EliGE shines as Liquid hammer NIP in ESL Pro League opener

1-9-2021 22:25

Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip and company scored a much-needed win for North America to open up their ESL Pro League group.

Liquid made a statement to kick off their ESL Pro League Season 14 campaign, securing a win in two maps over Ninjas in Pyjamas in their opening match of Group D thanks to dominant showings from Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski and Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo.

The victory is a much-needed one for Liquid as they are next set to take on the No.2-ranked team in the world, Gambit, on Thursday at 20:00 — the first time the two rosters will square off in history.

"We really needed some confidence wins for us here, and this is a good place to start," Liquid's head coach Eric "⁠adreN⁠" Hoag said after the match. "We tried getting out of [North America] as soon as possible, we were only there for a couple of days. I feel like in the last six months to a year this game has advanced so fast, and you're only going to get really good practice in Europe.

"Everyone is sacrificing a lot to be here and represent North America and Liquid. You basically have to live in Europe to play Counter-Strike nowadays, so I hope we can make NA proud and show up."

EliGE laid waste to NIP, mustering a 1.75 rating

Liquid came into the series gun blazing, racing to a 3-0 start on Inferno before Ninjas in Pyjamas got their first round on the board. A 1vs3 clutch from EliGE kept Liquid in control of the proceedings though, and the 24-year-old star rifler continued to post multi-kills alongside the AWP of FalleN, allowing Liquid to further extend their lead to 8-1.

Ninjas in Pyjamas managed to keep themselves in the match with a string of rounds towards the end of the half, and added a handful more to their tally following the side swap; however, FalleN's mobility with the AWP combined with EliGE's stellar rifling shut down any hopes of a comeback, with the pair locking down the A bombsite round after round to take the map over the line.

Dust2 unfolded in similar fashion as it was a flood of rounds for Liquid that kicked things off, with EliGE and FalleN continuing to dominate Ninjas in Pyjamas for a 9-1 lead. It took a 1vs3 clutch from Linus "⁠LNZ⁠" Holtäng for the Swedes to finally break through and get their second round, but it was still Liquid who maintained firm control, blazing ahead to a 12-3 scoreline by the break.

Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz scored a USP-S triple kill to keep Ninjas in Pyjamas in the running at the start of the second half, and the first gun round saw Hampus "⁠hampus⁠" Poser grant his team some much-needed breathing room as he gunned down four Liquid players to shut down a catwalk hit. The situation began to look grim for Liquid as Ninjas in Pyjamas closed the gap to 13-10, but again it was EliGE who stepped up with a triple kill to secure a post-plant situation. The breakthrough round proved to be enough for Liquid to stabilise as they converted the momentum into two more round wins, closing out the map 16-10.

ESL Pro League Season 14Best of 3

Ninjas in Pyjamas

Matchpage

1st September 2021

Liquid

Inferno

Dust2

Ninjas in Pyjamas	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Nicolai 'device' Reedtz device	38 - 34	+4	89.1	60.8%	1.19
Fredrik 'REZ' Sterner REZ	26 - 38	-12	57.3	66.7%	0.80
Nicolas 'Plopski' Gonzalez Zamora Plopski	23 - 34	-11	57.2	70.6%	0.80
Hampus 'hampus' Poser hampus	30 - 39	-9	66.3	49.0%	0.77
Linus 'LNZ' Holtäng LNZ	23 - 37	-14	57.7	60.8%	0.76

Liquid	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski EliGE	54 - 24	+30	110.2	86.3%	1.75
Gabriel 'FalleN' Toledo FalleN	40 - 25	+15	75.7	76.5%	1.40
Keith 'NAF' Markovic NAF	35 - 28	+7	71.2	80.4%	1.15
Michael 'Grim' Wince Grim	33 - 30	+3	75.8	68.6%	1.05
Jake 'Stewie2K' Yip Stewie2K	20 - 34	-14	46.7	70.6%	0.71

The standings for Group D after the first day of play looks as follows:

Group D

TEAM

first

2021-09-01 22:26

3 replies

aww mustard

2021-09-01 22:41

1 reply

2021-09-02 16:46

NIP 0-5

2021-09-01 22:48

Ez4fallen

first match for na pog

Ez for follen

FalleN is doing great

2021-09-01 22:27

finally liquid fixed their dust 2 lol

Ez4PapaFalleN

FalleN is doing great on Liquid

eZ4GODELIGE

HAMMERED

Back baby

NIP would still qualify for playoff's in this weakass group but FAZE won't Feelsbadman :(

2 replies

Sadge :(

2021-09-01 22:36

FaZe not going through sucks, they performed really well. They were also in probably the most competitive group overall.

2021-09-02 01:15

Feels good, FalleN and Grim playing properly for once, they're super inconsistent though so lets see if it stays

elige is such a monster wtf

top 5 rifler still ez

2021-09-01 22:57

2021-09-01 22:28

Fallen and elijão da massa supremacy

Promising stuff, happy to see!

2021-09-01 22:29

damn nip played like shit

2021-09-01 22:30

not surprised

2021-09-01 22:31

Left Astralis for THIS? 300 IQ Device, just another reason why you shouldn't simp on girls if you wanna get somewhere in life

2021-09-01 22:33

8 replies

2021-09-01 23:09

Just like kjaerbye leaves astralis then go north then faze then retirement

2021-09-02 06:11

Astralis didnt reach the playoffs, NiP wont reach them either. So its not really a difference.

