Each team has now completed their 5 matches in Group C of ESL Pro League. Natus Vincere, mousesports & fnatic continue to the playoffs, whilst the big names of BIG, Evil Geniuses & FaZe bid goodbye to any Pro League dreams they had this time around.
This time around, no teams managed a clean 5-0 record, with NaVi coming the closest with 4-1 to top the group, mousesports & fnatic both managed 3-2, with mousesports coming second due to round differences. The unlucky FaZe also managed 3-2, but were let down on their own round difference count, which was just one less than fnatic. After FaZe lost to NaVi, their future was put into BIGs arms, and had they won in their final match against mousesports, the top 3 would have been slightly different with FaZe managing to sneak into the playoffs. However, mousesports managed to overcome BIG for a 2-1 match, which gave BIG the fourth placement in the group and jumped mousesports into second place. Evil Geniuses were the poorest performers of the group, where they lost all 5 matches, however were saved from the infamy that Bad News Bears managed in Group A, as Evil Geniuses managed to win a single map in their matches, where BNB didn't win a single one. After Pro League, there's a good chance Evil Geniuses will be reflecting upon their team, and if it's time for some shaking up of the roster or at least whether their current tactics book needs throwing in the nearest bin.
Next up, Group D, so here is a sneak preview of what to expect. In this final group of the group play stages, we have Entropiq, Gambit, TeamOne, NIP, Liquid & FURIA. All eyes will be on Gambit, who have performed so well in recent memory, other than a minor blip at IEM Cologne on LAN. However, now Pro League is occurring online rather than LAN, will Gambit fall back into their old ways? Entropiq & TeamOne, a CIS & Brazillian team in that order both have the potential to score major upsets against the giants of Gambit, FURIA & Liquid. With Liquid generally performing poor as of late, with a win rate of less than just 40% in the past 3 months, this event could be a make or break for Liquid's current roster. Whatever happens, be sure to watch it all unfold on ESLs twitch streams, with the first match of Group D starting tomorrow, at 11:30 GMT, where TeamOne will kick off proceedings with the mighty Gambit.