ESL Pro League Season 22 Stage 1HOTU stun FURIA in EPL S22 opener
The FISSURE Playground 2 champions faltered upon arrival in Sweden.
HOTU have upset FURIA in their opening Swiss match of ESL Pro League Season 22 Stage 1, earning 55 VRS points in the process and spoiling the newly crowned FISSURE champions' start to the tournament in Stockholm.
FURIA are the top-ranked team in Stage 1 and had shot up to second on the VRS Global Ranking after their trophy lift, but have dropped down to third after looking a shadow of themselves in their opener.
Kaike "KSCERATO" Cerato was the sole beacon of light for his team, topping the server with a 1.53 series rating, with FPG2 MVP Danil "molodoy" Golubenko the next closest with a 1.01 rating.
When asked about whether he was surprised to beat FURIA right after they won a trophy, HOTU's coach, Rustem "mou" Telepov, was deadpan.
"But we won a trophy as well," he said, alluding to HOTU's online European Pro League Series 2 title.
He also touched on the team's decision to pick Overpass, saying HOTU saw how FURIA was playing and that they had only two officials on the map on HLTV. "So it was easy to predict how they were playing, that's all," he said.
"When I was in Gambit, we would always lose versus FalleN, and yesterday I said to my teammates, 'You should win for me because I would always lose to FalleN,'" he added when asked about beating the veteran. "I'm happy."
HOTU were in control of the series from start to finish, garnering eight T side rounds on Overpass, winning three clutches, and wasting little time in closing out after getting guns back up in the second half.
A 6-1 start on Dust2 added further misery to FURIA's day, and their late revival was brushed aside after HOTU won the second pistol to go up 11-5 before putting a comeback effort to bed to close out the series.
 FURIA |
K - D | Swing | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 36 - 25 | +3.64% | 96.1 | 86.0% | 1.52 | |
| 33 - 32 | +0.06% | 77.0 | 62.8% | 1.02 | |
| 29 - 35 | -1.40% | 87.6 | 79.1% | 0.98 | |
| 24 - 26 | -4.66% | 60.3 | 76.7% | 0.81 | |
| 18 - 30 | -5.38% | 48.3 | 62.8% | 0.64 |
  HOTU |
K - D | Swing | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 34 - 29 | +2.85% | 92.0 | 76.7% | 1.37 | |
| 34 - 28 | +4.14% | 77.2 | 69.8% | 1.28 | |
| 32 - 28 | +2.10% | 67.7 | 67.4% | 1.22 | |
| 26 - 30 | +2.33% | 84.0 | 79.1% | 1.14 | |
| 21 - 25 | -3.68% | 48.7 | 62.8% | 0.68 |
| 
kryto203
DrMeds
Deamin
Stanislavv
| 
| 
Ademar
nouserhere
friendly_fire
thereisnobodyhere
Vojtapt99
Will2002
| 
Chordal
| 
Vrede
N00bfly
| 
| 
G0tt1
Nijboer
pewpew111
| 
lapace
garukno
