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Key Takeaways From EPL Group A

The first three teams are now qualified for the ESL Pro League Season 14 playoffs. The new Astralis roster... Fabio | 21. August 2021

The first three teams are now qualified for the ESL Pro League Season 14 playoffs. The new Astralis roster failed to impress, but ENCE managed to reach the Top 3.

We’re looking back on five match-days. Despite the low number of games, there’s a lot to learn. Astralis need more time to prepare with Philip “Lucky” Ewald, North America is on its last legs, and a new team seems to be gunning for its place within the international Tier 1 scene.

ENCE ARE FINALLY READY FOR THE TOP 10

The Finnish organization’s mix-team had to start off where a relatively successful national team had ended. The name “ENCE” still carries weight, because its players had made the Grand Finals of the last IEM Katowice Major quite a while ago. But after they, they had personal issues and this top team slowly broke apart. Marco “Snappi” Pfeiffer has long tried to make it with various international rosters, but now, the mix seems to be just right. In Group A, ENCE delivered an impressive performance. While they failed to make it past Vitality and Heroic, the matches were still brutal and too close for comfort. They dragged the Frenchmen across a 14-16 map, effortlessly snatched a 16-5 win from Heroic and only narrowly lost on two more 14-16 maps.

VITALITY: KYOJIN STILL CAN’T PERFORM

The Frenchmen signed the player to its roster with the promise of molding him into a top tier talent eventually. It wasn’t important for them to see him perform right away. But that was in April – and Jayson “Kyojin” Nguyen Van is still in the negative. His “highlight” in EPL was a 1.14 rating against ENCE. Aside from that, he was at the bottom of the scoreboard even during their easy campaigns versus Bad News Bears and Astralis.

That’s a massive issue for the team, as they haven’t met any top teams at EPL aside from Heroic. Playing against the Danes, he only recorded a 0.77 rating. How is this supposed to work once Vitality face the likes of G2 Esports or Natus Vincere in the playoffs?

IS THIS THE BEST THAT NA HAS TO OFFER?

Sure, Liquid and Evil Geniuses are still in play. But aside from these top teams with their ridiculous salaries, the Bad News Bears might just be the strongest North American team that can be built without importing players. Extra Salt had their moment of glory in the spring, but would they have fared any better in this EPL group?

One thing is certain – North America is close to collapsing as a Counter-Strike scene. Evil Geniuses have already demonstrated that there’s no new talent in the region. With their most recent roster change, they signed a strong Polish player. Even Team Liquid had to scout the Brazilian scene for a capable IGL and AWPer. Just a year ago, NA had Chaos and lots of promising young players. But the likes of Nathan “leaf” Orf didn’t want to wait for their shot forever, so they simply turned to VALORANT. Bad News Bears deserve our respect, because they’re trying to shoulder the entire North America scene without any support whatsoever. But how long will they be able to sustain the pressure?

ASTRALIS HAVE A LONG ROAD AHEAD OF THEMSELVES

The Danish superteam has to work with a new setup. When Lucky was signed, Coach Danny “zonic” Sørensen claimed that this was their attempt at getting back to a six-man roster. But Lucky was immediately picked over Andreas “Xyp9x” Højsleth, who now claims to be evaluating his future. So it seems way more likely that Lucky has found a permanent role. As an AWPer, he would be a great fit, but what about his performance at his first ever big event?

He concluded the Group Stage with a 1.00 rating – quite literally average. But seeing as Astralis lost the majority of their matches and, with the exception of Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen, the rest of the team had negative ratings, this is a great first result. Some things just take time, and the team will work for weeks or months to get the new roster up and running. But Astralis and Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander in particular are known for taking challenges like this one and converting them into success.

Meanwhile, EPL Group B will continue on the ESL stream and provide us with even more talking points. For now, we’ve drawn our first major conclusions and can roughly place these six teams on the CS:GO map after the summer break.