FaZe get smacked in opening game of stage two - ESL Pro League S23

G2 absolutely fried FaZe in yet another example of why FaZe need to change something.

Look, they’ll probably go and make Major playoffs again somehow, but we’re sick of watching them be absolutely awful in big events. There’s a non-zero chance they don’t get a high enough Valve ranking at this rate.

SunPayus has been struggling this year, but Dr FaZe had the panacea and let him drop a 20-3 scoreline on their heads. He and malbsMd combined for 33 kills on Dust 2, while FaZe combined for 21.

SunPayus had one fewer kill than FaZe on Dust 2. That jcobbb 1-14 looks pretty important now, eh?

Ancient was a bit closer, but it always felt like G2 would close it out eventually. Do you know how bad you have to be for it to feel inevitable that G2 will close it out?

Just do something. We don’t care what. Change something.

Astralis also won in very one-sided fashion, except it was against FUT, who had 2-0’d them in the first stage.

phzy has been a revelation on this team, and while it feels blasphemous to suggest he’s been a better player on this team than device was past 2022, but… he sort of has. The difference between him and cmtry was incredibly stark, though some of that has to come down to HooXi, who called a superb Ancient T side to set them on their way.

Beating FUT on Mirage is a big ask - they were 15-2 on it before today - but Astralis made it look really easy. Staehr and phzy combined for 35 kills on the CT side as FUT got just one, and that was a Krabeni clutch.

Not great.

donk created one of those highlights he seems to do every so often as Spirit predictably beat 3DMAX 2-0. Honestly, we’re surprised they managed 17 rounds. That’s kind of a success?

We didn’t learn anything new about Spirit (donk and sh1ro remain world class players with less than world class calling behind them) or 3DMAX (they lost to a better team, quelle surprise), but it’s still always fun to watch donk go postal.

B8 pulled off a wild victory over FURIA late at night despite getting roasted on Overpass.

FURIA annihilated them on Overpass 13-2 but got tonked right back, as B8 lost both pistols and still won by a clear seven rounds on Dust 2. It was a real team performance, too, with alex666 being the lynchpin on Mirage with entry after entry, and then kensizor and esenthial - who were the lowest rated on that map - going huge on Dust 2.

kensizor found timings with incredible consistency to hurt FURIA, and ultimately led B8 to a well-deserved win.

We won't even flame FURIA. B8 were excellent.

Speaking of which, we saw an elite performance from makazze to drive NAVI to a win over Monte despite a slow start. He was the only bright spark as they got spanked on Dust 2, before being the best player in the server in back-to-back maps, one of which was a 13-1 win on Inferno.

MOUZ dropped a map to HEROIC, but were incredibly decisive in the following two to get a standard MOUZ group stage win, while The MongolZ were drawn into a long game against paiN but came out on top twice to drop the Brazilians to the 0-1 bracket. paiN threw some unforgivable rounds in this one - a 2v1 against a 7HP mzinho with an MP9 among the worst.

Aurora vs Legacy took, genuinely, five hours to complete, and it honestly felt like double that. It wasn’t even that enjoyable to watch - it was as frustrating as it was long. Legacy lost so many clutches in this that it became unbearable.

XANTARES deserved to win, though. 21 opening kills, 18 multikills and three clutches. Wild.