ESWC 2015 group stage preview

After initially securing the attendance of nearly every top team in the world, ESWC has lost fnatic, TSM, Virtus.pro, Kinguin and LGB, while having two local qualifiers canceled.

In addition, Natus Vincere's Russian duo - Denis "⁠seized⁠" Kostin and Egor "⁠flamie⁠" Vasilyev - may not receive visas in time to travel to Canada, forcing the team to use former players as stand-ins.

With that being said, here's a quick look at the four groups of the event. On Friday, the top two from each group will advance from each to the quarter-finals - played in best-of-three mode - on Saturday.

ESWC returns this weekend, in Canada for a change

 

Group A

Cloud9, FlipSid3, Keyd Stars, Boreal

With group A at ESWC packing one clearly inferior team in Jonathan "⁠n0swal⁠" Lawson's local team Boreal, Cloud9 seemingly got a fairly easy group to advance from as they face two other teams who are, give or take, capable of playing to the same level as they are. It would be easy to think this is a great group draw for Mike "⁠shroud⁠" Grzesiek's team which is fresh off of its best-ever placing, where they took fnatic to their limit. Well, it is not.

Since the additions of Tyler "⁠Skadoodle⁠" Latham and Ryan "⁠freakazoid⁠" Abadir this Cloud9 roster has faced Keyd Stars on two maps. They have scored a 16-12 win on de_dust2, and got blown away 6-16 on de_overpass. Keyd are capable of map wins against the  best - having taken fnatic down on a map at ClutchCon, and more recently TSM last weekend in Cologne - and obviously are a threat to this Cloud9 team. Sean "⁠seang@res⁠" Gares and company remain slight favorites, but only that.

On top of the Brazilians, Cloud9 also face competition from FlipSid3, who have eaten alive many teams of Cloud9's level in European online leagues for months. Luckily for the North Americans, Georgi "⁠WorldEdit⁠" Yaskin could not  secure a visa in time to travel for the event, and they have secured the services of Nihilum's Spencer "⁠Hiko⁠" Martin as a stand-in. Hiko does not speak Russian, and most of F3 does not speak English well enough, so naturally the result will not be optimal.

It's a shame because ESWC represented one of the few tournaments that FlipSid3 could attend with its real roster, featuring the ESL banned superstar Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev. Now that the full team is no longer in attendance, we once again get a weaker product. Some will find the match versus Cloud9 interesting, and it puts pressure on Jordan "⁠n0thing⁠" Gilbert and company to prove letting go of Hiko was the right move - which of course has nothing to do with their potential head-to-head game.

This group is dangerous for Cloud9 because for one, they cannot study this FlipSid3 team at all - which takes away the reason they were so dangerous in Cologne: their preparation. In addition, they have very little experience playing Keyd Stars. In effect, they have gone from perennial underdogs with no pressure, to favorites to top the group with everything to lose, and nothing to gain. Not an ideal position, but if they play well, they will come out on top.

On Friday, Cloud9 will have to put up with more expectations than usual

 

Group B

NiP, Liquid, LDLC White, QeeYou

Has NiP ever had an even remotely hard group draw in the history of CS:GO? Because if they have, I have completely missed it. In Donald Duck terms, I think they should be called the Gladstone Gander of CS:GO teams. Then again, you kind of make your own luck - if you do well enough for years to always be top seeded, it will not exactly weaken your odds of getting a favorable draw. Either way, NiP are huge favorites to top group B, but the battle for second place will be very interesting.

First of all you have Liquid, who have had success recently versus Cloud9 online, and took maps from both Natus Vincere and fnatic at Gfinity Spring Masters II. In fact, let's take back the first paragraph - maybe NiP have a little reason to worry. The second team is LDLC White, who took EnVy to triple overtime at DreamHack Open Tours, and then went out in a 14-16 loss to HellRaisers. To top that, four of them played for Platinium, who knocked NiP out in the group stage of ESWC 2014.

Lastly there is the Chinese QeeYou, who naturally topped the Chinese ESWC qualifier to make it to Canada. There's been some talk overseas about this team being legitimately strong, but obviously there's little way for us to know what they are made of before seeing them play. They are supposedly dominant in their region, and we have in the past, before CS:GO took over, seen some very good teams come out of China. Let's see if QeeYou can continue where wNv and TyLoo left off.

So as it turns out, NiP have two somewhat dangerous teams in their group, though they remain clear favorites over both. The fourth team QeeYou is a complete unknown, both in good and bad terms. With that being said, expect Christopher "⁠GeT_RiGhT⁠" Alesund's Ninjas to top the group, while Liquid will attempt to make sure they do not get beaten by LDLC White - for whom studying the North Americans, by the way, is much easier than vice versa.

