as well as a secondary AWPer. I certainly won't say that dumau is world class or can compete with the top players in the group, but he is perhaps primed for a breakout performance on Europe's biggest stage. A weak group could give him the edge he needs to build confidence and get that breakout going.
Players to Fade
Party Astronauts
Frankly, if Party Astronauts win a map, it will be a surprise as this roster isn't particularly great in North America, and on the international stage it will be ugly. In fact they've already opened their group stage, against Players, the second best team in the world. In that match they accrued 14 rounds... across two maps. ptr managed eight kills in two maps, PwnAlone, the superstar of Part Astronauts, managed 13. North American Counter-Strike is in a pretty awful spot, and the sub-top tier of North America Counter-Strike is a ghost town. Party Astronauts will hope to avoid the dubious prize of losing every single map throughout the group stage.
TACO
As young and talented as dumau is, TACO is not. The former superstar used to be one of the very best in the world, winning two majors and consistently finding himself touted as one of the most consistent players in the world. TACO is certainly still consistent, just not the sort of consistent you want on a fantasy roster. He has struggled for any sort of form lately with a 0.92 rating in the last three months. Whether it's role, or simply just talent, TACO isn't worth considering in any fantasy formats.
shox
In one of the strangest moves in CS:GO, shox moves from Europe to the US, and joined up with Team Liquid. While that move may have been mind-blowing five years ago, shox has frankly been a bad player recently. Over the last three months shox has a 0.96 rating and a 0.57 kills per round, While those aren't awful tallies, considering part of those three months was spent playing in North America, it's hard to think he will improve on the international stage. shox was previously rated as a top-three player in the world, so there's always a chance he bounces back and shows us the shoxie of old. Yet it's been nearly a decade since he was at that level, and living in the past won't win fantasy titles.
Stats courtesy of HLTV.org
