ELEAGUE S2 Group A preview

20-10-2016 18:22

Here is our official preview for Group A in ELEAGUE Season 2 which will kick off tomorrow.

Following an exciting, action-filled first season which saw SK disqualified and Virtus.pro take home the $390,000 first-place prize, ELEAGUE returns with a few amendments.

The most important change was the reduction of teams from twenty-four to sixteen. Each group still comprises of four teams but the format is different. Last season, teams played each other twice in a round-robin style and then they proceeded to the group playoffs. The GSL, best-of-three format will be adopted this season and two squads from each group will advance to the Season 2 playoffs.

ELEAGUE's second season will be played in Atlanta

October 21 will mark the start of the second season and Group A will be played out first as MOUZ, Cloud9, FaZe, Immortals clash for the two spots in the playoffs.

The following preview will take glances at each team's performance in recent tournaments and assess their chances in the group.

mousesports

Chris "⁠chrisJ⁠" de Jong
Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač
Christian "⁠loWel⁠" Garcia Antoran
Timo "⁠Spiidi⁠" Richter
Denis "⁠denis⁠" Howell

The seventeenth team in our ranking is in turmoil with Tomáš "⁠oskar⁠" Šťastný, their recent acquisition, having decided to leave them for personal reasons, saying he felt there was something wrong when he joined.

The 25-year-old Czech will focus on playing FPL while the Spaniard loWel will be MOUZ's new fifth. The youngster started his career with Spanish teams and joined PENTA after making a name for himself in his local scene. Although oskar wasn't performing all that well due to his discomfort, replacing him will be hard for a player like loWel who hasn't played many premier international LANs.

NiKo's team finished the last season 3-4th after losing to Virtus.pro in the semi-finals in July. They had to forfeit their match in the EPICENTER qualifiers as the finals would be played at the same time as ELEAGUE. MOUZ couldn't manage to qualify for ESL One New York and then lost to Envy in the grand final of the four-team Gfinity CS:GO Invitational.

The Spaniard has a difficult task on his hands

MOUZ finished their campaign in ESL Pro League Season 4 – Europe with an 18-8 record, placing third and qualifying for the $750,000 LAN finals in Sao Paulo, Brazil where they will travel to after ELEAGUE.

MOUZ' opponents in their opening match will be Immortals who they have never faced before. The Brazilians will be looking to capitalize on their opponents' changes with an established tactical foundation while MOUZ will be relying on raw aim.

Their biggest hope in Atlanta will be, as always, NiKo's personal performance. The three other teams in the group might have more skill than MOUZ as a five-man squad but none of them possess a superstar like NiKo. With that being said, if NiKo can't get enough help from the supporting cast which is the likeliest scenario, Immortals and Cloud9 will get past the Europeans and get through the groups.

Cloud9

Jordan "⁠n0thing⁠" Gilbert
Tyler "⁠Skadoodle⁠" Latham
Mike "⁠shroud⁠" Grzesiek
Timothy "⁠autimatic⁠" Ta
Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip

Cloud9 is ranked sixth in the ranking—the highest in Group A—and will be looking to clinch the first spot over MOUZ, who have a new player in loWel, and their regional rivals Immortals.

The North Americans made a quarter-finals run in the first season of ELEAGUE, finishing 5-8th while Alec "⁠Slemmy⁠" White was still with the team. Ever since autimatic joined the team in place of Slemmy, n0thing has been the IGL but everyone has been chiming in to help him call.

Cloud9 went on a European LAN trip in September, starting with SL i-League StarSeries Season 2 where they finished 3-4th after losing to Ninjas in Pyjamas who won the tournament. They then reached the grand final at DreamHack Bucharest but Virtus.pro were too much for the North Americans to handle, as usual.

n0thing can stop those glasses

Stewie2K & company lost to Immortals in the grand final at Northern Arena at the start of September but recently won two online maps against the Brazilians in ECS Season 2, one of which went to quadruple overtime. This rivalry has the potential to decide who finishes Group A on top and Cloud9 are looking like they are a step ahead thanks to their recent LAN results.