It's not for sure that Liquid will make the playoffs

 

Group C

Na`Vi, Titan, SK, Luminosity

The third ESWC group will remain wide open until Thursday morning, when Natus Vincere will finally know whether flamie and seized can obtain last minute visas to travel to Canada. Needless to say with it being so late, odds are clearly stacked up against them, and it's much more likely Na`Vi must rely on Arseny "⁠ceh9⁠" Trynozhenko and Sergey "⁠starix⁠" Ischuk - two former members long removed from playing actively.

flamie confirmed to HLTV.org they will get final confirmation on visas on Thursday morning when they are set to travel to North America. Meanwhile, Titan have all made their way to Montreal, and look to become the favorites to top this group, and get a favorable quarter-final match-up, in the case of Natus Vincere being unable to use their full lineup at the $75,000 tournament that kicks off on Friday with the group stages.

SK are already somewhat dangerous, playing NiP close on two maps in London two weeks ago, and putting up thirteen rounds against Titan a day later. The Danes are still looking for their first break under the SK Gaming banner, and in the case of Na`Vi having to field a line-up featuring 40% retired players, this Friday in Montreal may finally give them just that, even if it comes attached with an asterisk next to it, with less value placed on the actual result.

Finally, we have Luminosity - one of the better North American teams, but one that struggled mightily in Cologne last week, scoring just eleven rounds in two matches against Virtus.pro and EnVyUs. Still, they may feel more comfortable playing closer to home, and though jetlag will bother them as much as everyone else, it's not impossible to think they could take a map off of someone in this group. In fact, if Na`Vi yields two stand-ins, they could - theoretically - take a map from anyone.

For Kévin "⁠Ex6TenZ⁠" Droolans's crew this is another dangerous group, à la Cloud9. They are favored in each of their games if the Canadian embassy doesn't come through for Na`Vi - as one might expect at this hour - and historically they have never done very well as favorites. Titan usually crash out against just the kind of opponents their group is now littered with, but considering their recent disappointment in London, they may not be able to afford more. Pressure's on Titan.

This time, the coach will most likely have to step in to play 

 

Group D

EnVyUs, CLG, Renegades, Bravado

In the fourth and final group the big name is EnVyUs, who placed runner-ups at last year's ESWC to fnatic. With fnatic, TSM and Virtus.pro electing to stay home from this year's event for various reasons, they have suddenly become favorites to win it all on Sunday. But first, Vincent "⁠Happy⁠" Schopenhauer's team must navigate through two potentially fateful opponents in yet another best-of-one group stage.

EnVyUs have now lost six of eight first maps of the day they have played at their three most recent tournaments - SLTV StarSeries XIII, Gfinity Summer Masters I, and ESL ESEA Pro League Season 1 Finals. All of those losses have come in against underdogs, and both CLG and Renegades are reasonably good enough to upset EnVy in a best-of-one. CLG took down fnatic in a one-mapper last week, and everyone's favorite Australians bested both NiP and fnatic on a single map in May.

CLG's case for this group is surprisingly weak. Though they defeated fnatic in their Cologne opener, they don't really have the results - even back home in North America - to back that up, and they were absolutely thrashed by Cloud9 in the semi-finals on Saturday. They beat HellRaisers in Katowice, and Titan at the Katowice qualifier, but have not attended many events and generally not been overly impressive outside of Tarik "⁠tarik⁠" Celik. However, that could well change in Montreal.

Renegades are the most intriguing team in this group. As stated before, they took maps from two elite teams, and devoured Liquid without any issues in London in May. They are a team that's hard to study due to lack of footage, but who can study others easily. Same applies to Bravado, but unlike Renegades, they have no results to suggest they are scary - they only won three rounds combined in two matches at DreamHack Winter.

Nathan "⁠NBK-⁠" Schmitt's EnVY remain favorites to get out of ESWC's group D in first place, but there's some danger in the group for them to falter if they don't take the first matches seriously. The battle for second place will be much more interesting, with the first game not holding much weight unless EnVy gets upset in the second round, as the final elimination game will most likely decide who goes through. My money would be on the Australians.

Renegades are the most interesting team in group D 

 

ESWC will begin on Friday evening European time with the group stage. The quarter-finals will take place on Saturday, while Sunday is reserved for semi-finals and the grand final.

HLTV.org will be on-site in Canada to once again give you full coverage of the $75,000 tournament, including statistics, galleries, hot matches, and more.

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