Evil Geniuses, Complexity go 1-0 in ESL Pro League Americas

Evil Geniuses and Complexity opened up Group B of ESL Pro League Americas with 2-1 victories over eUnited and Cloud9, respectively.

Group B kicked off with a shockingly close game between eUnited and Evil Geniuses followed by a battle between the newly-formed Complexity roster and William "⁠RUSH⁠" Wierzba's former team of Cloud9.

The first best-of-three of the day kicked off on Vertigo, which began with an early 1-1 scoreline thanks to a force buy victory from eUnited. From there, the supposed underdogs of the series began to run away with the map as Peter "⁠stanislaw⁠" Jarguz and co quickly hit a brick wall, leaving the offense of eUnited virtually uncontested for the remainder of the half. Things continued to go eUnited's way for the remainder of Vertigo as they gave up just two more rounds while on their CT side before closing out the first map 16-6.

With Inferno now underway, It was clear that Evil Geniuses had no plans of letting their subpar performance on Vertigo hold them back as they easily gained the upper hand on map two. The first half unfolded in a very similar fashion to that of map one, except this time it was EG's offense that proved to be unstoppable as they put round after round on the board to end the first half up 11-4. Despite a dominant T side, things began to look scary for Evil Geniuses as eUnited started to grind their way back into the map by adding seven more rounds to their name. Fortunately for the ESL One New York champions, a big round from stanislaw seemed to snap his team back into the game as they finally managed to close out Inferno 16-12.

The final map of the series was Dust2, which took a much different path than its predecessors. Neither side was able to gain any solid footing during the first half as the lead slipped back and forth between the defense of Evil Geniuses and the offense of eUnited, resulting in an 8-7 scoreline. The pace of the game completely changed in the second half as the once close match up turned into a one-sided affair in favor of Evil Geniuses. The remainder of the map saw eUnited win just two more rounds before falling to their North American rivals as the former NRG squad closed out the map and series with a 16-9 Dust2 victory.

The first map of the second series was Dust2, which saw the newly-formed Complexity roster gain an early 7-0 lead before finally giving up a round to Cloud9. From there, Damian "⁠daps⁠" Steele's troops managed to scrape together five more rounds, ending the half with a respectable 6-9 scoreline. Cloud9’s comeback continued into their CT side as they opened up the final segment of the map with a much-needed pistol round victory. However, the firepower of Owen "⁠oBo⁠" Schlatter and Benjamin "⁠blameF⁠" Bremer proved to be too much for Cloud9 to handle as they remained just barely behind their opponents for the rest of the map, resulting in a 16-13 scoreline in favor of Complexity.

Up next was Overpass, which Cloud9 opened up with a flawless pistol round victory that they then converted into a three-round lead. From there the map continued to go in Cloud9’s favor as Complexity found themselves unable to keep control of either bombsite. With the AWPing power of Oscar "⁠mixwell⁠" Cañellas and pristine rifling of Kenneth "⁠koosta⁠" Suen in full effect, Cloud9 continued their reign of dominance into the second half as they repeatedly outplayed their opponents at every turn, ultimately resulting in a 16-5 victory on Overpass.

Complexity opened up the third and final map of the series, Mirage, with three back-to-back rounds, marking their first lead in the best-of-three affair since map one. From there, Cloud9 managed to scrape together five rounds of their own, taking away the small advantage that Complexity had built. Complexity had no plans to go down easily as they won to win six more rounds to end the half up 9-6, and they put up a solid defense in the second half to run out 16-11 victors and walk away with a 2-1 series success.