ESL Pro League Week 7 Recap

To kick off the week ESL announced that Wednesday's European division matches would be rescheduled. This meant that only six maps would be played in the European division in the seventh week.

Ninjas in Pyjamas, who reached the quarter-finals at MLG Columbus 2016 with a stand-in and who are in first place in the European division, faced FlipSid3 on Overpass and Cbble. The ninjas had no trouble on the first map and utterly destroyed their opponents, finishing 16-4. Patrik "⁠f0rest⁠" Lindberg had a 23:7 score and a 1.98 rating.

Adam "⁠friberg⁠" Friberg & Christopher "⁠GeT_RiGhT⁠" Alesund carried the load on Cbble, posting 1.50 and 1.48 ratings respectively. Although this one was closer, it was no challenge for the Swedes as they got their second victory with a 16-8 scoreline.

The next game was between SK and Virtus.pro, the latter team having advanced to the quarter-finals at the Major despite their horrendous form in online games. SK picked up both Cache and Train with Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif averaging a 1.24 rating and totaling a 47:36 score.

The last match-up in the European division saw Envy and Dignitas battle it out. Envy had recently disappointed their fans after adding Timothée "⁠DEVIL⁠" Démolon to their lineup as they went out in the groups at MLG Columbus 2016, becoming the first defending Major champions to do so. Dignitas secured six points as they claimed both maps, 16-14 and 16-7 . Mathias "⁠MSL⁠" Lauridsen was the best performer as he averaged a 113.7 attack damage per round and a 1.43 rating.

European division standings 

Renegades took on NRG in the first match of the North American division and the latter team annihilated the Aussies. The first map (Train) ended with a 16-2 scoreline in favor of NRG as Justin "⁠just9n⁠" Ortiz had a 2.44 rating and +21 K-D. Nikola "⁠LEGIJA⁠" Ninić, on the other hand, posted a 147.9 ADR and a 2.20 rating. A better effort on Cache by Chad "⁠SPUNJ⁠" Burchill & company did not suffice as NRG won it 16-13.

OpTic got six free points as the leader of their division, Luminosity, travelled early to Europe to attend DreamHack Masters Malmö as they wanted to adjust to the timezone. The forfeit meant two map victories for OpTic. Another forfeited series was by CLG who could not make it to their match against NRG due to travelling to Malmö as well.

On the longest map in week seven, Complexity beat KKona 22-18 on Mirage thanks to Joshua "⁠sancz⁠" Ballenger's 33 kills and Daniel "⁠roca⁠" Gustaferri's 37. KKona went on to get their first win of the season, defeating roca & co. 16-8 on Overpass. Daniel "⁠vice⁠" Kim's 26:19 score and 1.41 rating was the performance that paved the way for the team's victory.

Liquid took the stand to close the week and the team certainly delivered. After reaching the semi-finals at MLG Columbus 2016 and earning the Legends status, Liquid crushed Cloud9, beating them 16-8 on Dust2 and 16-5 on Cache as Cloud9 used Andrew "⁠Irukandji⁠" Timmerman as a stand-in on both maps.

Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski and Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev were the main hitters on the first map. The former had a 25:14 score and a 1.43 rating while the latter had a 1.36 rating. Liquid also later defeated OpTic 16-10 on Cbble and 16-12 on Train.

North American division standings 

Player of the Week: Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev

The Ukranian star played four maps this week and averaged a 1.29 rating. He had 0.94 kills per round and had more than one kill in 63.6% of the rounds. He got an opening kill once every five rounds as he averaged 0.21 in the week. He never had more deaths than his kills and had a positive contribution. MLG Columbus 2016 seems to have affected s1mple in a positive way as he had one of his best weeks since he came to the US.

Team of the Week: Liquid

Liquid was in a tough position as their start to the league was not ideal. They made progress in the seventh week as they won two maps against Cloud9 and two against OpTic. Both of their opponents have been performing well in the third season and these victories for Liquid mean Spencer "⁠Hiko⁠" Martin & co. both increased their points and made two top teams in the standings suffer. Thanks to their showing in their last matches, they have a respectable chance of making it to the top four and advancing to the LAN finals.

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	CLG
FlipSid3	Winterfox

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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