BIG relegate SAW to last chance bracket at EPL S17

The German team is one victory away from ESL Pro League Season 17 playoffs.

BIG defeated SAW in the Group B lower bracket semi-final with a 2-0 scoreline. The winners started the series on a high after a 16-11 victory and sealed the win by winning on Overpass, 16-14.

BIG curiously decided to ban SAW's best map in Vertigo instead of their usual removal of Overpass. What was even more surprising was that the German squad decided to pick the map as a punish pick against the Portuguese squad, and the gamble worked out as they ran out winners on the map.

"Now we can play with the map pool more," said Fatih "⁠gob b⁠" Dayik about their decision in the veto. "Before we always had to pick Dust2, because we were so good on it."

BIG secured their place in the lower bracket final, where they will face FURIA on Saturday at 16:00 for a spot in the first playoff round. Meanwhile, SAW will have to qualify through the Last Chance bracket by winning two consecutive best-of-three matches if they are to reach the knockout stage, their first coming against Movistar Riders.

With SAW's strongest map of Vertigo out of the picture, the Portuguese team decided to pick Anubis. They struggled massively on the CT side and posted just two rounds in the entire half, as all of their members finished the half on a single-digit number of kills. On the other side of the server it was Nils "⁠k1to⁠" Gruhne who dominated, finding 18 kills as well as converting all five of his opening duels.

Michel "⁠ewjerkz⁠" Pinto found a quad-kill in the pistol round to give his team some hope on the map, and it was clear from the start that they are much more comfortable on the offensive side. Despite that, BIG soon reached 15 after winning the first gun round, giving themselves eleven map points. SAW didn't give up and won seven rounds in a row before Johannes "⁠tabseN⁠" Wodarz finally found the map-winning play on Middle, taking down four attackers and closing out the map for BIG.

Overpass was up next, a map that BIG played just once in 2023, losing 12-16 to Spirit Academy at CCT West Europe Series 1, but picked it regardless. Their gamble didn't look like a successful one in the opening exchanges, given they went 1-5 down. BIG did eventually find their feet on their offense and started clawing back the disadvantage with repeated attacks on the B site, showing a slight lack of tactical depth on the map. They did however find enough rounds to go into the second half just one round behind their opponents.

SAW won the second pistol on the map to go three rounds ahead, but BIG soon equalized the scores at 10-10. The teams were then embroiled in a back-and-forth with SAW taking another slender 13-12 lead, before Josef "⁠faveN⁠" Baumann and Karim "⁠Krimbo⁠" Moussa both found crucial multi-kills to drag BIG up to match point. Up 15-14, young-gun Marcel "⁠hyped⁠" Köhn stepped up and held the A site on his own with a 4k, securing the game in his team's favor to get BIG one victory away from the EPL S17 playoffs.