Before reaching the final in Bucharest, Cloud9 beat FaZe 16-8 on Train in the group stage and looked more like a well-built unit, so it's fair to say they have the edge over the Europeans in their opening match.

With a 25-1 record to end the season in ESL Pro League Season 4, Cloud9 are the hottest team in North America. Their recent success and consistency combined with MOUZ and FaZe's roster changes make the crew of Stewie2K the most likely winner of this group if they manage to edge Immortals.

FaZe

Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen
Aleksi "⁠allu⁠" Jalli
Philip "⁠aizy⁠" Aistrup
Håvard "⁠rain⁠" Nygaard
Joakim "⁠jkaem⁠" Myrbostad

Fabien "⁠kioShiMa⁠" Fiey a.k.a. the problem is once again cut as the ex-Astralis member and IGL karrigan replaced him to bring order to the ranks of FaZe. Currently ranked fifteenth in the world, FaZe have had trouble producing favorable results in the recent months even though they replaced their weakest player Ricardo "⁠fox⁠" Pacheco with allu.

After qualifying for ELEAGUE by beating HellRaisers, FaZe placed 9-12th in the sixteen-team SL i-League StarSeries Season 2, and 5-6th at DreamHack Bucharest which featured eight teams.

Can he fix FaZe?

FaZe finished ESL Pro League Season 4 – Europe with a 18-8 record and qualified for the finals in Brazil but their lackluster LAN performances and the fact that they have a new leader makes them the most likely last place finisher in Group A.

Playing Cloud9 in their first game won't help FaZe's situation get any better and they won't be the favorite side in the losers' match whether they face MOUZ or Immortals.

Immortals

Wilton "⁠zews⁠" Prado
Henrique "⁠HEN1⁠" Teles
Lucas "⁠LUCAS1⁠" Teles
Ricardo "⁠boltz⁠" Prass
João "⁠felps⁠" Vasconcellos

The second best Brazilian team impress whenever they have the chance to do so but finding a stage to perform has been a problem for them. ELEAGUE gives them a somewhat rare chance to demonstrate their credentials and show what they can do on an international LAN.

Since the offseason, they won Northern Arena 2016 over Cloud9, qualified for the second season of ELEAGUE with ease, won the online iBUYPOWER Invitational tournament, secured a spot in ECS Season 2 – North America, and placed second in the ESL Pro League Season 4 – North America. Their only lowlight was in the ESL One New York qualifier where they came short against OpTic, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.

hen1 & co. will be aiming for the first two spots

Since the Brazilians won DreamHack Summer 2016 back in June, they have attended a grand total of, wait for it, oh. In the last three and a half months, they competed in only one LAN which was Northern Arena—an event marked by the absence of any top teams.

Immortals' problem isn't their lack of tactical foundation or personal performances (although zews has only averaged a 0.91 rating since he joined). They simply don't get enough chances to compete against top teams on LAN. Once again Immortals have a rare chance to prove themselves and it might just work out if they defeat MOUZ in their opening match. The Brazilians are favorites to get through the group alongside Cloud9.

Group A of ELEAGUE Season 2 will get underway at 00:00 with opening matches which will see Immortals go head–to–head with MOUZ, and Cloud9 face FaZe. You can go to our event page for more information about ELEAGUE and find the schedule here.

BenjaCS is a staff writer at HLTV.org and can be found on Twitter.

good analysis yet again HLTV!

2016-10-20 18:23

1 reply

daddy

2016-10-20 18:22

3rd 8)

EZ for E̶N̶C̶E̶ FaZe

faze on lan is like top kek

Yeah ez for c9

2016-10-20 18:45

good read.

ggg

3 replies

2016-10-20 18:41

2016-10-20 18:49

2016-10-20 19:49

Wow! :D

hee heee

i cant wait

ez for 3rd world

who are 3rd world

2016-10-20 19:19

2 replies

Rwanda for example

2016-10-20 20:06

where are third world in eleague?

