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Gambit Esports, Team Liquid and Ninjas in Pyjamas are set as the final three CS: GO teams to play in the next stage of the ESL Pro League Season 14, one of the main Counter-Strike esports events in the world. They are heading to the playoffs from group D.
Instead, the rest of the teams in the group – Entropiq, FURIA Esports and Team One, are out of the tournament.
The final group matches
The group D was played last to decide three last teams entering the playoffs stage at the 14th Season of the ESL Pro League series.
The final play day in group D was aired live on the 5th of September.
Gambit took a crushing defeat against NiP, losing on two maps in the Bo3 series, 12-16 on Ancient and 6-16 on Inferno.
Nevertheless, one of the best Russian Counter-Strike teams along with others such as Team Spirit and forZe, still tops its group, boasting a respectable score of 4-1. The Russian organization is heading to the playoffs from the first place.
Gambit won all their matches against Team One, Team Liquid, FURIA and Entropiq.
The North American powerhouse Team Liquid finished second in the group. The team won against NiP, lost to Gambit, won against both Entropiq and Team One, and managed to lose to FURIA Esports.
Ninjas in Pyjamas, despite winning their final group match against the leader of the group and the second best team in the world, placed only third.
The Swedish CS: GO team managed to lose their matches against Team Liquid and FURIA, but won in the clashes against lesser opponents such as Entropiq and Team One.
The NiP’s game against the Brazilian CS: GO organization, in which FURIA surprisingly won with the 2:1 score, was very interesting and memorable in many ways.
It was pretty enjoyable and a sort of a rollercoaster performance from the South Americans, considering the fact that they played with their coach as a substitute.
During the match against the Ninjas, the Brazilian squad often had player advantage during the round, but were disorganized in terms of the team and bomb rotations, so they ended up losing some of the important rounds in the post plant situations.
These awkward developments made the Swedish-Brazilian stand-off even more exciting for the end viewer to watch.
Playoffs projections
The first games of the ESL Pro League Season 14 playoffs are set to happen on the 7th of September. mousesports from Germany will face off Ninjas in Pyjamas, while Complexity will fight their way to the top versus Team Vitality from France.
Bookmakers such as GG.BET predict that mousesports are the favorites in the first pair of the teams. Their odds are listed as 1.79 to 1.99 respectively. 1XBET has similar odds of 1.78 and 1.99. Parimatch specialists are undecided, as they give equal odds on both teams – 1.87.
Other betting firms, such as LOOT.BET, Cyber.Bet and Thunderpick also list somewhat equal odds for the first pair of the teams.
For the next pair of the evening, GG.BET believe that Complexity are heavy underdogs in the match against the French powerhouse. The bookmaker’s odds are 2.85 and 1.41. 1XBET believes the same way – their line features odds 2.84 and 1.42 for the first and second team. Parimatch are now in line with the tendency, they list 2.62 and 1.45 odds, respectively.
In turn, LOOT.BET, Cyber.Bet and Thunderpick list more or less the same odds for the second pair of the teams.
On the next playoffs day, forZe will face off ENCE, the best Finnish team, and Team Liquid will play against Fnatic.
While analyzing the first pair of the teams, betting companies such as GG.BET are not able to predict a clear winner, with the odds 1.81 and 1.97. 1XBET think the same. Parimatch and LOOT.BET give 1.70 vs 2.08, as well as Cyber.Bet, who have more or less the same odds.
Swedish-British Fnatc’s roster looks like a clear underdog against the likes of Team Liquid. GG.BET do not believe in the victory of the first team, as they set the odds as 2.70 against 1.45. It is interesting that 1XBET, Parimatch, LOOT.BET and Cyber.Bet all also set practically the same odds for this match.
Talking about the playoffs predictions from the professional CS: GO players, such as Abay “Hobbit” Khassenov from Kazakhstan, they have already made some public statements.
For example, Khassenov states that most of the top teams can beat each other at the moment:
Some of the games will be pretty random. Many teams have many issues to work on. Strategies and tactics have changed a lot, and the teams do not have any demos to analyze.
— Abay “Hobbit” Khassenov, September 5, 2021
Hobbit also picked out the Heroic, the top team in their country after legendary Astralis. The Danish squad, by his words, can perform well because of the favorable online format and their teamwork.
The Gambit player also claims that the CIS CS: GO powerhouse from Ukraine – Na’Vi team, is going to probably be the hardest opponent in the tournament to beat. And he isn’t alone in his opinion.
mousesports coach, Danish-Norwegian Torbjorn “mithR” Nyborg, a former CS: GO professional, who previously coached teams such as Tricked Esports, ALTERNATE aTTaX, North, and Renegades, thinks the same way.
He spoke about Natus Vincere’s recent performance at the ESL-hosted press conference. mithR admitted that the Ukrainians destroyed his team in group stage because of the poor map picking by the mouz, and stated that Na’Vi often looks like the best team in the world, especially in the LAN environment.
ESL Pro League
Top players of the group stage currently include Team Vitality’s Frenchman Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut, who became the best group stage player with a 1,36 rating.
The Na’Vi superstar Ukrainian AWPer Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev came second with a score of 1,33.
The third place was occupied by the Brazilian player Kaike “KSCERATO” Cerato from FURIA Esports with a rating of 1,3.
The best rated teams of the tournament are currently listed as Heroic, ENCE, and also Na’Vi. Gambit is on par with the Ukrainian team, but they played one more map.
The 14th season of the ESL Pro League is played in August-September 2021 in the online format. The tournament can boast a prize pool of $750,000.
The 24 world’s best teams compete for the Pro Tour (EPT) points as well as the BLAST Premier Series points, and also the slot for BLAST Premier: World Final 2021, a LAN event scheduled in December, 2021.
EPT is a collaboration between Dreamhack and ESL. It includes major tournaments such as IEM XIV Katowice 2020, ESL One: Cologne 2020 Online Europe and ESL One: Cologne 2020 Online North America competitions.
There were four groups in the 14th season of the ESL Pro league tournament. Round-robin format was used, the teams played each other once in a Bo3.
The first place teams in the group stage went straight to the quarterfinals – Heroic, OG, Natus Vincere and Gambit Esports from groups A to D respectively.
The second and third place teams also advanced to the playoffs stage. They will start their journey from the first playoffs round. mousesports will play vs Ninjas in Pyjamas, Complexity vs Team Vitality, forZe vs ENCE, and Team Liquid vs Fnatic.
Playoffs are played using a single elimination bracket. The final match will be Bo5, while all other matches will be played as Bo3 series.
The ESL Pro league was launched in 2015 by ESL. The ESL Pro League Season 14 belongs to the ESL Pro League series and is an Intel Grand Slam tournament.