ESL Pro League Group C: Day one roundup
The first day of Group C of ESL Pro League Season 15 has wrapped up, seeing Liquid best BIG 2-0 as fellow North Americans Party Astronauts was demolished by Players. In their debut with Henrique "HEN1" Teles the Brazilian side of GODSENT got off to an unfortunate start, narrowly falling to Movistar Riders in a three-map affair.
The first match of the day could be succinctly described as a mauling. Party Astronauts, in the first game of their first international event, were matched up against the #4 ranked Gambit squad competing under the neutral name "Players".
That series began on the Astronauts' selection of Inferno, where Players got off to a flying start right out of the gate, leading by 8-1 at one point in the first half. A 1v2 from Ben "ben1337" Smith broke up Players' momentum for a bit, but the CIS squad went right back to winning ways, finishing the half 11-4. With all cylinders of Players firing, the map was swiftly closed out 16-4 to bring the series to Ancient.
Jonathan "Jonji" Carey and Jonathan "djay" Dallal did a good job rebounding on the second map, helping to keep the Astronauts slightly more competitive as the first half finished with a 5-10 scoreline. With the second pistol round going the way of Party Astronauts, there was some hope that the North American side would start to close the gap. Unfortunately, a force-buy victory for Players dealt a devastating blow to the Astronauts, with Players going on to quickly wrap up the game and series with a 16-6 score.
PlayersParty Astronauts| Players |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Vladislav 'nafany' Gorshkov |
44 - 20 | +24 | 98.9 | 83.3% | 1.67 |
| Dmitry 'sh1ro' Sokolov |
39 - 19 | +20 | 90.7 | 85.7% | 1.59 |
| Timofey 'interz' Yakushin |
37 - 20 | +17 | 93.7 | 90.5% | 1.48 |
| Sergey 'Ax1Le' Rykhtorov |
31 - 20 | +11 | 84.1 | 81.0% | 1.30 |
 Abay 'HObbit' Khassenov |
28 - 19 | +9 | 80.5 | 81.0% | 1.27 |
| Party Astronauts |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Jonathan 'Jonji' Carey |
29 - 38 | -9 | 86.0 | 59.5% | 0.91 |
| Jonathan 'djay' Dallal |
27 - 34 | -7 | 63.9 | 54.8% | 0.80 |
 Ben 'ben1337' Smith |
21 - 35 | -14 | 71.1 | 66.7% | 0.77 |
| Josh 'PwnAlone' Pigue |
13 - 35 | -22 | 42.4 | 45.2% | 0.50 |
| Peter 'ptr' Gurney |
8 - 37 | -29 | 40.9 | 42.9% | 0.34 |
The second game of the day, GODSENT versus Movistar Riders, was a far closer affair than the Party Astronauts versus Players game that preceded it. On Movistar Riders' choice of Nuke, the Spaniards got off to a strong 9-6 start in the first half, powered by good showings from Alvaro "SunPayus" Garcia and Raúl "DeathZz" Jordán Nieto. GODSENT had no answers for Movistar Riders' CT-side in the second half, as the Brazilians got trounced 0-7, seeing Movistar Riders take their map pick 16-6.
GODSENT's choice of Ancient saw a similar start to the first half of the previous map, with Movistar Riders again securing a 9-6 lead at the first half, this time thanks to David "dav1g" Granado Bermudo. Unlike the previous map, however, GODSENT found themselves in control of the second half. The new addition HEN1 worked wonders on the Brazilian's CT-side, posting a 1.77 rating to spearhead a 16-11 map victory for GODSENT.
GODSENT got off to a decent start on the decider map of Mirage, capturing the first pistol round and the subsequent two rounds. Unfortunately for them, dav1g maintained his fantastic form from Ancient, being joined by Alejandro "alex" Masanet to shut GODSENT out of the rest of the half as the Spaniards took the first half 10-5. The second half saw Bruno "latto" Rebelatto and Eduardo "dumau" Wolkmer put up a solid effort to keep their team in the match, but the streaky back-and-forth nature of the half benefitted Movistar Riders, who already had the lead going into the second half. Movistar Riders finally cleaned up the map with a 16-12 scoreline, taking the series 2-1.
