Week 3 of ESL One CIS S1 Upper Div will feature a battle between Natus Vincere and Team Empire on February 7th, 16:00 CEST.

NaVi is one of the group stage leaders, sharing first place with Virtus.pro. The organizers have delayed the main CIS rivalry for the last weeks, so it will probably be a hot match for the first place and Major Playoffs. For this to happen, NaVi needs to crush Empire. It shouldn’t be a tough task considering the team’s form. Born to Win have won 7/10 latest games.

Team Empire made a huge surprise defeating TSpirit 2:1. Those two above one-hour maps were a try masterpiece from Empire. But the team is very unstable. The guys have lost to VP 2:0 and are struggling with Live To Win (1:1 live score). Simultaneously with ESL One, Empire is participating at Snow Sweet Snow, where the team has managed to scrape through to the playoffs from the 6th group’s place with a 3-4 record. In ten recent matches, Empire won only 5 games. In lower bracket R1, the team will face Imperial Pro Gaming.

It’s not a Secret that NaVi is two heads above Empire on paper. The latest results also prove that the Born to Win roster is in a good form. Empire really can show a fantastic performance in some matches, but those matches aren’t happening often enough to stop me from placing a bet on Natus Vincere Match Winner with -1.5 Map Advantage with BUFF.bet odds 1.44.