The Crazy Playing Field of EPL Group D

Astralis, Virtus.pro, Team Liquid, Evil Geniuses, Fnatic… only three teams can actually make the jump to playoffs! In this group, more top teams than ever are fighting for their ticket to the next and biggest stage of ESL Pro League Season 13. But who can really set themselves on top here?

Endpoint obviously drew the shortest straw when they were drafted for this particular group. This playing field either consists of teams who have made the top positions of the most recent events, or teams who desperately seek to prove themselves with new players on board.

For Evil Geniuses, Group D will become a proving ground and also host the debut of Owen “oBo” Schlatter. The North American player had left Complexity Gaming last year, but is now returning to the server for the EG camp. He’s replacing Ethan “Ethan” Arnold, who has made the jump to VALORANT. We will first see oBo in action against Astralis, which will put a lot of pressure on the youngster’s shoulders. Nobody knows whether he is actually up to this task. However, at the beginning of last year, Complexity Gaming already managed to secure victories over the Danish squad, so the luck may be on his side.

So far, Jack “Jackinho” Ström Mattson has not brought the desired results back to Fnatic. The young Swede was tasked with replacing Robin “flusha” Rönnquist, but after a promising second place at cs_summit 7, the team bombed out of IEM Katowice early on. This tournament will now show whether that outing was a fluke or not. Fnatic have definitely had more than enough time to properly prepare for their opponents. But even if they enter the server performing to their best abilities, they are not guaranteed to succeed. After all, the likes of Astralis are virtually unbeatable anyways.

LIQUID, VP, ASTRALIS

With this playing field, it’s hard to imagine any other trio making the Top 3. Most recently, Virtus.pro made the Grand Finals of IEM Katowice and with two strong tournament victories in the past six months, they have deservedly entered the international Top 5. Their rise to the top has been a long time coming. Just like Gambit, they now have to try to maintain their position next to these legendary teams.

Astralis have apparently developed a special weakness for CIS teams. At the last big event, they lost to both Virtus.pro and Team Spirit. This is not a great sign for ESL Pro League Season 13, but at least they won’t have to make first place anyways. If they can set themselves on top of the other teams, they will get their desired playoffs spot eventually.

The same holds true for Team Liquid. They also failed to survive against Virtus.pro, which likely means that they will position themselves behind the Eastern Europeans now as well. This new Liquid lineup has not yet played versus Astralis, but they will probably enter a bitter fight for second place against the Danes. Gabriel “Fallen” Toledo had to participate in DreamHack Open March from Europe and thus had to battle high ping issues. As an AWPer, this hurt him particularly, and so Liquid exited the event after a Semi Finals loss to paiN Gaming. However, this doesn’t bear a lot of significance going into ESL Pro League Season 13 Group D.

WHO WILL MAKE FIRST PLACE?

Looking at the most recent tournament results, Virtus.pro are the obvious favorites. But things hardly ever work out this way and after Katowice, Liquid have had a lot of time to prepare for this event. Fallen is set up perfectly to give his team some tactical depth. This should prove to be enough for the weaker teams in the group, but Virtus.pro and Astralis can still keep Liquid from making first or second place.

Evil Geniuses and Fnatic will primarily try to rip one of these teams out from the Top 3 and make playoffs themselves. After quite a rough few months, both of them are desperately looking for some decent results. The Astralis fans are also eagerly awaiting their team’s return to form. However, it stands to question whether ESL Pro League will actually see that take place.