Post-ESL Pro League: Those who cry, those who laugh

Similar to the format of the IEM, the ESP Pro League starts with a robin round robin group consisting of two groups of 6 teams each. The winners of the group stage go directly to the semi-finals, while the second and third groups advance to the quarterfinals.

Group stage

Group A, four teams with the same result 3-2, but thanks to a better head-to-head record, G2 took first place (G2 had previously beaten three teams with the same result). SK , EnVyUs, and fnatic competed according to mr3 rules (overtime format: 3 rounds per round, first to 4 wins) to claim the remaining two places. Fnatic dropped to 4th place after losing both matches.

Group B avoided the Tiebreak series after North finished first after four wins, followed by mousesports, when they lost only to North. And ranked 3rd is Liquid, after winning from North in the final round.

Playoffs

The quarterfinals took place with SK convincingly winning over mousesports and Liquid overcoming EnVyUs somewhat unexpectedly.

Brazil’s journey ended in the semi-finals by G2, as G2 won 2-0 after two tight maps, while North finished Liquid at Mirage by a huge margin. G2 continued their great form, beating North in a best-of-5 with only one map loss, Overpass, where G2 almost had a surprising comeback; and G2 claimed their first major title.

The best maps (click on the map name to watch the match video)

Winner

G2

Winning a small tournament like DreamHack Open Tours is just a warm-up, as here, G2 has known how to turn their ‘strength’ into great achievements at a major tournament.

During the past week, Kenny ‘kennyS’ Schrub has shown the same form as when he won the MVP title earlier this year (after WESG and Tours). Followed by Alexandre ‘bodyy’ Pianaro, he had a breakthrough tournament in Dallas when playing extremely stable. At the same time, Nathan ‘NBK-‘ Schimitt also had some good plays, but G2 still hasn’t received much support from the other two stars, as Richard ‘shox’ Papillon and especially Dan ‘apEX ‘ Madecalire hasn’t returned to top form in the final round.

G2 with their new roster took months to compete in major tournaments, but they finally hit their stride after taking out SK on three different maps. With two other online teams, Astralis and FaZe, not participating, we wonder what will happen when the top teams clash, but nothing can deny the strength that G2 has.

Can G2 climb any higher? This question will be answered at the ECS season 3 tournament (where the top 4 teams in the world all appear), the PGL Major Main Qualifier and ESL One Cologne.

Mousesports

Mousesports was another impressive team at DreamHack Open Tours and continued to show it off in the ESL Pro League over the weekend, placing 5-6th after a tough game against SK in the semi-finals.

New rookie, Robin ‘ropz’ Kool is reshaping the future for mousesports, as he transforms from an average player on Tours to a player who is skilled and confident in his play. While still inexperienced, and having a few ‘blunders’ in the tournament, it’s still a huge step forward for the rookie we saw in France, in just a few weeks.

If ropz continues to improve at this rate and mousesports can improve on CT’s play, which they have quite a bit of trouble with in the Pro League; mousesports could bounce back after losing Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovač earlier this year. With three tournaments coming up over the next 30 days and potentially a Major spot in mid-July, they have enough of a chance to do the above.

EnVyUs

While G2 and mousesports both have good signs in the Pro League, it is in contrast to EnVyUs, when they have not won any offline tournament in the past 2 tournaments.

Looks like EnVyUs has woken up in Dalllas, starting with a narrow loss to G2 at Nuke and to fnatic at Inferno. Before ending the losing streak with a win over Cloud9, and then destroying Immortals and SK during the playoffs.

Despite a disappointing performance against Liquid, Cédric ‘RPK’ Guipouy performed superbly in the group stage. Adil ‘ScreaM’ Benrlitom did the same thing when he overcame himself. Volatility is not new to RPK. But it seems that things are slowly changing, said ScreaM, the RPK is receiving a lot of intensive care from coach Damien ‘maLeK’ Marcel.

Unlike the two teams above, EnVyUs can’t be wrong, as the only tournament they participate in during this time is the Europe Minor, from 15 to 18 June.

Liquid

Based on previous LAN results (5th-6th at cs_summit, 7-8th at DreamHack OpenAustin), Liquid’s new roster far exceeded expectations in Dallas, where they made it to the semifinals.

In the Pro League, Jonathan ‘EliGE’ Jablonowski continues to prove himself as one of the best players in the Americas region, along with Josh ‘jdm64’ Marzano returning to form after a few months of struggle; with Russel ‘Twistzz’ Van Dulken joining Liquid.

Taking out NRG and OpTic in the group stage and narrowly overtaking Cloud9, Liquid is trying to become a new hope for the NA region after the region stagnated, at times deteriorated, for months. immediately.

Their success at this $750,000 tournament will boost Liquid’s confidence in the next three major tournaments: ECS season 3, PGL Major’s Main Qualifier, and ESL One Cologne.

Loser

Natus Vincere

The list is rather short, but once again, Na`Vi has a place in it, continuing her tumultuous run with an early exit in the group stage, repeating what happened earlier at DreamHack. Open Tours.

It’s hard to understand how a squad with so much individual potential like Na`Vi had such a poor performance, and it clearly shows that the ‘five superstars’ cannot make a team. Changing coaches doesn’t seem to make much of a difference, as coaches don’t have much of an impact or problems are beyond the control of Andrey ‘Andi’ Prokhorov (current coach). at Na`Vi’s).

Either way, right at this stage Na`Vi is forced to change to find a solution for themselves, even if it can’t be changed until after the PGL Major they have to find a solution. must be a way out if not want to continue to fail again. Hopefully, until then, Na`Vi can regain confidence with the current roster for the Adrenaline Cyber ​​League, ESL One Cologne, and the Major.

Cloud9

The expectations we’ve been waiting for from Cloud9 have consistently failed to materialize, and this time standing the deadline in the ESL Pro League, winning only 1 out of 5 games.

Interview with Jake ‘Stewie2K’ Yip after Cloud9 left the tournament explained. Some players aren’t motivated, and that obviously doesn’t help them get any further in the pro scene.

During this time, the team decided to nominate Stewie2K as the in-game leader (IGL) again, he also said that the team needed a break to regain motivation.

However, maybe C9 won’t have too much time to stop, because they have to play quite a lot of tournaments in the near future, starting with Americas Minor, followed by DreamHack Open Summer, ECS season 3, PGL Major’s Main Qualifer (provided they win tickets), and ESL One Cologne. If they want to have a better performance, they have to change now. And hopefully that will happen.

Source HLTV.org