Here's a very very late(kind of?) analysis, I guess it's also my first? This will be a very interesting matchup with these teams that have been hit heavily by the #NA2k14shuffle which is probably NOT over yet. This is mostly just a summary of my quick research.
Current CSGL odds: 71:29 MY odds: 60:40 to IBP
Reasoning: We have seen what the NA shuffle did to these two teams, two upsets in two days with both underdogs (the overdogs being IBP and Denial for those who can't understand) UNDER 20% on CSGL.
I'm going to start off with an explanation of my personal odds of this game, I give an edge to IBP because from the two upsets we have witnessed, IBP's opponent was considerably stronger, in terms of raw skills and chemistry (IMO), and the games were closer than Denial/Lunatik's despite the 2;0. Yes ptr was a new addition, but if you watched tarik's stream, he blended in perfectly or so it seems, he was very positive throughout the game and that was what MS needed (they didn't seem as peaceful as what I saw today before... when they were NCG). NOT to take away from Lunatik though, back when they were savage, they have showed their potential in the NA scene numerous times last season, although inconsistent, they did give old Lunatik (denial) and other top NA teams some close games (like Wizards/x6tence of NA!). Back to this game, I give IBP the edge because IBP only went through one roster change (excluding Dazed) and should have the teamwork and the experience given that the four of them have been together for a long time. On the other hand, Denial underwent two changes, -anger - Shahzam +adreN +nitr0, imo this is a slight downgrade to their previous lineup or you can say that its a fair trade. This is because nitr0 seems to be more consistent than anger (at least on LAN!) and adreN is definitely a downgrade as the awper of the team, BUT he's also one that has a pretty positive attitude and he does motivate his team and is a pretty calm IGL IMO.
So, TL;DR for this section, ibp roster change(firepower and chemistry wise) > denial roster change
Onto maps ... http://kniferound.net/wiki/G2A.com_December_2014_Cup_North_America#Result I thought it was going to be typical 7 maps, but if you click on the played games on the bracket, season was also played. I will assume that only the seven active duty maps will be played. http://play.esea.net/teams/67926?competition=scrim Denial ^ http://play.esea.net/teams/64869?competition=scrim IBP ^
If you look at the links above, both Denial and IBP have been scrimming on very similar maps (cache,dust2,inferno) and all of you NA followers know that these are maps that Denial and IBP are pretty good at (especially inferno and dust 2). So its probably safe to assume that these three maps will definitely be played. Now, assuming that Denial gets the first ban, it is very likely that they will be banning either Nuke or Cobblestone, the reason being that they are definitely not familiar with Cobblestone and correkt me if I'm wrong, when Denial was still Lunatik, they have played IBP a couple of times which did not end well for Denial. I thought about Denial banning Overpass, but they actually seemed alright on the T side against new Lunatik, and they had the choice to ban it against Lunatik, but they didn't. Also, this is a map that they can take against IBP who pretty much bans Overpass 9/10 times, and at the same time, they don't have to waste a ban (they only get one) on overpass whereas IBP will have to choose between Mirage and Overpass. Despite Denial's crushing defeat against Lunatik, I think they will be comfortable with leaving cache open (look at their ESEA scrim agaisnt C9, one of the best cache team NA imo). Therefore this will be my predicted map picks (assuming Denial bans first).
Denial bans Nuke. IBP bans Mirage IBP picks Cache. (my odds 60:40 to IBP) Denial picks Inferno (50:50) Dust 2 (50:50) Overpass (55:45 to Denial, too unknown) Cbble (50:50, too unknown)
The reason why I am assuming that neither team is going to pick dust 2 because they are aware that both teams are very decent on it and the snowball effect (for rounds and momentum) in dust 2 is stoo stronk. I am personally placing a small (not ICB) bet on Denial given the odds, but I have a gut feeling that IBP will take this 3:1 unless dust 2 is the last map.
16:9-10 to IBP on cache, 16:13 to Denial on Inferno, 16:11-12 to IBP, a heartbreaking 16:13-14 to IBP on Cbble.
Rainmaker out.