We are heading into Week 7 at VCT Americas with several hot matches on the schedule. Teams are mainly battling for bracket seeding into Playoffs. FURIA vs. 100 Thieves and EG vs. MIBR are two matches that will directly impact where and if these teams start their Playoffs run.

However, our main selection for the week is Cloud9 versus Leviatan in a match that may ultimately decide LEVs’ placement in the standings.

Source: @valesports_na | Twitter

We get a match between two veteran regional rivals that has way bigger impect for the South American teams than their NA counterparts.

Currently, both teams are standing atop the leaderboard, with Cloud9 pretty much cemented in 2nd place behind LOUD. Leviatán on the other hand are in a tight group of teams extending all the way through 7th. On top of that, they have a match against Cloud9 this week and LOUD next weak, meaning they can just as easily drop down the rankings if they don’t upset one of the two.

• Leviatán lost two out of their last three matches, and their recent victory was against KRU Esports, a roll-over team for pretty much everyone at VCT Americas.
• Cloud9 are coming in on a 5-match win-spree beating 100T, NRG, FURIA, Sentinels and MIBR along the way. Against, Leviatan they are considered heavy favorites on almost every map pick.

Speaking of map picks: C9 are heavy favorites on Ascent, Lotus and Fracture. Leviatan really likes Pearl above all other maps, sporting an incredible 100% win rate. On both Split and Icebox we still favor Cloud9 by a huge margin, leaving us with Haven as the only map where we might look at a 50/50 split in terms of relative strength.

Taking individual player performances aside, Leviatán has a very limited path to victory. Hold out on Pearl, maintaining the insane win rate, and getting lucky with Haven as the 3rd map to potentially cause an upset.

In every other scenario, Cloud9 wins 2:0 or 2:1 with rounds to spare. The key motivator in this match for C9 is chasing LOUD in 1st place, in case they drop both series in the final two weeks, and mental may play a big factor in the outcome.

In any case, you can bet on a close series in the first two maps with over 20 rounds played.