2016-10-20 20:08

ez 4 carrygan

FaZe and Immortals ?

finally

Aka the problem LMAO

Being 40 seconds late is so much

2 danish in FaZe, choke inc

2016-10-20 18:24

"they replaced their weakest player Ricardo "fox" Pacheco with Aleksi "allu" Jalli." lmao inb4 triggered fox-fans

look at #30 :D

2016-10-20 18:31

LUL, fox fanboys.

2016-10-20 18:50

Eleaque seriusly want Cloud9 in playoffs still better to create most joke and trash group than DSQ team X and give them free slot

2016-10-20 18:26

How do you figure? Mousesports and Faze are both very capable teams who could defeat C9, and Immortals are likely to beat C9 in the groups. It's a pretty balanced group.

2016-10-20 20:12

and this is mine problem put any of this team to group B C D and even math dont help them

2016-10-20 20:23

I'm not sure what the complaint is, then? C9 could just as easily end up last in this group. Looking at the groups, they're about as balanced as they can be. Group C is probably the scariest, and really swapping a team from that group to another would probably unbalance the rest.

2016-10-20 20:29

love the writer of this article! understands in cs more than half of hltv

Being a writer who understands more than 50% of hltv about cs isn't actually impressive

2016-10-20 19:00

i liked the truth in it

2016-10-20 19:01

-2nd best lan ratio -worst player in faze gj hltv , you are doing it right

2016-10-20 18:27

4 replies

Another fox's fangay, LUL. xD

2016-10-20 18:29

T R I G G E R E D

2016-10-20 18:56

yeah , no :p

2016-10-20 19:54

ez for IMM hen1 > ALL

2016-10-20 18:28

hen1 & co. will be aim*lock*ing for the first two spots

7 replies

Do you Still thinking this? You cannot belive that another people out from Europe can be good as Europeans? Dry your tears and watch demos, maybe you can learn something.

2016-10-20 18:54

+1 well said

2016-10-20 19:13

calm down he is just baiting brs

2016-10-20 19:17

fak i got rekted by brazil & australian wise people

No my friend, I always write big replys only to improve my english :P

2016-10-20 20:49

2016-10-20 19:37

exactly what i thought, sadly i don't think it was on purpose cuz no stich no memes

2016-10-20 19:40

Wait what about Anaheim?

2016-10-20 18:30

ECS will be in Anaheim

2016-10-20 18:35

6 replies

<3 adreN There are still those out there?

2016-10-20 21:22

5 replies

Why not?

2016-10-20 21:26

Just couldn't think it. Maybe you are the few who don't look at the scoreboard all the time?

2016-10-20 21:27

Well, I think he wasn't near as bad as ppl (especially Thorin) pictured him,since his teammates were still praising him as a good IGL, however without him Liquid happen to be better. I still appreciate all his Youtube content, and overall he's a chill guy.

2016-10-20 21:36

adreN got removed the same time Koosta did, and they brought in the likes of jdm, s1mple, and Pimp. If Hiko can't IGL, and nitr0 cant find a way to IGL while having it not mess with his entrying, I think -Hiko +adreN would be a good move. But that will never happen since Hiko essentially created the Liquid roster.

2016-10-20 21:41

I'm just hoping he finds a way to re-enable his GODREN mode he had in MLG and it's quals :D

2016-10-20 21:49

1 Cloud9 2/3 Immortals / FaZe 4 Mousesports

2016-10-20 18:34

1 Mousesports 2/3 Immortals/Faze 4 cloud 9

2016-10-20 19:29

:| n1ce j0k3

clown 9 #1 was the joke

2016-10-20 19:30

C9 >>>>>>>> Onlinesports aka Nikoesports.

2016-10-20 19:33

ayy lmao

2016-10-20 19:35

Don't bother with that guy, he's legit retarded lol

2016-10-20 21:00

lmao NA prediction

2016-10-23 06:40

"They simply don't get enough chances to compete against top teams on LAN. Once again Immortals have a rare chance to prove themselves and it might just work out if they defeat mousesports in their opening match. The Brazilians are favorites to get through the group alongside Cloud9." Please.... This text do not have any sense man! What do you talking about? compLexity or Splyce?

