ESL Pro League Season 20HEROIC send Virtus.pro home from EPL
kyxsan's troops will meet MIBR in the next playoff round.
HEROIC have defeated Virtus.pro in a dominant two-map series (Ancient 13-8, Dust2 13-6) to send the Russian team home from ESL Pro League Season 20.
Guy "NertZ" Iluz and company progress through the single-elimination playoff bracket after the win, with their next test coming in the form of MIBR on Wednesday.
| Date | Matches | |
|---|---|---|
| ESL Pro League Season 20 | ||
| 18/09/2024 |
13:00
|
Match |
The victory is a confidence boost for HEROIC after their slow start to the fall season. They failed to make it through the IEM Cologne Play-In amid Abdul "degster" Gasanov's visa issues and suffered a last-place elimination at BetBoom Dacha Belgrade, but have looked much better in Malta.
"It feels way better, we finally have something stable now. We can connect with each other and not worry about so many things," said a happy Rasmus "sjuush" Beck in the post-match interview.
Conversely, this is a disappointing end to the tournament for Virtus.pro. The team has been in a rut since adding Denis "electroNic" Sharipov and feels no closer to getting out of it, as they have now won just six out of their last 15 matches.
While they beat Falcons, FURIA, and RED Canids to get to the playoffs, their performance against HEROIC was lackluster. Their T sides were especially worrying, as Dzhami "Jame" Ali's troops could only muster four offensive rounds on the two maps combined.
The match began on Ancient, where HEROIC fought back from losing the pistol and went 5-2 up, only for Virtus.pro to flip the script and secure a slender two-round lead at the half. Eetu "sAw" Saha's half-time talk seemed to do wonders, however, as HEROIC entered the second half with a confident playstyle and converted one 2v4 and two 1vs2s, the latter courtesy of NertZ and sjuush, to secure a 13-8 win and a lead in the series.
Virtus.pro's pick of Dust2 was a breeze for HEROIC, who made the most out of good performances by sjuush and NertZ to take a 9-3 lead at the switch. Virtus.pro's pistol-round victory gave them a ray of hope, but HEROIC's dominance in gun rounds showed once again as the European combine breezed to a 13-6 win and a Round of 12 spot.
 Virtus.pro |
K - D | Swing | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 33 - 29 | +3.48% | 92.3 | 82.5% | 1.37 | |
| 26 - 28 | -3.90% | 59.8 | 70.0% | 0.94 | |
| 22 - 26 | -1.37% | 65.0 | 65.0% | 0.93 | |
| 25 - 31 | -3.17% | 67.8 | 72.5% | 0.92 | |
| 18 - 33 | -6.85% | 51.8 | 62.5% | 0.63 |
 HEROIC |
K - D | Swing | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 40 - 26 | +6.19% | 99.9 | 80.0% | 1.53 | |
| 33 - 26 | +1.47% | 95.0 | 85.0% | 1.33 | |
| 23 - 21 | +1.08% | 68.6 | 75.0% | 1.07 | |
| 22 - 27 | +1.62% | 67.9 | 77.5% | 1.00 | |
| 26 - 24 | +1.04% | 62.9 | 72.5% | 1.00 |
Eetu 'sAw' Saha
David 'dav1deuS' Tapia Maldonado
Pavle 'Maden' Bošković
Álvaro 'SunPayus' García
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