CS:GO Daily Fantasy Helper: ESL Pro League, Saturday 4/11/20

With traditional sports on hold for now, esports has taken the front seat in DFS, and we now have Counter-Strike: Global Offensive to play on FanDuel. Affectionately known as CS:GO, two teams of five players compete on each map until one team reaches 16 rounds. Most series are played as a best-of-three and will feature teams from the ESL Pro League in both North American and Europe.

If you are new to esports DFS or CS:GO DFS, take a look at the introduction piece with a rundown of format and scoring.

MVP Considerations

ropz, mousesports ($10,800)

ropz and mousesports had a very, very rough end to the ESL Pro League Stage 2 on Thursday. The took on Astralis, who beat them 16-3 on Map 1 and 16-1 on Map 2. Those are some of the most one-sided scores you will see, but today is a new day. ropz posted phenomenal numbers throughout the ESL Pro League, finishing with 444 kills over 23 maps, which is an average of 19 kills per map. He has been a budding superstar of the past year and is truly showing it on a consistent basis now.

He posted a positive Kill to Death ratio (KD) of 1.18 while having a kill or an assist in 71.6% of the rounds over this 23-map sample size. When rostering him in the MVP spot, you will want a ceiling -- don't worry, he brings that. He posted over 30 kills three times in the ESL Pro League, along with having under 10 kills only twice. A high floor and a high ceiling is a great combination to have in the MVP spot.

Players

Xyp9x, Astralis ($11,800)

The first thing you might be saying is "That isn't even a name, those are just letters and numbers put together." While that might be true, Xyp9x is pronounced 'zip-nix'. If you want to lock in a super-high level of consistency, Xyp9x is your guy. He finished with 106 assists in the Pro League -- the fourth-most -- and held a 1.26 KD Ratio, averaged 17 kills per map, and had only a single map with fewer than 10 kills.

Astralis are the best team in the world and the best team of all-time in CS:GO, so looking to multiple players from their lineup is a winning recipe. Astralis did just win against mousesports 2-0 the other day -- and it was a quick series -- but with this being the playoffs, it should be a bit closer, meaning more rounds played and more fantasy points.

KSCERATO, FURIA Esports ($11,300)

If we flip over to the North American ESL Pro League, we can take a look at KSCREATO from FURIA Esports as a great option today. He finished group play with the third-most kills, the fifth-most headshots (HS), the fifth-most rounds with at least one kill, and an average of 18 kills per map. Points on top of points on top of more points. Plenty of people will be looking to stack up players from Astralis, and if FURIA is going to be going overlooked, I want some shares of them.

It should be noted that we are awaiting the winner of the Team Liquid versus Evil Geniuses series to see who will play FURIA. Team Liquid are the 6th-ranked team in the world, Evil Geniuses are 7th, and FURIA are 11th. Both teams are ''better" than FURIA, but it's not by that large of a margin. In the six maps KSCREATO played against those two teams, he had a low kill total of 12 -- every other map was at or above his average per map.

dupreeh, Astralis ($11,100)

One thing you will notice if you get deeper into CS:GO is that the top teams all have great players. That sounds silly, but they are among the best in the world because they don't have a weak link. dupreeh is a prime example of that and is the second player from Astralis we are taking a look at. When a team wins in Counter-Strike, usually all five players are putting up big numbers, making them all viable fantasy options.

dupreeh averaged 18.9 kills per map, had a KD ratio of 1.19, and grabbed a kill or an assist in 74.1% of his team's rounds. Stack Astralis today and stack as many as you can afford, and you will be in a great spot.

Team

Astralis or FURIA ($9,200, $8,600)

Depending on which team you are trying to stack -- Astralis or FURIA -- you should try to pair the team with them. They are the two most expensive options on the slate and we should see ownership follow that same path. Both the players and the team get bonus points if they are able to pull off a sweep, so there some strong correlation between the two.

Astralis might be too expensive given the recent match they had was a bit of an outlier. They won the series 2-0 -- so they get bonus points for the sweep -- but they also only lost four rounds over the two maps combined. That is absolutely insane and not what you should be expecting from them today. Losing only four rounds over two maps is a top 1% outcome, so don't fall for the positive recency bias.