NaVi, FaZe, MOUZ, and a surprising ENCE advance to EPL S17 quarterfinals

The second day of the ESL Pro League S17 playoffs has ended, and we have one of the tournament’s biggest surprises, the elimination of G2 Esports by ENCE. On top of that, NaVi, FaZe Clan, and MOUZ managed to qualify for the tournament’s quarterfinals.

Amid the long-awaited announcement of the Counter-Strike 2 release, the teams had to play their ESL Pro League S17 Round of 12 matches. Some ratified their status as favorites, while others seemed to have been left watching Valve’s announcement and did not react in time to stay alive in the tournament.

Many emotions lived in just a few hours; we will tell you all about them below.

NaVi crushes Outsiders and advances to the quarterfinals

One of the most anticipated series by fans did not disappoint, as both Outsiders and NaVi gave us a great demonstration of good CS:GO, but the Ukrainians took the victory with a 2-0.

The series was played in Ancient (NaVi) and Mirage (Outsiders).

Ancient

NaVi has been accustomed to starting the series with a very slow pace of play, but they seem unstoppable when the team warms up. That’s what they showed in this series against Outsiders.

The Russian team took a partial victory in the first half with a score of 8-7. After that, however, the Ukrainians won seven of the first eight rounds to put themselves directly into a quadruple-match point. Outsiders nearly sent the match into Overtime, but Ilya “Perfecto” Zalutskiy ended their opponents’ aspirations, and NaVi took the 16-14 victory.

Mirage

On the second map, everything was much more “relaxed” for NaVi. The Ukrainians won the first six rounds of the map on the CT side; Outsiders woke up immediately and hit back with four consecutive rounds, but NaVi managed, thanks to Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev (100.5 ADR and 1.60 Rating), to take the partial victory 9-6.

Everything was different in the change of sides; NaVi crushed the Russians, so they could only win one round out of the eight contested. As a result, NaVi advances to the quarterfinals and will play for a ticket to the semifinals against Heroic, which finished first in Group B.

ENCE sends IEM Katowice 2023 champions home

The second surprise of these playoffs comes from ENCE, who took down the reigning IEM Katowice 2023 champions and the #1 team in the world according to the ESL Rankings, G2 Esports.

The series was played at Ancient (G2) and Vertigo (ENCE).

Ancient

In one of the most intense and exciting maps of these playoffs, ENCE took an excellent victory on the G2 Esports map pick with a score of 16-14. Guy “NertZ” Iluz (88.9 ADR and 1.40 Rating) and Paweł “dycha” Dycha (81.7 ADR and 1.31 Rating) were responsible for decimating any chance G2 had of taking the win. There is no doubt that this blow affected the morale of the team and the development of the second map.

Vertigo

In Vertigo, the same protagonists of the first map, dycha, and NertZ, were in charge of crushing G2 Esports, especially on the T side, where G2 could barely stop five ENCE attacks. Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov tried to wake up his team, but it was all in vain, as ENCE managed a 16-10 victory that took them to the quarterfinals of the ESL Pro League S17.

MOUZ applies reverse sweep and eliminates paiN

The spectacular level shown by paiN Gaming ended after the second map of the series against MOUZ. The Brazilians managed to win the first map (16-9), but they did not count on a spectacular awakening of MOUZ that overwhelmed them in Inferno (16-13) and Ancient (16-7).

Nuke (paiN Gaming)

The first map was, without a doubt, a victory for the Brazilian side. paiN Gaming managed to win seven rounds on the T-side, which gave them a great boost for the second half, where they crushed MOUZ with a great 9-1 to take the victory 16-8. Felipe “skullz” Medeiros was the best player on this map for paiN and finished with 92.9 ADR and a 1.09 Rating.

Inferno (MOUZ) & Ancient (decider)

The joy didn’t last long for the paiN guys, as Ádám “torzsi” Torzsás continued to carry MOUZ to an excellent 16-13 victory and send the match to the decisive map (Ancient).

Finally, MOUZ took advantage of a very beaten Brazilian team to crush them in Ancient with a score of 16-7 and thus qualify for the ESL Pro League S17 playoffs. Torzsi was the best player on the entire server, as he finished with an outstanding Rating of 1.46 and a +/- of +19.

FaZe Clan crushes FURIA and stays alive in the EPL S17

Finally, FaZe Clan ended all the aspirations of FURIA Esports in this series, as they were extremely superior to the Brazilians in every way. The series ended with a score of 2-0, but, FaZe showed an exceptional level of play, which reminds us of that team that won it all in the 2022 season.

Anubis (FURIA)

FURIA has never hidden that their current favorite map is Anubis, as South American teams tend to play this kind of map. This is because it favors them because of their more aggressive play style. However, they could not display that aggressiveness against FaZe Clan, who, led by Robin “ropz” Kool, managed to crush a Brazilian team with a score of 16-9. So bad was this map for FURIA that not even Kaike “KSCERATO” Cerato could make his presence felt.

Nuke (FaZe)

Finally, FaZe did their job and showed why they selected Nuke as the second map. This time, Håvard “rain” Nygaard made life miserable for the Brazilians and finished with 109.6 ADR and a 1.58 Rating. FURIA tried to do some damage in the first half of this match, but it was not enough, and FaZe ended up taking a crushing 16-7 victory.

Header: ESL