
Best Picks For The Perfect World Shanghai Major Pick’Em — Playoffs
With the Elimination Stage of the Perfect World Shanghai Major done, only one stage remains — the playoffs. There aren’t many teams still in the fight, only eight: The MongolZ, MOUZ, Team Spirit, Team Liquid, G2, HEROIC, Vitality, and FaZe. From here on, all the stages need to be predicted together: quarter-finals, semi-finals, and the grand finals. The Opening stage was full of surprises, and even the Elimination stage wasn’t the most predictable, but here are my predictions for the playoffs.
Quarter-Finals
The MongolZ — Going up against MOUZ, they aren’t going to have the easiest time winning this match, but since they went 3:0 in both the Opening and Elimination stages, I think it’s safe to say The MongolZ are very promising this tournament, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they even manage to win the Major.
Team Spirit — Hosting Donk, the player with the best performance in the Major, Spirit are probably going to win their first matchup against Team Liquid, especially with the latter’s performance being as unstable as it was during the Opening stage.
HEROIC — Even though they’re considered the underdog against their first opponent, G2, they showed a very promising Elimination stage performance. With G2’s really variable performance, where the skill ceiling is as high as the best team in the world, and the floor as low as the worst, this is the most random prediction in this stage, and can’t really be guaranteed to go any certain way.
Vitality — This is probably the most reliable prediction in the quarter-finals, since Vitality is considered one of the best teams in the world, and FaZe is… not. I’m not saying FaZe are bad, but there is no world in which they win a match against Vitality.
Semi-Finals
The MongolZ — Assuming all my earlier predictions are correct, The MongolZ will go up against Team Spirit in this matchup. Whilst Spirit is considered the better team in, let’s face it, every single way, The MongolZ have won every match in the Major so far, and it seems they plan on keeping the surprises incoming, so I genuinely do believe they can make it to the grand finals, even when they look like the underdog.
Vitality — Going up against either HEROIC or G2, it’s not really up for debate whether or not this amazing team will win. The chances of losing this matchup are much too slim, there’s no way to be smarter about it, it’s just obviously a Vitality victory.
Grand Finals
Finally, for the grand finals, the team I think will win is Vitality — just like The MongolZ, they didn’t lose a single match in this Major. Their players’ performance in this Major is unrivalled, with every member of their team being in the top–10, something exclusive to this team alone. And whilst a MongolZ victory would be very cool, since we’d see a non-European team take the cup, I just can’t see a word in which that’s realistic against Vitality.
Conclusion
Whilst there’s no chance for the diamond coin anymore since I didn’t make enough correct predictions for the opening stage, I am very confident in my predictions for this stage, so I’m completely certain I’ll get the gold coin for this Major. It’s one of the most random Majors I’ve ever watched and it was full of amazing clutches and comebacks. I’m sure the playoffs are going to be even more interesting because of the higher stakes, and I’m already looking forward to the next Major (and to wasting another £8 on the viewer pass, obviously).
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