ESL Pro League Season 21 is well underway after the conclusion of its first Swiss group stage. No matter your opinion on the new format, it has delivered tons of exciting results, with eight teams moving on to meet the top eight ranked teams in Stage 2 of the event.
On the last day of action, the three final spots of Stage 2 were up for grabs – let’s take a look to see how the matches went!
TYLOO see off limp FlyQuest threat
Credit: Helena Kristiansson | ESL
Right now, FlyQuest are their own worst enemy, offering up tons of mistakes that any good team can take advantage of. On this occasion, that team was TYLOO, who, after starting ESL Pro League S21 in 2:0 fashion, had fallen down to the 2:2 bracket and were in grave danger of crashing out. TYLOO were able to stave off the rather limp threat from Aussie team FlyQuest, in what is a fantastic result for the team.
The emotions of the occasion were there for all to see, with TYLOO’s Jee giving a teary-eyed interview to end the series. This Chinese team have won over plenty of fans at this CS2 tournament, and I, for one, would love to see them continue to impress in the next stage. It’ll be hard, sure, but they’ve shown good fundamental Counter-Strike so far – let’s see what they can achieve in the rest of the event.
paiN Gaming reverse sweep young Nemiga team
Credit: ESL
Afterwards, a young and inexperienced Nemiga roster would be reverse-swept by paiN Gaming. There’s no shame in that – no one expected anything from Nemiga at this event, and falling at the 2:2 bracket to a good team arguably surpasses expectations. It was shocking to see paiN here, frankly – they’re in a bit of a slump right now, with inconsistent performances across the board. For paiN, at least they got over the line in the end.
It was a huge performance from dav1deuS that gave paiN Gaming the push to take this series, although nqz was equally important to seeing it out. If the team plays like this in the second Swiss group, they’ll struggle to have any impact at all, and it’ll be down to huge individual performances to keep them alive any further.
FURIA punish M80 mistakes
Credit: Helena Kristiansson | ESL
FURIA vs. M80 was another series that ended 2:1 in favor of the Brazilians. On paper, it looks as though none of the maps were particularly close, although that doesn’t quite tell the whole story. On FURIA’s map wins, M80 continued to throw individual rounds, meaning they were never quite able to gather momentum in this series. You could easily argue that M80 should have won this one, but once again it’s a story of missed opportunities.
For FURIA, you can point to the individual brilliance of KSCERATO and skullz as the big reason they won this series. But again, that doesn’t quite tell the story, where it was mostly the likes of Swisher and slaxz- for M80 just struggling to find that impact.
ESL Pro League Season 21 returns on March 7th for the second Swiss group.