Virtus.pro kick off ESL Pro League Group D with win over Endpoint

25-3-2021 14:44

The CIS side returned to action after a month without officials with a 2-0 win.

Cruising to the victory on Inferno (16-9) and closing out Overpass despite a sloppy CT side (16-13) added up to a 2-0 series for Dzhami "⁠Jame⁠" Ali and co., kicking off their ESL Pro League Season 13 campaign on the right foot.

The game against Endpoint was Virtus.pro's first official since the grand final of IEM Katowice, which they lost 3-1 to Gambit. In the post-match interview on the Pro League broadcast, Mareks "⁠YEKINDAR⁠" Gaļinskis noted that his team took a 10-day break after their last event, and are happy with their performance today as it was a "game to get back into the rhythm". When asked about which team in group D he is looking forward to facing, the Latvian picked the Danish powerhouse: "We are always happy to play Astralis."

On the other hand, Endpoint's loss ended their seven-match winning streak ahead of the Fantasyexpo Spring Cup playoffs, where they will face Sprout in the semi-finals today at 18:00 in hopes of qualifying for the BLAST Premier Spring Showdown.

Virtus.pro looked comfortable for the majority of the series

Virtus.pro sprinted to a 10-1 lead to kick of Inferno, sweeping aside their opponent's approaches and making Endpoint look out of depth on their own map pick. A 1v3 ace clutch from Joey "⁠CRUC1AL⁠" Steusel helped turn the tides of the game, seeing his team recover the half, 10-5. The gap was narrowed after the break thanks to Endpoint's force buy victory (11-8), but an inspired Sanjar "⁠SANJI⁠" Kuliev unlocked A with a quad kill to stop the comeback and help win the map, 16-9.

On Overpass, the CIS side put down their foot as Terrorists, taking the lead as soon as rifles came into play. Jame was leading the fragging (16K-4D) as Virtus.pro poked and prodded on the Terrorist side, finishing it 11-4 ahead. However, the UK-based team didn't give up, starting to turn things around after the switch starting with the pistol win. Successful B hits powered Max "⁠MiGHTYMAX⁠" Heath's team to a 15-13 scoreline, before Virtus.pro managed to close it out with an A site retake.

ESL Pro League Season 13Best of 3

Virtus.pro

Matchpage

25th March 2021

Endpoint

Inferno

Overpass

Virtus.pro	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Dzhami 'Jame' Ali Jame	46 - 21	+25	84.2	85.2%	1.47
Timur 'buster' Tulepov buster	44 - 27	+17	92.8	85.2%	1.43
Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis YEKINDAR	49 - 38	+11	96.0	75.9%	1.39
Aleksei 'Qikert' Golubev Qikert	30 - 32	-2	56.5	75.9%	1.00
Sanjar 'SANJI' Kuliev SANJI	28 - 28	0	61.6	72.2%	0.98

Endpoint	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Robin 'robiin' Sjögren robiin	34 - 38	-4	74.2	68.5%	1.00
Joey 'CRUC1AL' Steusel CRUC1AL	32 - 38	-6	69.7	64.8%	0.95
Shahar 'flameZ' Shushan flameZ	33 - 40	-7	60.2	57.4%	0.85
Max 'MiGHTYMAX' Heath MiGHTYMAX	23 - 44	-21	52.7	61.1%	0.67
Kia 'Surreal' Man Surreal	23 - 42	-19	51.7	59.3%	0.63

Group D continues with cross-Atlantic matchups, with Liquid facing fnatic first, followed by Astralis - Evil Geniuses. The curent group standing is as follows:

Group D

TEAM

JAME TIME

2021-03-25 14:44

1 reply

Yekindar time

2021-03-25 14:48

finally #1 is not german

2021-03-25 14:46

2 replies

that was like 5 months ago

2021-03-25 15:49

because german didnt have scene

2021-03-25 17:22

ez4vp

2021-03-25 14:45

Ez vp top 2 in the world

LUL RAISE SOME EYEBROWS .More like Lower all eyebrows.cause expected as fk that UK CS will lose all matches here LUL

2021-03-25 14:47

16 replies

Expected from a guy who calls himself mighty like it's some sort of anime

2021-03-25 15:03

HAHAHA

2021-03-25 15:31

Mighty Max is an oldschool toy series back when I was a kid

2021-03-25 16:03

what the fuck do you want him to say? ‘yeah we’ll lose everygame cus we’re underdogs’ like what?

2021-03-25 15:10

11 replies

that sounds good

2021-03-25 15:14

5 replies

whats fun about that might as-well not even do interview then

2021-03-25 15:15

4 replies

thats also a good idea

2021-03-25 15:19

3 replies

then hltv produce no content and then end up getting no ad money do u even think

2021-03-25 15:23

Their ads have little to nothing related to players interviews actually. The Endpoint player should've have come on the lines of "it's a great opportunity for us to improve and learn against tier 1 teams" or something like that, would've sounded humble and realistic. What he said would olny be against them, no matter the outcome.

2021-03-25 16:07

he did say that lol

2021-03-25 16:16

expected from hltv users they always going say shit

He should have been honest and say that "we are way out of our league here, me and surreal will try to do our best that we lose two maps straight and bottom frag and bottom impact as hard as we can"

2021-03-25 16:05

yikes arent you embarrassed that for the past 5 hours you’ve been hating on two people that dont even know you exist

No, I am having a giggle at seething britbongs who are living some sort of an interesting mass psychosis. It's actually fascinating, how a team of two britbongs is suddenly a full british lineup and how they rate Endpoint to be a Tier 1 top team in world. Get a grip mate, I cant even imagine how this kind of denialism reflects into other aspects of your life but dont bother telling me as I'm off to home now

2021-03-25 16:19

what what delusional fantasy world do you live in where you see people calling endpoint a tier 1 team LOL dont talk swedistan

2021-03-25 16:26

9-16 and 13-16 isn't half bad vs a top 4 team

2021-03-25 15:16

#sAwtouadar

ez vp

looking forward to the games against TL and Astralis. Gonna be hell of a fight if they're all in good condition :) Most interesting Group imho!

MiGHTYMAX got oofed early

NT Endpoint, you gave good competition.

2021-03-25 14:49

Well, they tried. Big up to the mandem.

2021-03-25 14:53

2021-03-25 14:55

Unlucko

gg both teams, it was interesting game ♨️♨️👍

2021-03-25 14:56

tier1 vs englando KEKW

2021-03-25 15:07

Endpoint will not be 6th I think

yeah thatll be eg or fnatic

2021-03-25 15:29

Endpoint will not get a map against fnatic

2021-03-25 16:06

I don't mind it, I just can't remember any team lost against fnatic since January

2021-03-25 19:13

2021-03-25 16:13

mighty max is absolute bollucks

2021-03-25 17:03

VP showing some potential, I think the core of buster, Jame and YEKINDAR could easily have their own era of domination if they would take right players to close out the roster. Endpoint on the other hand is looking great for a team of their caliber, they are a TOP 30 team for me atm.

2021-03-25 22:10