Team Falcons’ latest iteration is off to a strong start in IEM Melbourne, but does the team stand a betting chance against Counter-Strike’s top squad, Team Vitality?
Team Falcons celebrated the best performance in organization history by changing its roster. While there’s plenty of reason to question the team’s decision-making at this point, it’s so far, so good for Team Falcons. Still, when it comes to elite-level Counter-Strike, there’s little opportunity to find footing.
Case and point, the new Team Falcons roster will play its third match ever against CS2’s best, Team Vitality. How should you approach betting on this one?
WINNER TO PLAYOFFS! Falcons vs NAVI – HIGHLIGHTS – IEM Melbourne 2025 | CS2
Team Vitality and Team Falcons will play in a best-of-three match in the IEM Melbourne 2025 group stage. This match is an upper-bracket final. Both teams have a spot in the playoffs guaranteed, but the winner will start in the semifinals for a guaranteed top-four finish.
Team Vitality entered IEM Melbourne on a lengthy winning streak that dates back to IEM Katowice, and that run hasn’t been broken yet. The squad started IEM Melbourne with wins over FlyQuest and Team Liquid. In both cases, the wins were fairly decisive.
Vitality has been on a strong run since adding Robin “ropz” Kool to its roster:
Throughout 2025, Vitality has banned Ancient and been dominant everywhere else. The team doesn’t really gravitate toward any specific map, but it has a winrate of 66.6% on every map. It’s unbeaten so far on Inferno (10-0) and Train (4-0)
Falcons rebooted its roster in January by signing away the core of Heroic and dropping almost all its players. While the new squad found its footing and wound up winning PGL Bucharest, it inexplicably followed that win with a roster change. Time will tell if that move was the right one but so far, it’s looking good.
The new Team Falcons roster started IEM Melbourne with wins over SAW and NaVi:
Falcons has a close-to-even record on most maps so far in 2025. The exceptions are Mirage, where it’s 9-4, and Dust 2. Falcons has been Anubis throughout the year.
Team Falcons vs Team Vitality is a very fresh matchup. The last time these two teams played each other was January 2024, and both have undergone multiple roster shakeups since then. This is effecitvely a brand-new matchup that fans haven’t seen before.
WINNER TO PLAYOFFS! Liquid vs Vitality – HIGHLIGHTS – IEM Melbourne 2025 | CS2
Team Vitality is a huge betting favorite against Team Falcons in the IEM Melbourne group stage. The moneyline on Team Vitality is 1.26 against Falcons’ 3.78. Though Falcons is off to a good start, betting sites aren’t giving them the time of day against Vitality.
Vitality should be able to take the victory over Team Falcons in the IEM Melbourne group stage. The m0NESY era of Falcons is off to a good start, but it’s impossible to reasonably pick against Vitality right now with how good the team has looked.
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