ESL Pro League Week 6 Recap

A whopping total of 96 maps were played in the previous two weeks in the third season of the ESL Pro League but because we got closer to MLG Columbus 2016 we had a short one as most teams played their last official matches before going into the first ever $1,000,000 major.

Kicking things off in the European division, FlipSid3 took down SK on de_mirage where the Ukranian in-game-leader Andrey "⁠B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy had a 26:14 score and a 1.70 rating. Assisting him was Georgi "⁠WorldEdit⁠" Yaskin who had a highlight AWP ace and posted a 1.44 rating. He managed to pull off a pistol round ace on de_train and exploded with a 32:19 score despite his team losing 13-16.

The second match was between MOUZ and Dignitas as the Danes blew a 11-4 lead on de_cbble and could not prevent MOUZ from taking it to overtime where Dignitas won it 19-16. Kristian "⁠k0nfig⁠" Wienecke played a huge role in the victory with his 37:25 score and a 1.38 rating. The second map was de_inferno and MOUZ struggled as they lost it 10-16.

FlipSid3 faced the world's number one ranked team and provided a respectable challange but came up short, losing both of the maps. de_overpass ended 16-13 in favor of fnatic as Yegor "⁠markeloff⁠" Markelov's 1.37 rating was countered by Robin "⁠flusha⁠" Rönnquist's 1.63. Dennis "⁠dennis⁠" Edman took the load on the second map to go 30:21 and led his team to a close 16-14 victory.

The most anticipated match of the week brought Astralis and Ninjas in Pyjamas together, first on de_mirage and then on de_cache. The ninjas triumphed on both of them, winning 16-8 and 16-4 respectively. Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen averaged a 0.51 rating as Christopher "⁠GeT_RiGhT⁠" Alesund had a 1.58 rating on average to close out the week in Europe.

European division standings

In the North American division Cloud9 defeated NRG 16-12 on de_train and 16-5 on de_cbble. Peter "⁠ptr⁠" Gurney's carry efforts on the first map where he had a 29:18 score did not suffice as things got pretty ugly for his team on the second map. Three Cloud9 players had more than a 1.50 rating on de_cbble while both ptr and Fatih "⁠gob b⁠" Dayik posted 0.34 ratings.

Winterfox took down Complexity 16-12 on de_dust2 and 16-14 on de_overpass. Joshua "⁠sancz⁠" Ballenger of Complexity had a 52:34 score but his teammates could not reach the same level of productivity. Winterfox's two win start to the week didn't mean much in the end as they lost four maps in a row, two to NRG and two to Cloud9. With these results Cloud9 ended the week in the second position.

Before the start of the sixth week OpTic had 10 wins and only two losses and were second only to Luminosity in the standings but OpTic played two maps against Selfless this week and lost both of them. On de_inferno Noah "⁠Nifty⁠" Francis went crazy and ended up with a 25:12 score and a 1.64 rating, helping his team win 16-10. de_mirage went to thirty rounds as OpTic's 10-5 first half was not sufficient and they let Selfless come back and win it (16-14).

Justin "⁠jks⁠" Savage was on form this week in their two map victories against Splyce (16-4 on de_train and 16-6 on de_inferno) where he totaled a 41:19 score and averaged a 1.61 rating. The only team without a victory in the NA division (KKona) were not able to stop the leaders of their division Luminosity as Marcelo "⁠coldzera⁠" David went absolutely mad on especially the second map with a 27:6 score and a 2.13 rating.

North American division standings

Player of the Week: Christopher "⁠GeT_RiGhT⁠" Alesund

Ninjas in Pyjamas came on top of a huge battle against Astralis with great ease and GeT_RiGhT's play against the top Danish team was phenomenal. A total of 42 kills and 23 deaths in two maps and an average of 1.58 rating was enough for GeT_RiGhT to be back as the Player of the Week and for his team to take the number one spot in the European division.

*Others receiving consideration: Marcelo "⁠coldzera⁠" David, Justin "⁠jks⁠" Savage, Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip and Kristian "⁠k0nfig⁠" Wienecke

Team of the Week: Cloud9

It's undoubtable that Cloud9 have struggled for a long time, both regionally and internationally but things seem to be settling down for Jordan "⁠n0thing⁠" Gilbert & company. They took two maps from NRG who had been roaming around the fourth-fifth position since the start of the league and did the same to Winterfox who previously managed to get maps off of Luminosity, OpTic and Liquid. Cloud9 currently sit at the second position and paved their way to qualify.

Farewells so far (i.e. Teams that have no chance to qualify for the LAN finals):

EU division	NA division
Virtus.pro	KKona
MOUZ	Complexity
SK

You can find the demos or the VODs of all the matches that have been played so far and you can also go to our stats page to see who's been performing the best in the third season of the ESL Pro League.

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