The semifinals of ESL Pro League S19 ended with predictable results. MOUZ and Team Vitality were just a bit stronger than their opponents, Complexity and Astralis, and won their matches with a score of 2 – 1. Thanks to these victories, they will meet in the Grand Final of the tournament later today.
Here’s how the matches unfolded and what we can learn from them.
MOUZ vs. Complexity
I will sleep good tonight 😴
See you tomorrow for the Grand Final!
— MOUZ (@mousesports) May 11, 2024
MOUZ have been for a long time one of the world’s best teams. But they have a habit of choking when it matters most. At IEM Katowice, they finished 3rd – 4th after losing against FaZe Clan. At PGL Major Copenhagen, they finished 5th – 8th after dominating the second stage. At IEM Chengdu they finished 2nd after a rough Grand Final against FaZe.
Now they’re about to compete in another Grand Final, thanks in part to their ability to play their usual game even when the match happens in front of an audience.
Against Complexity, they started with a defeat on Vertigo (13 – 8), caused by hallzerk’s phenomenal performance. The Norwegian player finished the map with a rating 2.0 of 1.74 and a score of 22 – 10.
On Nuke and Ancient, MOUZ were much stronger. Nuke was their map pick, so we kind of expected them to win. On Ancient, either team could have won. But apart from EliGE, nobody on Complexity had a significant contribution while siuhy and xertioN finished with a rating 2.0 of 1.90+!
The scores on the last two maps were 9 – 13 and 4 – 13.
Astralis vs. Vitality
Despite getting off to a strong start on Inferno, we couldn’t keep up with @TeamVitality and ultimately faced defeat in the semi-final
But did you catch @StaehrCS‘s insane 3K spraydown or @br0CSGO‘s 1v2 clutch on Mirage? 🔥
Watch all the highlights 👇https://t.co/VX9i5euAJl
— Astralis Counter-Strike (@AstralisCS) May 11, 2024
Astralis looked completely capable of beating Vitality in this match. They had played well the entire tournament and dev1ce was in great shape. But unfortunately for them, ZywOo also had a good day and he single-handedly carried his team to victory.
On the first map, Mirage, Astralis won 13 – 9. This was Vitality’s map pick, so a lot of people assumed that the match would end 2 – 0. But on Vertigo, after a draw, Vitality won in overtime 13 – 16.
The fate of the match was decided on Inferno, where ZywOo had a score of 24 – 12 and apEX finished with an ADR of 104.9. Needless to say, Astralis couldn’t keep up with their opponents and had to admit defeat. The score was 8 – 13.
Grand Final Prediction
In the Grand Final, MOUZ will start as the underdog. First of all, the players will feel a lot of pressure because it’s the last match of the tournament and they tend to play poorly in such situations. And second of all, ZywOo is in such great shape that if he receives even a little bit of help from Spinx or flameZ, Vitality will have a big advantage on every map.
Header: ESL
