paiN advance over G2 as Liquid just about stay alive - ESL Pro League S23

paiN Gaming pulled off an incredibly impressive 2-0 over G2 to put themselves in the second stage of ESL Pro League.

The same old inconsistency issues cropped up for G2, and probably always will, but take nothing away from paiN who were excellent on the day. vsm was lights out in the big moments, and piriajr is quickly growing into a very dangerous player.

huNter- came into today as one of the highest rated players at the event, but he went missing individually (though his calling on Inferno was superb) and it cost G2. They were up on Mirage and looked set to force a decider, but kept getting caught out; malbsMd had had great success looking for info towards A at the start of the CT half, but got caught being too enterprising a few times and gave away crucial kills.

He wasn’t alone, and it’s unfair to criticise him after he was stellar on Inferno, but it’s the example that sticks in the mind.

Still, one more chance for G2, and surely they won’t lose again.

Right?

Liquid just about survived by the skin of their teeth against an M80 side who have given quite a few teams a scare.

TL needed overtime on Mirage to complete a bit of a comeback, having lost on the CT side of the map, and sneak through into the 2-2 games tomorrow. They'll have to given EliGE a massive thank you, as he put in a true star performance to drag them over the line, albeit it probably should have been done in regulation.

Liquid choked a 5v3 at 11-11 that nearly cost them their spot in the competition, and it's that kind of sloppiness that might well see them depart tomorrow in a 2-2 game.

For M80 it's not time to rip up the playbook, but they might have felt this was a pretty good opportunity to beat Liquid who are in some of the worst collective form of their careers, and should probably be a little upset they couldn't make it happen.

The hype for the new Passion UA squad died down pretty quickly as they zipped up and sent home by a HEROIC team who seem to be treading water in tier two.

Senzu’s red hot form sizzled out in this series, but the bigger concern has to be try anchoring the scoreboard against a team who has a makeshift AWPer. This is the sort of game he should be dominating, but instead it was xfl0ud who was a highlight machine.

This is such a new team and as such it’s only right to give them a bit more time to work things out, of course, but this was a stark reminder of how difficult it is to be a consistently tier 2 or 1.5 team, never mind tier 1.

If they need an example of how it’s done, look no further than Monte, who now have the wind in their sails after a sensational win over PARIVISION, who find themselves in a 2-2 game.

Bymas has had a remarkable resurgence after being discarded from the top tier of the game and forgotten, and that’s sort of the theme of this team. Rainwaker, despite looking completely lost on Team Liquid, looked like the second coming of Spinx at this stage.

Maybe there’s something wrong with Team Liquid, eh?

Monte are into the next stage and are an absolute must-watch at the moment, because they’re climbing and climbing, and beating PARIVISION after letting them back into what should have been a won game requires a very high level of resilience.

Astralis looked a cut above 3DMAX, who absolutely did not look like a 2-1 team and would be a shock inclusion in the next stage if they manage to bumble their way in. HooXi seemed to know what they were doing before they did it, and phzy and ryu just mopped up easy kills until the game ended. It was an ugly game for the Frenchmen.

NIP wobbled a bit against Gaimin Gladiators, but had r1nkle to thank on Nuke for making it an entirely one-sided affair as he went 24-4 (!) to make sure GG did not have the opportunity to make map two as uncomfortable as map one was.