For our weekly recaps of the ESL Pro League, we have decided to stick to a different design from now on. Each day's results will be displayed in a compressed image to further facilitate the understanding and gist-reading of these features. The days will receive individual paragraphs of texts that will discuss notable matches, players, etc.
Natus Vincere were close to being upset in the very first match of the week already, but were able to prevail and crush their opponents Dignitas on the second map. Ladislav "GuardiaN" Kovács had a blast of a time in his matches, boasting 1.58 and 1.78 KDRs respectively, as well as dropping the "thirty-bomb" on Mirage. SK Gaming, on the other hand, did not have any fun, at least not in their initial match. Besides Emil "MagiskBoy" Reif, everyone on the team had to deal with a KDR below 0.6. The second map at least delivered better results, but once again it was MagiskBoy being the strongest on the team and delivering. Since his teammates fell behind, he however was not able to turn around the match in any way. This day has brought Na'Vi to the fifth place in the Season Standings, whereas SK have had to remain on their spot and wait for other contenders to get points and surpass them.
The first day for the NA division has delivered very confusing results. On the first map, Keith "NAF-FLY" Markovic featured a stellar 2.0 KDR but fell below 0.5 on the second map as his team lost it altogether despite being the clear-cut favourites of this matchup. Exactly the same scenario marked the second matchup of the day, as compLexity fell short to Splyce on Overpass in quite a decisive fashion, whereas on Train they were able to come back from a 14-9 deficit.
Richard "shox" Papillon was the real man of the match against Dignitas on Inferno, as he simply stomped them with an incredible 2.55 KDR. Especially MSL had a hard time on both maps, but Kristian "k0nfig" Wienecke made up for it alongside Ruben "rubino" Villaroel to get the revenge win onto G2. The players of fnatic must have been asleep on Cache, as they were subjected to an excruciating loss, even more since it was their domestic rivals of NiP. But despite their best efforts, the Ninjas were unable to stop fnatic from getting their sweet, sweet revenge; especially Freddy "KRiMZ" Johansson was able to get some.
Ever since their victory over Renegades at MLG Columbus, it was clear that Cloud9 should have the upper hand in this matchup. But despite this advantage, they had to endure overtime after coming back from a 15-11 gap. On the second map however, the NA team seemed to be on point, as for instance their new player Jake "Stewie2k" Yip had a stellar showing and amongst teammates such as Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham was integral to achieving this important victory, as the six points they got this day brought them to the fourth place in the Season Standings over Selfless. Counter Logic Gaming had a similar struggle in their first match of the day, as compLexity clawed back from a huge deficit to bring it to overtime and eventually succeeded. Analogous to Cloud9's second match, theirs was almost just as deciding and brought them the win everyone expected, since they are - on paper - a much more skilled and experienced team.
FaZe once again had to deal with the pain of Joakim "jkaem" Myrbostad being DDOSed and having to use their coach as a stand-in. This has happened multiple times and has seriously damaged their standings for this season. Once again they had to give in and this time it was G2 that got their "easy-wins", although the remains of FaZe really tried to challenge them. If Nikola "NiKo" Kovac turns up the way he can, he is simply unstoppable and manages to walk over the likes of fnatic with ease. This time, he and his teammates altogether displayed great performances at first, although this suddenly vanished as the battleground went over to Cobblestone. NiKo still did well; it was the others that did not turn up at all.
Once again, the Renegades were put to the test and delivered in amazing fashion, at first. On the second map against their usually more favoured opponents they were obliterated. Nonetheless this has boosted them to third place beyond Cloud9 in the standings, whereas Liquid are dwindling around on the eight place after having been subjected to six losses in total. On paper, Luminosity would be the strong favourite in their matchup against C9, but something must have gone wrong as they gave away Overpass to them. This is just their second loss in this season and it does probably not affect them in the long term, as four teams of this division will advance to the finals, but it does to show that Luminosity need to stay focused at all time or their opponents will capitalize on that. Their second match against Cloud9 finally went in their favour pretty decisively and has put them on the second place, with a tiny advantage over Renegades.
FaZe are in a real slump at the moment. Were it not for these mere three wins they got at some point, they would be dead last as they have gathered nine losses in total and look in dire straits to find an opening for the playoffs. This can - at least partially - be attributed to whoever is always DDOSing jkaem off the server and he has surely made it close to impossible for them to reach the finals. mousesports have nonetheless let it come close on their two maps, but have nonetheless gotten two wins for their reputation and are now challenging EnVyUs for the sixth place, for which they need another two wins. Fnatic have had a fairly easy run in their matchup as Train and Overpass were set to grant them two victories over Dignitas. Nonetheless they are still being challenged on the third place, as Astralis are boasting the exact same score and win/loss statistics.
In the first matchup already, we witnessed quite an upset as Winterfox took down Liquid, who were supposed to be able to beat them with fair ease. Especially Derek "desi" Branchen chimed in with an astonishing 1.72 KDR and 31 kills to make this upset possible. The Brazilians had no struggle in taking out CLG despite James "hazed" Cobb being up to the task, but Selfless surprisingly fell to Splyce two times, even with a 16-05 to make it embarrassing. Especially them and CLG are struggling at the moment and are facing the lower end of the standings. They really need to turn up; otherwise there will be zero chance to make it to the finals.
Everything went according to plan for just about everyone except mousesports. Natus Vincere beat the damaged EnVyUs with fair ease which was quite forseeable, and Astralis beat Dignitas which should have happened on any other day as well. But getting deeper into the mouz/F3 matchup it was really surprising to see the kill statistics. Andrey "B1ad3" Gorodenskiy and Aleksandr "Shara" Gordeev boasted incredibly low rates, whereas Vladyslav "bondik" Nechyporchuk had more than two kills per death. On the mousesports side there were three players over 1.0 KDR with Denis "denis" Howell being below 0.4. On the first map it was clearly not about who chimed in, but more about who bailed out. denis' absence has had such a deep impact that Nikola "NiKo" Kovac's over-the-top performance could not make the difference.
This all changed for the second map, as now denis was the leader of his team with NiKo being hammered down as he had serious issues in getting above 1 kill per 2 deaths. B1ad3 suddenly had these exact problems as well, but his teammates tuned in to make the necessary difference. These two victories have boosted F3 over Virtus.Pro in order to not be dead last anymore, but mousesports have failed to deliver the necessary for overcoming EnVyUs and are now sitting on the 7th spot overall.
Counter Logic Gaming really tried to make it interesting in their fight against Liquid, but were forced down even after a comeback to make it to the second overtime. Winterfox once again made an upset only to fail heavily on the second map and Luminosity did the usual in taking out Splyce to remain first in the standings for now.