GODSENTMovistar Riders| GODSENT |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Eduardo 'dumau' Wolkmer |
58 - 53 | +5 | 80.6 | 67.5% | 1.09 |
| Bruno 'latto' Rebelatto |
49 - 51 | -2 | 76.0 | 66.2% | 1.01 |
| Henrique 'HEN1' Teles |
37 - 50 | -13 | 55.6 | 63.6% | 0.80 |
| Bruno 'b4rtiN' Câmara |
42 - 57 | -15 | 55.7 | 59.7% | 0.79 |
| Epitacio 'TACO' de Melo |
35 - 60 | -25 | 57.2 | 62.3% | 0.71 |
| Movistar Riders |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 David 'dav1g' Granado Bermudo |
70 - 47 | +23 | 92.5 | 70.1% | 1.42 |
| Alejandro 'alex' Masanet |
54 - 41 | +13 | 81.8 | 75.3% | 1.21 |
| Alejandro 'mopoz' Fernández-Quejo Cano |
51 - 50 | +1 | 75.3 | 75.3% | 1.14 |
| Raúl 'DeathZz' Jordán Nieto |
55 - 41 | +14 | 71.9 | 76.6% | 1.13 |
| Álvaro 'SunPayus' García |
40 - 42 | -2 | 55.0 | 74.0% | 1.00 |
After two unfortunate losses for fans of teams from the Americas, Liquid stepped in to provide fans some hope. Liquid's matchup against BIG got started on the German squad's pick of Dust 2, where Josh "oSee" Ohm and Keith "NAF" Markovic powered Liquid to a 10-5 half with 1.71 and 1.64 CT-side ratings respectively. After Liquid secured the first three rounds of the second half, BIG did a solid job at answering back as Johannes "tabseN" Wodarz and Josef "faveN" Baumann posted strong numbers to help the team string five rounds together. That being said, Liquid only needed three more rounds to finish off the game, and that they did shortly after, snatching BIG's pick away 16-11.
Liquid found themselves struggling a bit more at first on their choice of Mirage, as they found themselves trailing BIG at one point 3-6. NAF again put up the numbers necessary to keep Liquid going, with some help from Richard "shox" Papillion, seeing the North American squad edge out the lead in the first half 8-7. Liquid kept the momentum up in the second half as they strung together the first four rounds to post a 12-7 lead. Nick "nitr0" Cannella's men were not out of the woods quite yet though, as BIG put up five rounds straight to tie up the score. In the end, Liquid found it in themselves to close it out, as they took the next four rounds to finish the map and series with a 16-12 score.
LiquidBIG| Liquid |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Josh 'oSee' Ohm |
46 - 31 | +15 | 84.7 | 80.0% | 1.43 |
| Keith 'NAF' Markovic |
48 - 31 | +17 | 87.9 | 81.8% | 1.30 |
| Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski |
42 - 39 | +3 | 82.3 | 74.5% | 1.18 |
 Richard 'shox' Papillon |
32 - 35 | -3 | 64.8 | 63.6% | 0.92 |
| Nick 'nitr0' Cannella |
26 - 37 | -11 | 58.9 | 61.8% | 0.83 |
| BIG |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Johannes 'tabseN' Wodarz |
43 - 41 | +2 | 91.8 | 72.7% | 1.15 |
| Florian 'syrsoN' Rische |
39 - 35 | +4 | 77.3 | 67.3% | 1.12 |
| Josef 'faveN' Baumann |
42 - 39 | +3 | 84.7 | 63.6% | 1.07 |
| Karim 'Krimbo' Moussa |
28 - 39 | -11 | 54.0 | 60.0% | 0.73 |
| Tizian 'tiziaN' Feldbusch |
21 - 40 | -19 | 44.5 | 54.5% | 0.57 |
North American fans will have some hope going into day two after these results. Liquid taking down one of the tougher opponents in the group early on without much trouble is definitely a promising sign, and being matched up against a GODSENT squad that missed the mark on their first outing bodes well for them. While Party Astronauts' result was certainly not great, matching up against the #4 team in the world was always going to be an uphill match to say the least. Party Astronauts can take some solace in the fact that they've now faced the toughest opposition in the group, meaning it should only be easier from here on out.
Today's matches featuring NA teams are the following:
Party Astronauts vs BIG
Liquid vs GODSENT
Party Astronauts' game will kick off at 11:00AM today, while Liquid and GODSENT will duke it out a little bit later in the day at 02:30PM.
