ESL Pro League NA: Last Play-Day Coming Up

With yesterday’s games in the bag, the fates of most teams have already been decided. We take a took at the league standings and determine which teams are still in contention for the playoffs.

FURIA are safely through already. With 15 points, they may be tied alongside Team Liquid and Evil Geniuses, but they have won both of their matches against them. This means that they are ahead in the head-to-head comparison. But Liquid and EG are safely tucked into the playoffs as well. With 9 points each, 100 Thieves and Chaos are in considerable distance to the top teams. For them, the last matches are not about closing the gap, but securing the last available slot.

THE REMAINING SCENARIOS

Unlike during the last day of ESL Pro League Europe, Chaos and 100 Thieves will not have to go up against each other. This means that their chances depend on how well they perform versus other teams. 100 Thieves have really gotten lucky with Triumph. This team has not won a single match in EPL so far and, facing the Australians, it doesn’t look like they are about to change that anytime soon.

Chaos, however, will have to tackle FURIA. If they win and 100 Thieves lose, then they will make playoffs. If both squads pull equal, then 100T advance due to their head-to-head record. But this actually fails on the premise already, as Chaos are not particularly equipped to dismantle FURIA. The best team of the league can thus feel pretty safe. Still, it’s not like we haven’t seen Chaos pull off a crazy upset. While this isn’t impossible, it is however very unlikely. Following the departurture of Joshua “steel” Nissan, his old colleagues will likely have to settle for a fifth place in this season. The social media team seems to think the same thing!

But there’s a third, crazy scenario. What happens if 100T and Chaos both lose, and Gen.G win their match to get up to 9 points as well? This would send the three teams to a tie-breaker. There, they will encounter a few problems. 100Thieves have won over Chaos, but they’ve also lost to Gen.G. This would make Gen.G the top team, if only they hadn’t lost to Chaos. It gets even worse. 100 Thieves and Chaos have the same amount of map wins within their tie-breaker group and also the same amount of map wins in the league overall. This means that their tie would actually be broken via the total round difference. In that department, 100 Thieves are leading the charge by quite a margin.

LIQUID VS. EVIL GENIUSES – DUEL OF THE GIANTS

We had already hyped up this match-up prior to the start of the league. After an incredibly tense Grand Finals of ESL One Cologne, we were convinced that, given enough time and work, Liquid would be able to claw their way back to the top of North America. Right now, they’re pulling relatively tight, as both have lost to FURIA and have defeated the rest in EPL NA. Tomorrow, we will finally see the two sides meet again.

But after seeing the two teams compete in EPL, we predict Evil Geniuses to come out on top. Jake “Stewie2k” Yip hasn’t managed to combine his IGLing with solid individual performances just yet. His team has also not really gone in depth strategically. Evil Geniuses boast a stronger tactical foundation and have had an overall better display throughout EPL. Liquid may have won 5 out of 6 matches, but they still only have a +3 round difference. This doesn’t exactly scream of dominance. So Evil Geniuses will likely walk away with their 6. victory in the regular season. But if FURIA win over Chaos, EG will only be able to make second place.

We look over to North America in anticipation of seeing these teams in action tomorrow. At 19:00 CEST, the last-play day will kick off.