ESL Pro League EU: Heroic Finally Get Their First Win

After two missed chances, GODSENT and Heroic have each gotten a win on the board in ESL Pro League. Faze are unfortunately still unable to post good results. Following serious losses against mousesports and Astralis, they have now received a solid beating from fnatic as well.

GODSENT 2-1 ENCE

ENCE have been leading the Group A standings so far, whereas GODSENT have been stuck in last place. Obviously, this made the Finns favorites for the match, but Kevin “kRYSTAL” Amend and the boys were better prepared this time. On ENCE’s map pick, Mirage, they got a great 11-4 lead in the first half. Unfortunately, they failed to crack an almost perfect CT side and surrendered the map on a 12-16 scoreline.

On Nuke, they could finally get going. Their map pick proved to be a great selection, as ENCE were only able to get two tiny rounds on the board on their CT side. They tried to keep the game going in the second half, but kRYSTAL and his team had everything under control. Martin “STYKO” Styk achieved a 1.83 rating and 120 ADR, helping his team to a 16-4 win.

On the third map, the teams delivered a much closer affair. GODSENT once again proved to be a rather one-sided team. On their offensive, they were dominant and secured a 11-4 lead again. On their CT side, however, they struggled so much that they let ENCE advance to a 13-13 tie. At that point, Asger “farlig” Jensen made the difference. After three more rounds on the board, GODSENT stood victorious with a 16-13 map win. This gave them their first EPL points.

HEROIC 2-1 G2

Heroic were desperate for a victory. As the winners of ESL One Cologne, they were very much in a tight spot to at least not finish last during this EPL season. Fortunately for them, they have finally made strides in that direction. With a quick 16-7, they secured their map pick, Train. Nikolaj “niko” Kristensen put up a monster performance with a 1.75 rating and 26 kills.

On Vertigo, they started off great again, but after a 6 point lead they only narrowly won the first half on an 8-7 scoreline. On their T side, they struggled massively, as René “TeSeS” Madsen didn’t get into the game at all. Again, niko was the one to keep them afloat. Unfortunately, his colleagues couldn’t support him well enough, conceding the map on a 14-16 scoreline.

So the game was tied and Heroic had lost their map advantage. On Inferno, all was on the table, the Danes had everything to lose again. And Heroic played just like this! After his poor Nuke performance, TeSeS made up for it with a 100 ADR display and brought the heat to G2. Following a 12-3 half for Heroic, the Frenchmen attempted a small comeback. This was quickly undercut, however. With a 16-7 win, Heroic finally secured some vital EPL points.

FNATIC 2-0 FAZE

There’s not a lot to say about FaZe’s display in recent time. The team has been stuck in a downwards loop for months now. Their roster change appears to have weakened them even more, but that’s not really down to Markus “Kjaerbye” Kjærbye. In the match versus fnatic, he actually played quite well – in comparison to his colleagues. But apart from Helvijs “broky” Saukants, no FaZe player was able to post a positive rating. With 16-11 and 16-4, fnatic secured a quick match victory, sending them to the top of Group B.

Today, Complexity will have to go up against Spirit. We’re almost tempted to call this a safe bet for Complexity. But after the insane comeback against Vitality, Spirit should probably not be discounted this easily. NiP have quite a big task at hand with mousesports, as the mouz players are finally getting into the online groove and posting good results. The day will come to an end with a face-off between Vitality and Astralis, which is guaranteed to be a tense and close affair. After their very narrow loss to Complexity and their dominant display over FaZe, Astralis are actually set up quite well for this. But after getting reverse-sweeped by Spirit, Vitality will be hard-pressed to make up for this again.