1.C9 2.Mouz 3.Immortals 4.Faze

I agree.

2016-10-20 19:45

1.c9 hahahahahahahhahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

2016-10-21 00:35

Faze 1st eZaF

2016-10-21 01:31

The problem lul <3 hltv

2016-10-20 18:36

mousesports Chris "chrisJ" de Jong Nikola "NiKo" Kovač Christian "loWel" Garcia Antoran Timo "Spiidi" Richter Denis "denis" Howell

2016-10-20 18:37

Lets go faze

In next previews show a ratio in a past 3 months, some advice ;)

2016-10-20 18:39

KARRIGAN XD

Ez for IMT, this guys are so good on lan...

Easiest group and FaZe rly should get rid of allu

2016-10-20 18:40

gtfo traitor

2016-10-20 18:44

kek just saying they could speak all the same language without allu who doesn't speak danish or norwegian which are pretty much same language

its not same language. also their coach is swedish and he doenst understand danish. allu played like god in nip even without he doesnt understand swedish.

Aizy f0r Immortals

ez faze they had best danish player (Aizy) 2 good norwegian, bot allu and carrygan

Imm Mouse Irrelevant

MOUZ! MOUZ!

easiest for allu

2016-10-20 18:52

I hope C9 and IMT r keepin good LAN lvl, otherwise It's a boring group.

Really? I think its an interesting group

2016-10-20 19:32

Both mouz and FaZe are famous for betraying the hopes onLAN, when C9 and IMT need at least to show us more to pretend on top-tier too(but my hopes r on them). So we have a group without a single top-team and two onliner squads :/

2016-10-20 19:57

lets go Immortals <3

0 respect for EL. Not only they hire autistic(he was boasting about it on his fb) thorin who insults players and fans but a mental alcoholic (he admitted to it in his talkshow) rlewis but we can see they are part of NA Union which want to make from NA CS a closed federation (like NBA).

2016-10-20 19:06

I didn't like the way some things were worded in this preview, might just be me though: "if Kovac can't get enough help from the supporting cast which is the likeliest scenario" Seems weird to assume this with no precedent, could just be the loWel fan in me. "replaced their weakest player Ricardo "fox" Pacheco" That's just an opinion, perhaps a popular one, presented as a fact I also felt that "a grand total of, wait for it, oh." was unnecesary and slowed down the read. Just trying to give some criticism

2016-10-20 19:10

2016-10-20 20:11

The English is a bit awkward at times, I agree. I've noticed it in a few other articles, or game summaries. It's not that it's grammatically incorrect, so much as it is written in a manner that a native English speaker might not use. I think the best description is convoluted, or disjointed. Still, I assume that the writer (BenjaCS) hasn't been doing these kinds of write ups for a while, which means they will improve as time allows.

2016-10-20 20:15

FaZe las out in group? Really? Wouldn't be surprised if they upset C9 and the follow up on that instantly. Remember it's a bo1 anything can happen.

2016-10-20 19:15

FaZe almost always get out in group stage. People hype them because their players have aim, but their lan results are laughable.

2016-10-20 23:21

I know, but still, it's a BO1. Anything can happen in a BO1. Also they went out in group stages almost everytime to teams that were in form. Both majors they had a group with Fnatic and one of them also had SK. The possibilities back then were alot worse than now. They have a better chance now

2016-10-21 16:47

We are talking about one-year spam of time here. The excuse of them facing t1 teams on their groups is not valid. One year facing groups with t1 teams and they never manage to win a bo1 against them to get out of groups? Come on. Lets remember F3 and Gambit managed to achieve this last time too... Even LG back in 2015 had bo1 upsets against way better teams. Same for almost every t2 team. FaZe just never worked, since the Kinguin-G2 days, it only worked on lan once, one time only (Cluj).

