What a first day at the ESL ESEA CS:GO Pro League finals! While a lot of discussions beforehand were circulating around the number of American teams in the tournament, yesterday’s upsets soon caused this to be forgotten.
If you’d rather watch the full matches without having the results spoiled, head over to our ESL ESEA CS:GO Pro League playlist on YouTube, which has all the matches so far available for you to watch (or rewatch):
Group A: Cloud9 brings us the first upset of the event
While Virtus.pro beating Luminosity (16-4) was somewhat expected by fans, Cloud9 being able beat EnVyUs was definitely the first big upset from the European point of view. In a tough match between the two, EnVyUs was looking very confident before Cloud9 took over the game and managed to kick the French down to the lower bracket 16-13. In the upper bracket, Virtus.pro was able to stop the Americans 16-10 to take the first spot in the semifinals while Cloud9 and EnVyUs, who won 16-7 over Luminosity in the elimination match, are to meet once again in the quarterfinals.
Group B: European star teams outmatched
While both Fnatic and Team SoloMid were considered possible winners for this first season’s finals, they got the worst possible start. Both Counter Logic Gaming and Keyd Stars were able to win their matches 16-12 only to see the European superstars facing off in the elimination match. While CLG took down Keyd Stars 16-9 in the winner’s bracket, Fnatic and TSM fought until the final round with the better ending for the Swedes, who took the last spot in the quarterfinals and will be fighting Keyd Stars to stay alive in the tournament.
What’s next?
After a showmatch between Fer of Keyd Stars and Tarik of CLG, the quarterfinals will kick off. Finding out who will join Virtus.pro and CLG in the semifinals bring us some thrilling matches, especially as the quarterfinals will be best of three. We can already look forward to this afternoon’s matches:
- 15:00 CEST: Showmatch - Keyd Stars’s Fer vs. CLG’s Tarik
- ~16:00 CEST: Quarterfinal #1 - Cloud9 vs. EnVyUs
- ~19:20 CEST: Quarterfinal #2 - Keyd Stars vs. Fnatic
Don’t forget to update your ESL Fantasy teams and keep in touch with the tournament by following ESL Counter-Strike on Facebook and Twitter for results, highlights and more!
