Photos courtesy of: X4 Gaming
Navi, Mousesports, Flipsid3, and Echo Fox will compete in a series of BO2s to advance in the $1.4 Million ELEAGUE Season 1.
This group is very similar to last week’s group, with CIS giants Navi competing against smaller European teams Mousesports and Flipsid3, with the newly-formed Echo Fox as the massive underdogs. Navi had a strong showing at the StarLadder i-League Invitational in May, only losing to Virtus.pro in the grandfinal. Ladislav "GuardiaN" Kovács has been practicing the most in his life ahead of Cologne, so Navi will expect to finish this week’s group stage 6-0.
Both Mousesports and Flipsid3 enter this week’s ELEAGUE in good form following their convincing qualifications to ESL One Cologne, much like FaZe and Dignitas from Week 4. This is the BO2 to watch in this group as both teams have the firepower to claim the runner up spot, but the head-to-head battle will be the deciding factor. Nikola “NiKo” Kova? has to perform in order for Mousesports to clinch the runner up spot, but consistent, in-depth anti-stratting by Andrey "B1ad3" Gorodenskiy can give Flipsid3 a tactical advantage against any team. Mousesports come into this BO2 with the upper hand, with 8 of the 10 last matches between these teams going their way, including their insane 31-28 victory in the group stage of MLG Colombus.
Echo Fox, who were only formed in January of this year, enter Week 5 as their first offline event ever as a team and will face low expectations and likely take the fourth seed in the group. Sean "seang@res" Gares has a reputation for tactical genius, so there is a chance that Echo Fox will be able to take some maps off of their European challengers.
See our coverage of ELEAGUE Week 5 and the rest of ELEAGUE here.
