Liquid and NIP drop to 0-2 - ESL Pro League S23

We don’t want to keep picking on Liquid or NIP, but it’s not our fault they keep losing.

Gaimin Gladiators had a bit of a miracle run to even get here and did not look like a team who should be in with much of a shout, but they have beaten Team Liquid pretty fairly, all things considered.

Liquid were absolutely awful. You can pick any player and point out error after error, but it can’t just be a player thing. This failure is systemic.

Different players, different leaders, different coaches, same nonsense. Something is rotten.

In a similar vein, NIP weren’t great, though far less diastrous.

M80 are no mugs, but NIP’s ambitions surely are much higher than this. This is a team with Snappi and Sjuush who’ve both been key parts of top teams, and xKacpersky who looks capable of being a superstar even amongst the dysfunction.

0-2 in this stage is just unacceptable for a team of this calibre, though it should be mentioned that M80 were deserved winners.

It seems harsh to focus on the losers in both these cases, as these are big wins for two teams looking to make a case that they can hang at this level, but the reality is that this is simply not good enough.

Even Snappi agrees.

Liquid weren't the only ones to lose to a Brazilian team, with G2 getting cleanly beaten in two by Legacy. Legacy have shown this unusual but very useful ability to just show up to an event and randomly be a top 10 team at times, so we're not going to chastise G2 just yet.

Wasn't the best showing, though.

Astralis won the used-to-be-Danish derby 2-0, with a Swede topping the charts, as if to remind Danish fans how far they've fallen. phzy was excellent on Dust 2 and the driving force behind the win in overtime, and his fellow countryman nilo finished at the top of the scoreboard for HEROIC, though there wasn't a true stand-out for them at all in this game. They remain treading water until they find a real AWPer, even if yxngstxr has been somewhat serviceable.

An incredible performance from Senzu wasn't enough to stop FUT from continuing their rise to the top in a pulsating series that probably was the best watch of the day.

This has been one hell of a start to life on Passion UA for Senzu, and if he keeps this up this team can be a genuine threat to the top 10 - though they may need a bit more from the rest to get there.

The Mongolian dropped 63 kills in the BO3 just to lose. Painful.

PARIVISION collected a rare two map win over paiN, though it did involve them making the second map last way too long, nearly choking a massive lead before closing it out in round 24.

3DMAX sent Semper Fi to the 0-2 bracket, predictably, though they still didn't look brilliant. This did nothing to allay our fears.