ESL Pro League Season 14BIG overrun EG in gade debut to begin Group C of ESL Pro League
BIG got off to a winning start with new addition Nicklas "gade" Gade as they comfortably beat an Evil Geniuses squad currently playing with Damian "daps" Steele as a stand-in.
The new look BIG squad had Johannes "tabseN" Wodarz to thank for much of their success as he put up big numbers over the series, particularly on the second map of Dust2. Evil Geniuses on the other hand very much looked like a team without the usual roster, their coach daps currently standing in for Peter "stanislaw" Jarguz, and they didn't offer much of a threat on either map.
The addition of gade, a Danish player, to a full German squad had raised some eyebrows in the Counter-Strike world, but tabseN confirmed in the winners interview that there is no language barrier issue: "We are talking in German and he is also speaking German, obviously it is not 100% fluently but he is doing it very very good, and we all understand him perfectly."
When questioned about whether gade has caused a shift in roles in the team, tabseN said this was not the case: "At this point we didn't really change too much, we just put gade into the position of Ismailcan "XANTARES" Dörtkardeş, and at the moment it just works very good."
Evil Geniuses's pick of Nuke got us started in this series, and it was a pick that the American squad were made to regret. Starting on T side BIG raced to a 5-1 lead before Evil Geniuses started to offer resistance, but daps and his squad simply couldn't deliver the shut-out needed from the remainder of the half and it ended 8-7. BIG however could produce a dominant CT half, allowing Evil Geniuses only a single Terrorist round, which saw Nuke end quickly 16-9.
The series moved on to BIG's pick of Dust2, and once again it was a convincing performance from the Germans. Evil Geniuses showed very little on their CT half, with tabseN posting an impressive 25 kills including an ace as BIG romped to a 12-3 lead. The second half was a straightforward one for BIG, with Evil Geniuses scraping together a few rounds before succumbing 16-8. tabseN ended the map with a mind boggling 35 kills and 153 ADR in 24 rounds.
  BIG |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 49 - 30 | +19 | 114.6 | 79.6% | 1.67 | |
| 42 - 24 | +18 | 82.7 | 79.6% | 1.47 | |
| 33 - 28 | +5 | 73.8 | 73.5% | 1.13 | |
| 29 - 27 | +2 | 59.8 | 73.5% | 1.06 | |
| 25 - 27 | -2 | 61.1 | 75.5% | 0.98 |
  Evil Geniuses |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 36 - 37 | -1 | 84.6 | 67.3% | 1.05 | |
| 25 - 34 | -9 | 64.0 | 59.2% | 0.76 | |
| 25 - 36 | -11 | 62.1 | 59.2% | 0.73 | |
| 26 - 34 | -8 | 54.4 | 55.1% | 0.71 | |
| 24 - 37 | -13 | 59.1 | 53.1% | 0.71 |
Ismailcan 'XANTARES' Dörtkardeş
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