ESL Pro League Day 4 Recap and mouse Annihilation
fnatic muscled past a tired Liquid with a swift 2-0 on Overpass and Inferno, thanks to the duo of Ludvig ‘Brollan’ Brolin and Freddy ‘KRIMZ’ Johansson. For Liquid, one has to feel that jetlag took its toll, as only Jonathan ‘ELiGE’ Jablonowski looked close to his normal level.
Liquid started pretty hot - well, at least for one round. After securing the pistol, they were broken immediately by the rampaging Swedes with newly-buffed Galils. A Robin ‘flusha’ Rönnquist double with the default pistol helped secure a strong start for the Swedes - it wasn’t just for style points.
fnatic raced into an 8-1 lead on the T side of Overpass. Liquid looked down and out, but a great hold from Nick ‘nitr0’ Cannella and EliGE on the A site started the comeback. Russel ‘Twistzz’ Van Dulken grabbed a double on the B site as he attempted to recover a faltering CT side.
Liquid recovered to an 8-7 half, but there was no respite for them. Brollan and Jesper ‘JW’ Wecksell got a full house of kills between them with the USPs to start the second half off.
Liquid went from 12-7 to 12-10 thanks to some Jake ‘Stewie2k’ Yip heroics, until in-game leader Maikil ‘Golden’ Selim sliced through the Liquid offense with three back-to-back M4 headshots on the B site. This broke Liquid, and put a nail in their coffin - but the final nail was hammered in by JW, whose MAG-7 dropped three T’s in connector to put fnatic on 14.
KRIMZ, who had been quietly excellent all game, finally came up with a stunning triple spray-down to add some flair to a solid performance in the final round of the game.
Inferno was even simpler for fnatic, as they won 16-8. Once again they broke Liquid on round two, this time thanks to a Deagle double from KRIMZ on a close angle. Liquid won the force-buy wars, though, and moved into a 5-3 lead once again thanks to ELiGE.
Golden was having none of it, though, as he ignored one to deag two, securing a force-buy win for fnatic, and galvanising them. They won the next six in a row, going into halftime 10-5 up, with KRIMZ and Brollan doubling up a piece on A site to break the economy.
ELiGE didn’t make many mistakes, but he made a crucial one on the second pistol, as he pushed too far trying to flank, and got caught, offering up a free plant to the Swedes. Even after Stewie2k struck twice through smoke later on, fnatic won a ridiculous 2v4 with the dynamic duo of KRIMZ and Brollan once again combining.
At that point, it felt like the game was over - and shortly after, it was. fnatic secured the 2-0 and with it, a chance to make the final, if they can best Natus Vincere tomorrow.
Click to enlargeIn the second game of the day, mousesports took on Evil Geniuses. They started on Train, where mouz abused outside early with some great timing to get an early lead. A filthy scout shot from Özgür ‘woxic’ Eker opened up a force buy as mouz moved into a 5-2 lead on the T side, and he then won a 1v2 to stop EG breaking back.
mouz then hit B at a faster speed and broke the back of EG, twice in a row, and just as EG got a foothold into the game, Chris ‘chrisj’ de Jong opened up B again with a delicious one-deag on a flashed Tsvetelin ‘CeRq’ Dimitrov, as mouz went into the half 11-4 up.
Vincent ‘Brehze’ Cayonte won a 1v2 in the pistol to give EG some hope, but it was merely a false dawn. mousesports ended up finishing the game pretty cleanly - 16-6 - with chrisj dropping a 23-13 scoreline.
On Inferno, mousesports took an early 5-0 lead due to back-to-back clutches in tight rounds. Peter ‘stanislaw’ Jarguz got a double on round nine after his early struggles, as EG brought the game back to 5-4.
Rounds went back and forth, but at 6-6, woxic pulled off one of the most obscene aces you’ll ever see . After picking mid with a precise shot, he followed up with a second stunning kill onto a jumping Brehze, before repeeking into a Krieg and living to tell the tale. Not content with just three, he peeked mid at a perfect time to catch a jiggling CeRq, before swivelling round to destroy an aerial Tarik ‘tarik’ Celik.
EG still won the half, but a lovely shot from Robin ‘ropz’ Kool put mouz back into the lead as they stole away the pistol. Rounds went back and forth again, until David ‘frozen’ Čerňanský stole away a 3v4 with an almost illegal jumping shot onto Ethan ‘Ethan’ Arnold.
The Americans brought it back to 14-14, and with the game on the line, karrigan got a disgusting triple entry in Banana to put mouz on map - and match - point, but it ended up in overtime.
EG quickly gained an 18-15 lead, and looked set to convert a 4v2 at 18-16 until frozen and karrigan saved the game. On the final round of first overtime, EG completely outplayed mouz with a double fake ending at A, and EG took map two.
Nothing indicated what would come next, though. mouz rushed into a 6-0 lead on Nuke and a disgusting ropz triple got them 7-0. chrisj hid in a smoke for the first kill mouz moved into 9-0, and EG kept forcebuying.
Their economy never settled, and it wasn’t helped by the fact they weren’t allowed to plant by woxic, who flanked with the big green gun to snipe down two just before the C4 could be planted for 11.
Evil Geniuses were clearly tilted, and they appeared to rage-buy Galils on the 14th round, but a quick chrisj double snuffed them out on the A rush. mouz converted for 15-0, and then came the most important round of the game.
It looked like we might be denied a beautiful 16-0, but woxic once again brought the round back from the brink with three stunning headshots in a 3v5, helped out by frozen.
mousesports 16-0 Evil Geniuses. Wow.