2021-09-02 08:27

NIP only have to beat entropiq to qualify TeamOne and Furia are not on the same level id say there is 70% chance they qualify

2021-09-02 11:40

yeah device has gotten nowhere in life, not at all

2021-09-02 14:26

Notice how most of his achievements came from his time on ASTRALIS, before he moved to sweden to simp on his GF more. Has device NiP even gotten to the semi finals of a major event since flashpoint (if you can even call flashpoint a major event)?

2021-09-02 15:53

flashpoint is the farmers league of csgo

2021-09-02 17:37

lol ur obviously trolling so i cba to reply something constructive

2021-09-03 13:52

It's HAMMERTI- owait wrong sport

2021-09-01 22:35

Funny polak... NOT

2021-09-02 12:10

It's nice that stewie got at least mentioned in the article. Jokes aside, ggwp Liquid! Let's see if NiP is able to bounce back.

Ez4BabyFaceFalleN

50 y/o Fallen

2021-09-01 22:44

Liquid returns as NA's hope

2021-09-01 22:37

GG eligequid

2021-09-01 22:38

Maybe Liquid will finally decide who gets to lead the team. The back-and-forth between Stew and FalleN was absolutely devastating to their system. At the same time, what the fuck is Hampus doing with NiP's economy? Bad call after bad call.

2021-09-01 22:39

That's happening when u give authorisation to someone who made his career through online gaming No socialisation, no process my friend 👆

2021-09-01 23:07

Stewie20k and Elige POG

2021-09-01 22:45

Good match by Liquid - well coordinated setups, but I fear they might be inconsistent.

2021-09-01 22:47

Hammer NIP? huge extrageration

2021-09-01 22:49

They did tho. Liquid looked really strong

2021-09-01 22:51

No even the score dont reflect the game. If lnz and rez didnt win a 1 v 2, the score had to be lower. Liquid had a solid game plan while nip look lost with no answer.

2021-09-01 23:12

Twistzz and Elige the only last hope of NA

2021-09-01 22:50

Nip was looking a lot better with ztr make no sense why they changed him for LNZ

device is OK, but can other 4 with him calling themselves proffesional players? What a shame who is proffesional nowadays - Spending hours and hours in this game, and still no success but stagnation just haha. NiP organisation is not like before, only shitty marketing on high level from them (When u read this, be sure I'm not gambler or smth else connected with gambling, I'm just true fan of good CS) Congratz to Liquid-

2021-09-01 23:00

It’s not that nip is bad it’s just liquid was that much better today.

2021-09-01 23:17

Noone decline it, Liquid was much better but imagine there was 3 times or more situation where 3-4 of NiP players defend site (already positioned) but they were losing it - I mean are u kidding me? Even matchmaking players can defend it with proper damage

2021-09-01 23:36

I agreed with you. Liquid look very great, but nip rely too much on rez or device. I dont like the puggy style of hampus's igling. There are 3 players who are inconsistent or always at negative rating. It is a problem..

2021-09-01 23:46

THATS THE ELIGE I KNOW BABY!!!

2021-09-01 22:59

@hltv why does it say stewie and company when fallen is igling

2021-09-01 23:03

Probably forgot that FalleN is the IGL now They have been passing the IGL role back and forth many times now, people are still unsure who is the IGL

2021-09-02 03:56

Fallen IGL = EZ win

2021-09-01 23:06

CR7 - scores a late double to secure Portugal win and break international goal record. CR7 of CS - ...

Elige is a straight hammer. Good win today bois! Keep it up!

2021-09-01 23:16

Haha Stewart keeping the trends alive, little shouty boy was quiet recently

2021-09-01 23:22

4 replies

lol if u actually watched the game u would see that stewie actually had impact.

2021-09-02 01:04

Still should keep his stats in check, not a good look. Once they lose there's gonna be questions for him

2021-09-02 01:13

the whole team consistently says stewie is the most underrated player on tl and is way more valuable than the stats say. no way they drop him

2021-09-02 04:56

His acting and outside gimmick is really ugly too, he's not so confident in the server either, why taking a role that makes you twice as bad? Whatever he does it doesn't translate onto his stats and there are some obvious limits to everything, it should be highlighted in some categories at least, sometimes he's just plain terrible and no excuse for that

2021-09-02 04:58

I think if Stewie can just accept he is the bottom feeder on this team and embrace the role, TL could be good

2021-09-01 23:31

Elige smurfing over snake org POG

2021-09-01 23:39

Ronaldo lmao

2021-09-01 23:41

ELIGE SO GOOOOOD

2021-09-02 00:02

Dev1ce versus 9

2021-09-02 00:08

He doesn't really care, he has 4 majors.

2021-09-02 09:35

I missed the games today. Do they talk who is IGLing? Stewie or Fallen

2021-09-02 00:26

If FalleN has good stats, he is always IGLing

2021-09-02 00:29

Good way to discover who is igling

2021-09-02 00:33

FalleN

2021-09-02 02:29

EZ Clap

2021-09-02 00:35

oh fallen stop blowing my mind

2021-09-02 00:56

Nice to see Liquid shining again

2021-09-02 01:18

LETS GO TEAM LULQUID <333

2021-09-02 03:13

Jonathan 'EliGE' is god!

2021-09-02 04:15

not getting my hopes up until they replace bot2k

2021-09-02 04:25

Maybe shifting IGL away from FalleN so he can focus on crazy-ass shit like this is what Liquid needed after all this time XD and, of course, EliGE is going insane as always, best player in NA without exception.

2021-09-02 04:32