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ESL Pro League Season 14 Quarterfinals Tips and Predictions

ESL Pro League Season 14 is entering the Quarterfinals phase today and every single match is worth watching. In... Radu M. | 9. September 2021

ESL Pro League Season 14 is entering the Quarterfinals phase today and every single match is worth watching. In this article, I will take a look at what has happened so far and what’s likely to happen next.

ESL Pro League Season 14 Quarterfinals Preview

The teams that are left in the race are the following:

  • Natus Vincere
  • ENCE
  • Heroic
  • Team Liquid
  • OG
  • Ninjas in Pyjamas
  • Gambit Esports
  • Team Vitality

These are the 4 Quarterfinals matches:

Natus Vincere versus ENCE

Na’Vi is probably the number 1 favorite to win the tournament. As long as s1mple delivers, there’s no reason to believe that the CIS squad will be bested in a key match by an opponent who’s not even in the top 10.

ENCE is currently ranked 20 and has a good track record against Na’Vi. If you’ve been watching CS:GO for at least a few years, you might still remember that Semifinals match from the IEM Katowice Major (2019), lost by s1mple’s team against ENCE. However, those two rosters differed a lot from the current ones. ENCE was much stronger back then and had allu at the helm, while Na’Vi was much weaker and had a one-man roster.

Nowadays, Na’Vi has a formidable roster while ENCE lacks a world-class IGL. Surprisingly enough though, the team is getting good results at the highest competitive level. Just at this tournament, they won against Astralis, Spirit, and forZe. Will this be enough to win against s1mple? Probably not. In fact, it would take a miracle for ENCE to win this Bo3. The most likely score is a 2 – 0 victory for the CIS team.

Heroic versus Team Liquid

Heroic had no opponent in Group A of ESL Pro League Season 14. It had, however, two difficult matches. One against Vitality (2 – 1) and one against ENCE (2 – 1). Both times, the scores were very close on the maps won by Heroic. This indicates that the Danish team is not invincible. After all, Vitality and ENCE are not even top 8 teams and still came close to beating them.

Team Liquid entered this tournament with a fresh attitude and a very effective playstyle. FalleN and his crew lost a single match so far, against Gambit (2 – 1). In particular, their victories against NiP and Fnatic were very impressive. Both of them ended with a 2 – 0 score and showcased Liquid’s versatility on a variety of maps. So far, Inferno and Overpass have been their best.

Because of how it played up until this point, Liquid has a real chance of winning against Heroic. Because of the two teams’ map pools, the fate of the match will most likely be decided on Inferno. Both of them love this map, so there’s no reason to remove it from the pool. Liquid will likely ban Vertigo while Heroic might ban Mirage.

On paper, the most likely score for this match is 2 – 1 in favor of Heroic, but Liquid seems perfectly capable to cause an upset.

OG versus NiP

OG had a perfect run in Group B of ESL Pro League Season 14, but it’s hard to put much stock on that after seeing the final results in that group. G2 lost 5 consecutive matches, Virtus.pro only won 2 and was eliminated, while the other 3 competitors are weak relative to the tournament’s competitive level. A victory against Sinners Esports means absolutely nothing. Or at least, it is no good indication that you’ll do well against an opponent like NiP.

The Swedes from NiP are still trying to figure out a winning formula for their current roster. At this tournament, they started with a defeat against Liquid, followed by 2 irrelevant victories and then another bad defeat against FURIA. However, in the 5th match of the Group Stage and the 1st match of the Playoffs, NiP encountered very strong opponents and won both times. First against Gambit (2 – 0) and then against mousesports (2 – 1).

No doubt, this is going to be a tough match for both sides. But based on what we’ve seen so far from NiP, dev1ce has a real chance to qualify for the Semifinals. The odds tilt slightly in his team’s favor: 45% – 55%. One of NiP’s advantages in this battle is its huge map pool. They play absolutely every map, even though they’re not very good on Mirage and Inferno. This gives them the option to ban their opponent’s favorite map in every single match. In this case, the banned map will almost certainly be Inferno.

Gambit versus Vitality

Gambit’s Group Stage record was 4 W – 1 L. But if sh1ro and his crew would have been a bit more careful in their last match against NiP, they would have easily won all 5. Meanwhile, Vitality finished Group A with an identical record, but its group was much easier than Gambit’s.

Another red flag here is Vitality’s result against Complexity from the Quarterfinals. Compared to the CIS team, Complexity is a very weak competitor. But the French crew still struggled to win the match and needed 3 maps to end it.

At most, Vitality can win one map here. But that’s unlikely. Gambit’s map pool is fantastic and all they need to do to ensure a good matchup regardless of Vitality’s map pick is to ban Nuke, which happens to be one of the French side’s favorites. The most likely result here is 2 – 0.

 

Photo credit: IEM|Helena-Kristiansson