2016-10-21 22:02

Actually they won bo1's but then lost to better teams in bo3s due to their poor map pool. I'm just saying this time they have one of their best chances yet but they just get thrown into a corner like a sack of rotten potatoes

2016-10-21 22:07

No VP no tournament, pff waste of time

2016-10-20 19:25

But....but VP is in this Tournament, just in Group B not this Group ^^

2016-10-20 21:33

1. IM 2. nikosports 3. cry9 4. faze

2016-10-20 19:27

Mouz gonna top the group. Mark my words

2016-10-20 19:28

lol ex dee good one

2016-10-20 19:39

Mouz reking imt. Told u boi. Never doubt mouz, bitch ass.

2016-10-22 01:11

Looks like i was right. Told u bitch ass hahahahahah

2016-10-22 13:32

1. Cloud9 2. Immortals 3. Faze 4. Mouz

2016-10-20 19:38

+ hope onliners faze and mousesports get rekt

hltv plz make video previews

2016-10-20 19:41

If good anticheat, immortals will get 32-00`d 3 times If bad anticheat as always, immortals will "win" the group.. Nice "Sport"

2016-10-20 19:48

ARE YOU ASSUMING VAC ISN'T A GOOD ANTI CHEAT!!!11!

2016-10-20 21:07

nice read, gl new faZe lineup

2016-10-20 20:14

Don't think a preview was necessary for this group. This is the most even group I have ever seen (except for Cloud9 atm maybe). Anybody can go through and anybody can finish in last place. I don't think there is a likeliest scenario

GL IMT! go felpera!

2016-10-20 20:25

"Cloud9 is ranked sixth in the ranking—the highest in Group A—and will be looking to clinch the first spot over mousesports, who have a new player in Antoran, and their regional rivals Immortals." LMAO even hltv.org doesnt believe FaZe will pass the group

2016-10-20 20:31

"The GSL, best-of-three format will be adopted this season and two squads from each group will advance to the Season 2 playoffs." This means that eliminations and deciders matches will be BO3? If so, I love this format! Goooooo Immortals!!

2016-10-20 20:39

are u new?

2016-10-20 20:47

1. IMT 2. Cloud9 3. mouz 4. faze

2016-10-20 21:15

if Faze fail that means they are fucking cheaters

Cloud9 to bomb out of groups while being carried by autimatic. autimatic to see the error of his ways and go back to TSM.

2016-10-20 21:25

What's the GSL format exactly?

same format as major groups

2016-10-21 00:17

Ok thanks. What does GSL stand for?

2016-10-21 00:20

Global Starcraft League or something like that, it was adopted from SC2 i think

2016-10-21 00:24

real talk... SK is looking like shit right now... the real hard workers now, are the IMT guys, they are the new/old LG squad... <3

ez faZe Kappa

2016-10-20 21:50

"(...)weakest player Ricardo "fox" Pacheco"

2016-10-20 23:24

rly nice gj HLTV.

2016-10-21 00:21

Love the "couldnt qualify for epicenter"-part in Mouz's preview..... Yeah let's just forget that they droped out of the Qualifier to make sure they could attend ELEAGUE ^^

2016-10-21 00:23

And just i write this it gets edited xD

2016-10-21 00:40

I thought the preview articles were exclusive to Striker? Either way, it's good and well-written, there are some minor things that makes you react and twitch your eyebrows though, which some people have pointed out already.

2016-10-21 00:32

Well, not exactly, I can't do them all, especially when there are so many and I'm at EPICENTER ^^

2016-10-21 01:00

Alright, I guess I'm just used to seeing your name on most previews lol. Hope to see some more interviews then :)

2016-10-21 15:15

I hope cloud9 and immortals advance to the playoffs as for mouz, hope they'll finish in last place and go home

2016-10-21 01:33

Lool mouz gonna win this easily traitor

2016-10-22 01:12

"Fabien "kioShiMa" Fiey a.k.a. the problem" is it only me or this is a total disrespect that shouldn't be in a serious article ? he wasn't even the problem in nv after all, since they were still doing bad during the 6/7months that followed his kick I don't really think he was a problem in FaZe either. I mean FaZe has never been consistent and allu joined them not so long ago, it was looking promising.

2016-10-21 14:15