The first European qualifier for the Thunderpick World Championship 2024 is underway, with only one of 32 teams making it to the main event in October. Due to the pool of teams being rather large, we narrowed down a couple of squads with a realistic shot at running the gauntlet and qualifying for the $850,000 LAN tournament. With all that out of the way, here’s our Thunderpick World Championship: European Series #1 preview in which we’re looking the strongest teams most likely to qualify to the main event to guide your CS2 betting.
ENCE
After an impressive start to their journey in Katowice, ENCE fell flat at the Major and failed to make it out of the Opening Stage. Despite their performance in Copenhagen being underwhelming, to say the least, they are one of the few teams in this tournament that qualified for the Major in the first place.
The Polish-majority roster has a lot to prove, especially Paweł “dycha” Dycha, whose form has fallen off a cliff since ENCE acquired the former 9INE core. The rifle was touted as the best Polish player in 2023 but is being outshone by virtually all his current teammates. If he doesn’t step it up in this tournament, he might be on the chopping block sooner, rather than later.
BIG
Following their failure to make the European RMR, BIG returned to their roots and are now fielding a full German roster. As a result, Florian “syrsoN” Rische rejoined the team. The AWPer enjoyed a lot of success with BIG in 2020 – the year he was awarded the title of the 10th best CS2 player in the world.
However, he’s not the only reason behind BIG being one of the favorites to qualify for the Thunderpick World Championship 2024. The whole team must have been grinding very hard, while the Major was going on and practicing against the world’s best. Additionally, BIG are known to perform much better in online tournaments, especially the previously mentioned sniper syrsoN.
Nemiga
Although Nemiga is a team that hasn’t been on anyone’s lips in a while, the CIS squad has made tremendous improvements in CS2. Since the beginning of 2024, they’ve gone up close to 150 places in the HLTV ranking – a feat that can’t be ignored.
Nemiga qualified for IEM Chengdu with ease, going on a seven-match win streak and dropping only a single map in the process. What’s more, is that their opposition in the qualifiers was nothing to scuff at. Recently they’ve taken down teams such as BetBoom, 9 Pandas, AMKAL, Sprout, and many more established tier-two rosters.
While Nemiga might not be an outright favorite to run the bracket in this event, they could surprise and upset a few high-profile opponents.
SAW
SAW was one of the revelations of the Opening Stage of the Major, having gone 2-0 after the first day and looking poised to make it to the Elimination Stage. Unfortunately for the Portuguese squad, the pressure got to them at the crucial moments and they failed to capitalize on their excellent tournament start.
Despite that fact, they are perhaps the best-looking team coming into the European Series #1 of the Thunderpick World Championship and should make it far into this competition. Let’s hope that they continue to improve and make the transition to the tier-one space in the coming months.
Check out our full Thunderpick World Championship betting guide for event details.
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