Thanks to schedules and timezones, making a preview for IEM Chengdu happens to be a little difficult for us - day one will be almost over by the time this newsletter reaches you.

With that in mind, how about instead of doing a proper preview, we just try to predict how the game will go instead? That way, when you do read this, you can see how incredibly smart we are or laugh at our failures.

It’ll probably be the latter.

The day will kick off with a blowout as FURIA wipe the floor with Lynn Vision, however, China’s other hometown heroes, TYLOO, will manage to pick up an upset victory over Falcons.

We’ll then head into MOUZ vs FaZe and Vitality vs Virtus.pro. Both of these games will also be brutally one-sided, with jcobbb, karrigan, and insert any number of VP players here all stinking up the server.

Next up we have The MongolZ vs HEROIC, where a controlez masterclass will see the Mongolian side push past Harry Redknapp’s least-favourite CS team in a three map affair. The third round of fixtures will also see G2 take on 3DMAX, where we regrettably predict a tigh 2-0 for the Frenchies.

The final round of games - which should be on whilst you’re reading this - features paiN vs Spirit and Astralis vs NAVI. One of these is incredibly obvious, whilst predicting the other is basically a coin toss.

If that wasn’t clear, Spirit will make paiN regret ever flying out to China, but when it comes to Astralis and NAVI, one of these two teams or both could forget that they ever got on the plane in the first place.

Two teams that have the capacity to play like there are trophy winners on their teams on their best days, and like Rainbow Six players on their worst, this will be a long (and rubbish) BO3 that drags out the day just long enough that fans of either team can see their favourite lose on their lunch break.

Let’s see if we’re actually right for once.