ESL Pro League Europe Recap Nov. 3

TSM bounce back with three wins while NiP upset Envyus, and Virtus Pro and mousesports suffer heavy upsets outside of the ESL Pro League.

Team Solo Mid return to their winning ways 2-0 over Hellraisers and 1-0 over the troubled SK Gaming. Device looked sharp against Hellraisers in their first match on Inferno (16-11) while Hellraisers looked hopeful on Cache (16-14). TSM, who suffered a massive upset to NiP at the DreamHack Open: Cluj-Napoca this past weekend, performed exceptionally on their T-side inferno and on their CT-side cache. STYKO and Oskar continue to prove worthy assets to the Hellraisers line up, with Oskar being the most hot handed player for the team lately. According to the standings at pro.elsgaming.com, TSM enjoy a comfortable lead atop the rankings with 51 points and a 17:3 win:loss ratio while Hellraisers sit second to last with 12 points and a 4:12 win:loss ratio.

After the TSM double header, Ninjas in Pajamas were up against Team Dignitas and then Team Envyus. NiP made short work of Team Dignitas on Train(16-4) before going up against the DreamHack Open: Cluj-Napoca Champions Team Envyus. They played on Cobble, the map Envy is widely regarded as the best in the world on, and Envy came up far short of expectations and the win. NiP dominated their T-side going 12-3 at the half. F0rest was in the form that the team, and the fans, hoped he’d be in at the major and racked up two 3ks and a 4k by round 16. Envy was plainly out gunned. It wasn’t poor decision making, it was getting out played, and fiercely. Still, Envy lead NiP by one spot in the pro league by three points.

Outside of the ESL Pro League, Virtus Pro lost 0-2 to s1mple’s newest team, team Orgless. This marks the continuation of a struggle for VP to play up to their potential. They lost to G2 Esports during DreamHack and are currently ranked eighth in the ESL Pro League. Mousesports too has been struggling both with performances at LANs and online. Despite the ascension of NiKo to near superstar levels, mousesports is struggling to string together the wins necessary to being considered a top ten team. They suffered a 0-2 loss to team Greyface outside of the pro league today, and that’s a game they’d be expected to win. They have the talent, they have the in game leader, what they don’t have are the wins.

The North American ESL Pro League starts back up tonight with match ups including Conquest vs SKDC, Winterfox vs Complexity, CLG vs Team Liquid and Cloud 9 vs Luminosity Gaming, a rematch from DreamHack this past weekend.