ESL Pro League Season 14Heroic edge past ENCE to secure ESL Pro League playoff spot
The Danes keep a clean 4-0 record in Group A ahead of the final match day.
HEROIC defeated ENCE in three maps to secure a berth in the ESL Pro League Season 14 playoffs ahead of their final group stage match, which they will play against Astralis on Friday in hopes of clinching the top seed to go straight into the tournament’s quarter-finals.
ENCE, meanwhile, remain alive and in contention for one of the other two spots in the playoffs, which they will be competing over against Vitality and Astralis, primarily, although Spirit are alive after beating Bad News Bears and could find themselves in a highly unlikely three-way tie with Vitality and ENCE were they all to end with 2-3 records.
"We’re back online, it’s showing, right?" Casper "cadiaN" Møller joked after the match. "We thrive with the atmosphere at the moment and we really performed under some stressful situations. Repeating the Pro League trophy would just be amazing, we would definitely like another one."
Marco "Snappi" Pfeiffer downed three players in each of the first three rounds on Mirage as ENCE propelled to an early lead on the attack as they went on to take a commanding lead hitting double digits at the time of the switch.The Dane then won a 1vs3 in the second pistol round, making his personal tally 24 frags, which he followed up with a four-kill round with an MP9 against the forcebuy as ENCE smashed their way to a 16-5 victory with HEROIC unable to respond. By the end, Snappi recorded his highest-ever map rating, 2.44.
The Danish squad struck back on Overpass, winning the first pistol round on the attacking side and going up 3-0 before René "TeSeS" Madsen and Rasmus "sjuush" Beck won a 2vs4 situation to extend their lead by one more round. Olek "hades" Miskiewicz then beat cadiaN in a 1vs1 situation in the fifth round to get ENCE on the board, but HEROIC instantly retaliated and sjuush then won a 1vs3 clutch as the Danes took off to win the half 10-5.
Paweł "dycha" Dycha took out four players in the second pistol round as ENCE brought it within reach, making it a tight affair until the very end as HEROIC went all the way to thirty rounds before closing their pick out, 16-14.
HEROIC and ENCE both came out ready on Nuke, tied up 3-3 after six rounds, but it was cadiaN’s men who took the initiative on the defense, going up 8-4, but a crucial lost round ended up with economic struggles after which hades and company brought it back to within one before switching sides. A 1vs2 clutch by Lotan "Spinx" Giladi tied things up as both teams struggled to get ahead in an all-out brawl to the finish that the Danes reached in the final round of play, making it another 16-14 in their favor.
  HEROIC |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 64 - 60 | +4 | 87.1 | 70.4% | 1.17 | |
| 58 - 55 | +3 | 77.4 | 67.9% | 1.08 | |
| 51 - 57 | -6 | 69.8 | 67.9% | 1.01 | |
| 53 - 53 | 0 | 71.3 | 67.9% | 0.99 | |
| 38 - 53 | -15 | 57.9 | 65.4% | 0.84 |
 ENCE |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60 - 53 | +7 | 85.4 | 75.3% | 1.23 | |
| 59 - 49 | +10 | 78.8 | 72.8% | 1.13 | |
| 55 - 56 | -1 | 82.5 | 70.4% | 1.13 | |
| 60 - 49 | +11 | 68.0 | 72.8% | 1.10 | |
| 40 - 58 | -18 | 64.0 | 71.6% | 0.87 |
The ESL Pro League Season 14 Group A standings ahead of the last fixture of the fourth day of play, which pits Vitality and Astralis, is:
Astralis
Vitality
Spirit
Bad News Bears
Viktor 'sdy' Orudzhev
Jonathan 'Jonji' Carey
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|TheDarkKnight|
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