What to expect from Party Astronauts v. Aurora

Party Astronauts have finally made it to Melbourne for the ESL Challenger event down under and their reward is a tough opening match against Aurora. Combined with the opening match being an ESL Challenger "classic" Bo1, Party Astronauts will need to hit the ground running from the get-go if they want to have any chance of securing a win in their opening day of play.

PA's problem

Party Astronauts held into Melbourne with an incredibly difficult opening match. Aurora and Apeks are the two favorites to win the event outright, and having to play one of them in an opening Bo1 is a tough draw, especially as Party Astronauts have struggled to even make it to Melbourne.

The only real chance PA has of winning here against an Aurora squad with three players with 1.20+ ratings in the past three months is for the Americans to respond in kind with similar firepower. For this to happen, Danny "cxzi" Strzelczyk, Connor "chop" Sullivan, and Adam "WolfY" Andersson will need to have stellar performances.

• cxzi has been on fire recently with a 1.26 rating and will likely need to be the X-factor for PA to claim a win over Aurora

• The addition of RUSH has gone well thus far and his voice may prove essential in helping the team against their top 30 opponent

• Unfortunately ben1337 does not stack up to Norwi in the IGL firepower department (0.95 rating vs. 1.07 rating) even before considering the different regions they compete in

Aurora Borealis localized entirely within Melbourne?

Aurora are one of those quintessential tier two/tier three Eastern European squads that don't get a lot of shine but are actually quite good. The team currently sits inside the top 30 thanks to recently winning the Skyesports Masters 2024 online over OG as well as for claiming recent wins over a whole slew of Europe's tier two scene including Apeks, AMKAL, and BetBoom.

Make no mistake, Aurora is an extremely experienced and skilled lineup that could very well win the whole event. With that, Party Astronauts will have an incredibly difficult opening Bo1 ahead of them.

• Aurora have played an impressive 94 maps in the past three months

• Aurora have played two LAN events in the past six months, while PA have zero

• r3salt has been a great addition in his first month, posting a 1.19 rating over 41 maps

Previous Matchups

These two teams have never played each other.

Likely Vetoes

Considering the opening matches at ESL Challenger Melbourne are best-of-one, there is a decent chance Party Astronauts will end up on a map their roster is unfamiliar with. They have only played four maps consistently in domestic bouts over the past three months. Compared to Aurora, who have played a little bit of everything outside of their permaban, this will likely be a difficult veto for PA.

As always keep in mind that Aurora as the higher-seed team will have the choice of being Team A or Team B in the veto which has the potential to change the final map. We will assume Aurora are Team B and therefore they will ban last.

• Party Astronauts ban Nuke (1 map played, last played in March)

• Aurora ban Vertigo, Inferno (Permaban and least-played map)

• Party Astronauts ban Mirage, Anubis (1 map played and Aurora's best remaining map)

• Aurora ban Ancient (Lower winrate Δ, but Aurora love to play Overpass)

• Overpass will be played

Analysis: Running through this veto, the disparity in experience and maps played over the past three months becomes really apparent when comparing Aurora to Party Astronauts. Every single map Aurora plays has an over 60% winrate which is really scary when you consider it is also against European opposition.

For PA, getting Overpass may be the best case scenario as they love that map and have a 100% winrate at the moment, however if Aurora wants to be more aggressive in their veto, there's a world in which PA ends up on a much less confident map.

Overall, Aurora has a massive edge in this veto and will be up to PA to show up to whatever map Aurora sees fit to test them on.