ESL Pro League EU: Complexity In The Lead

Four matches, four victories. Complexity are plowing through ESL Pro League Group B with ease and leave no team unharmed. Yesterday, Team Spirit managed to impress as well by setting themselves on top of NiP. Astralis managed to secure a hard-fought victory over mousesports.

SPIRIT 2-1 NIP

After Spirit had suddenly upset Vitality, fans and analysts were curious. Did they really perform insanely well, or did Vitality just not feel it that say? Well, yesterday, Spirit proved that their performance wasn’t just a fluke. They can actually take down these kinds of teams now.

On Nuke, Spirit’s perfect CT side helped them win a quick 16-8 map. Simon “twist” Eliasson didn’t get into the match at all and ended the map on a single-digit kill count. On the other side, however, Artem “iDISBALANCE” Egorov dominated with 33 kills. Mirage wasn’t the best of maps for both teams, but the Ninjas had the upper hand. Leading 10-5 at half-time, they quickly collected the remaining rounds. Nikolay “mir” Bityukov may have fought well for his team, but the rest of the players were unable to do so. Instead, Hampus “hampus” Poser and Tim “nawwk” Jonasson reeled in the big kills. On a 16-9 scoreline, the Ninjas got through to the last map.

On Overpass, they entered home territory. The Swedes are usually very strong on the map, but this time around, they were unable to play out their advantage against Spirit. Once again, the CT side of the Russians secured them the victory. As iDISBALANCE and mir dismantled the Ninjas and set up a near-perfect defense, the Swedes had no other option but to concede the victory. With a 16-11 win, Team Spirit managed to achieve yet another upset in EPL.

COL 2-1 FNC

The duel between Complexity and fnatic took multiple hours to complete. But actually, the first map was over quickly, as Complexity secured an easy 16-4 on Mirage. Kristian “k0nfig” Wienecke collected 26 kills and achieved a 2.13 rating. It was a miracle to see fnatic not completely tilt afterwards.

The Swedes went on to secure 10 rounds in the first half of Nuke. There, the resilience of Complexity showed. They clawed their way back into the map, until the two teams reached overtime. After a 3-3 tie for the first overtime, fnatic ran away with 4 straight rounds, landing the map victory in spite of Will “RUSH” Wierzba’s 35 kills.

On Vertigo, all was on the table again. The CT side of Complexity was well constructed and delivered them 11 points at halftime. On the offense, however, they struggled to get the remaining rounds together. Fortunately, their in-game-leader, Benjamin “blameF” Bremer, secured enough kills on his 1.40 rating to help his team over the finishing line. After this 16-13 victory, Complexity have now had four EPL matches and won all of then. The other teams in Group B will now have to win another 3 matches in order to surpass them in the standings.

ASTRALIS 2-1 MOUZ

After some initial struggles, the Danes around Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander were finally able to find solid footing in EPL. Following the return of their in-game-leader, they have now been able to win their last two engagements. Their match versus mousesports was hard-fought, however. On Dust2, the mouz players shocked with a 16-12 victory, in which Robin “ropz” Kool delivered a star performance. Emil “Magisk” Reif, on the other hand, struggled to get kills on the board.

His poor performance continued on Nuke. Still, Astralis had 11 points on the board at halftime – and that on the T side! Suddenly, mousesports started a comeback and almost made their way to overtime. Unfortunately, Finn “karrigan” Andersen called a push in the last round that quickly led to his team’s downfall. Their offense was stopped at 14-16.

On Inferno, Astralis were clearly the better team. During the previous map, karrigan and company gave their very best and were now left out of steam. Despite ropz’s best efforts, the rest of the mousesports players were unable to continue with the same level of play. With this 16-9 win, Astralis secured a second match victory in EPL, while mousesports have suffered yet another defeat.

Today, OG are going up against GODSENT first. Afterwards, Vitality will clash with FaZe for some EPL points. To round out the day, BIG will be facing G2 Esports.