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Group D of ESL Pro League S16 is practically over

After just two rounds, group D of ESL Pro League Season 16 seems to be over, in the sense... Radu M. | 22. September 2022

After just two rounds, group D of ESL Pro League Season 16 seems to be over, in the sense that the top three teams got perfect scores while the underdogs got two consecutive losses. To reverse or even change the current situation in the slightest would take an absolute miracle.

To be fair, FURIA Esports are still a bit vulnerable because they’ll probably lose against both Cloud9 and Team Liquid. And that means they will need to win their fifth match, against Evil Geniuses. But that should be quite easy given the current situation in which EG find themselves.

Group D partial results and conclusions

In the first two matches of the group, Cloud9 did not lose a single map and their overall round score is 64-40. That is very impressive and it basically means that on average, their opponents won just 10 rounds per game.

This must be reassuring for the management of the club. After several months of not seeing your team compete, you always wonder if they’ve gotten better or worse relative to their opponents.

In Team Liquid’s case, the results were almost as convincing: 2-1 against Movistar Riders and 2-0 against Evil Geniuses. The match against Riders was actually quite tough for both sides and all three maps ended with close scores: 16-13 on Mirage, 14-16 on Inferno, and 16-13 on Vertigo.

Strangely enough, FURIA Esports crushed Riders but had problems against Eternal Fire. In the match against Riders, they won 16-3 on Ancient and 16-13 on Nuke. But against EF they needed three maps to win the match: 16-11 on Nuke, 17-19 on Vertigo, and 16-5 on Inferno.

Upcoming matches

Now we need to see if Cloud9 can defeat Riders and if Liquid are better than FURIA. The Liquid versus FURIA match will be the first encounter between two of the group’s favorites.

Cloud9 played against Riders two times in 2021 and won both matches with ease. But in 2022, these teams have not yet played against each other. Based on what we’ve seen so far at this event, C9 should win the match. But they might need three maps to do it.

The match between Eternal Fire and Evil Geniuses will doom one of the teams and keep alive the other. But probably not for long. Based on statistics, EF are the favorites. EG look very weak right now and will probably continue to lose until a stronger IGL is brought in. Or who knows? Maybe they persuade Jacky “Stewie2K” Yip to come back.

Header: ESL