ESL Pro League S18 dark horses

ESL Pro League S18 has begun. This tournament is full of great CS:GO teams, but it also contains several potential dark horses. In each of the four groups, four teams will advance to the playoffs. That leaves plenty of room for lesser-known teams to make a name for themselves.

Each group has at least one team that could upset one of the favorites. Keep in mind that the competitive format is triple-elimination. This means that a team needs to lose three matches to fail.

32 teams.

1 trophy.

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Group A

The most likely dark horse in this group is GamerLegion. Many don’t even regard this team as an underdog because of the result they got at the Paris Major earlier this year. But the truth is that much of the strength came from Ivan “iM” Mihai, who got transferred to Natus Vincere immediately after the Grand Final of the Major.

However, even after his and the IGL’s departure from the team, GamerLegion continued to play reasonably well. In recent weeks, they won maps against Cloud9 and Heroic, and even entire matches against Fnatic and Apeks. At this competitive level, GL’s chances of finishing in the top 4 are higher than most would like to think.

Group B

In group B, the favorites are Heroic, MOUZ, ENCE, and BIG. That makes Monte the obvious choice for the dark horse role. It’s either them or BIG. If we go with the global rankings, it’s definitely BIG. However, the Germans had a good result recently and were required to beat Monte in the process, and that might change things a bit.

Group C

In group C, the most likely dark horse is 9z. But the favorites are so far ahead of the underdogs that it’s hard to imagine anyone causing real upsets. The four teams that are expected to win are FaZe Clan, Apeks, Fnatic, and Natus Vincere.

Imperial have almost zero chances because they sold their best players to FURIA Esports. M80 and 5yclone don’t have enough experience. The only team that could do something here is 9z. But their chances are slim.

Group D

This will be the most exciting group to watch. Apart from G2 Esports, Virtus.pro, Cloud9, and 9INE, we also have Complexity, Team Liquid, and Eternal Fire. The most likely dark horse in this group is Team Liquid. But Complexity could also prove to be strong enough to steal one of the top 4 positions.

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