ESL Pro League Season 5 Finals preview

Running from May 30 to June 4, the ESL Pro League Season 5 Finals will garner 12 teams, including five residing in the top-10, SK, G2, North, Natus Vincere, and OpTic, with the world's two best teams, Astralis and FaZe, notably missing due to placing below the top six in the European division.

The $750,000 tournament will follow a format not unlike the one ESL often use for the IEM circuit: two round-robin groups, from which the first-placed squads earn a spot in the semis, while the second and third-placed sides will battle in the quarter-finals.

Here are the groups:

Group A	Group B
SK	North
G2	Liquid
Immortals	MOUZ
fnatic	NRG
Cloud9	Natus Vincere
Envy	OpTic

For more information about Season 5 Finals of ESL Pro League, such as full schedule, prize distribution, and talent lineup, you can head over to our viewer's guide.

As usual, we've put together a preview to analyze each team ahead of the event and look at their chances in Dallas, Texas:

Ratings used are from the past three months on LAN

* indicates online rating

Group A

SK (#3)	Age	Rating
Marcelo "⁠coldzera⁠" David	22	1.32
Fernando "⁠fer⁠" Alvarenga	25	1.18
João "⁠felps⁠" Vasconcellos	20	1.10
Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo	25	1.04
Epitacio "⁠TACO⁠" de Melo	22	0.92

Offline results in the past three months
1st	IEM Sydney
1st	cs_summit
9th-11th	SL i-League StarSeries Season 3 Finals
11th-12th	IEM Katowice

Considering two of SK's biggest threats, Astralis and FaZe, will not be in attendance in Dallas, there is little doubt the Brazilians are heavily favored to take home another title after their triumphs at cs_summit and IEM Sydney.

As we outlined in SK's path back to greatness, FalleN's resurgence of form has played a big part in his lineup's rise in the last two months, as have their improvement on their least successful maps.

FalleN's five have three incredibly strong maps in Mirage, Cache, and Cobblestone, on two of which this lineup is currently undefeated offline (6-0 on both Cache and Cobblestone).

fer has been in incredible form since felps arrived

Looking at the other teams' map pools, it's not unlikely that they will get to play one of the aforementioned three maps every single time in the groups, which puts SK in prime position to take first in Group A.

There will be dangers, of course, as there always are in round-robin stages, perhaps the most obvious being G2 on Cobble and Cloud9 on Cache. However, SK have three more maps to fall back on in case that becomes a possibility, with their Train, Overpass, and Inferno recently looking stronger than a couple of months ago, which could also be a determining factor when the Brazilian squad get to series.

The Pro League Finals will be the first of many tournaments in the near future for SK, who are aiming to use those tournaments to reach their peak form before the PGL Major begins.

G2 (#4)	Age	Rating
Kenny "⁠kennyS⁠" Schrub	22	1.17
Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire	24	1.08
Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon	25	1.07
Alexandre "⁠bodyy⁠" Pianaro	20	1.04
Nathan "⁠NBK-⁠" Schmitt	22	0.94
Edouard "⁠SmithZz⁠" Dubourdeaux (coach)

Offline results in the past three months
1st	DreamHack Open Tours
3rd-4th	DreamHack Open Austin
5th-8th	SL i-League StarSeries Season 3 Finals

In comparison to SK, an accurate assessment of G2 is much harder, as the Frenchmen haven't quite been able to live up to their fans' hopes since the creation of the roster.

Things have been looking up lately for NBK-'s squad, though, following their win on home turf at DreamHack Open Tours as well as their qualification for the Pro League Finals thanks to a fantastic run in the latter half of the online portion of the tournament.

The Pro League Finals could be G2's best chance at a big event semis or further

With most teams at the Finals currently having difficulties with consistency, it does seem like this might be the best chance at making it to the semis (or even beyond, if SK don't end up on the same side of the bracket) at a big event for G2.

For that, they'll have to pass the group first, which could prove difficult if shox and company start off as they did in Tours: with a stunning loss to Tricked. However, the team admitted they had barely played ahead of their last two events due to personal issues, so it'll be interesting to see what they've been working on since their triumph in France.

Throughout the tournament, G2 will surely aim to play Cobblestone - their most played map by far and a highly successful one - as much as they can, with Overpass and Nuke being perhaps their second priority, depending on the match-up. 

fnatic (#11)	Age	Rating
Olof "⁠olofmeister⁠" Kajbjer	25	1.04
Jesper "⁠JW⁠" Wecksell	22	1.01
Freddy "⁠KRIMZ⁠" Johansson	23	1.01
Robin "⁠flusha⁠" Rönnquist	23	0.94
Dennis "⁠dennis⁠" Edman	26	0.92
Jimmy "⁠Jumpy⁠" Berndtsson (coach)

Offline results in the past three months
5th-8th	SL i-League StarSeries Season 3 Finals
7th-8th	IEM Katowice

With their last offline event dating back to early April, fnatic are a big question mark leading up to the Dallas tournament. While most of the other teams have attended at least one offline tournament since StarSeries, the Swedes have stayed at home and have only played online in the Pro League and ECS for the last two months.

Managing to qualify for both leagues' finals is a good sign, and fnatic did so by winning many of their matches on Inferno and Cache, both of which all of their Group A opponents play often.

fnatic's last offline showing dates back two months

As their most played map, Train is quite up and down for flusha's squad, even though they rarely go down easily on it, but they've improved on Mirage, where they have won four of the last five encounters.

How that will translate into offline play is up for debate, but their strength on Inferno, where most teams are still trying to find stability, should play a significant role in the group.

Cloud9 (#12)	Age	Rating
Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip	19	1.10
Timothy "⁠autimatic⁠" Ta	20	1.05
Jordan "⁠n0thing⁠" Gilbert	26	0.88
Tyler "⁠Skadoodle⁠" Latham	23	0.84
Mike "⁠shroud⁠" Grzesiek	22	0.82
Soham "⁠valens⁠" Chowdhury (coach)

Offline results in the past three months
5th-6th	DreamHack Open Austin
4th	cs_summit (4/5 of the current lineup)
9th-10th	IEM Katowice

Replicating their form of the latter part of 2016 has proven complicated lately for Cloud9, who went out in the groups at DreamHack Open Austin late last month following defeats to Immortals and G2, both teams they'll meet again in Dallas.

Stewie2K and autimatic continue to be Cloud9's only consistent performers, with the remaining trio struggling to put up good numbers event after event.

Stewie2K and autimatic need more stability from the remaining trio

For n0thing's men, advancing from Group A will likely be troublesome, although not out of the question. They will be heavily favored against Envy but much less so against Immortals. When it comes to fnatic, they are more or less on par when it comes to their chances. 

Unless they pull off a repeated performance from DH Austin's first round, in which they took down G2, Cloud9's fate at the Pro League Finals will likely depend on the Swedish match-up in the groups.

If they do manage to advance, a quarter-finals match-up against one of the other American teams or MOUZ could be Cloud9's chance to redeem themselves after a period filled with struggles.

Immortals (#14)	Age	Rating
Henrique "⁠HEN1⁠" Teles	21	1.13
Ricardo "⁠boltz⁠" Prass	20	1.08
Lucas "⁠steel⁠" Lopes	23	1.01
Vito "⁠kNgV-⁠" Giuseppe	22	1.00
Lucas "⁠LUCAS1⁠" Teles	21	0.94
Rafael "⁠zakk⁠" Fernandes (coach)

Offline results in the past three months
2nd	DreamHack Open Austin (4/5 of the current lineup)
9th-11th	SL i-League StarSeries Season 3 Finals (4/5 of the current lineup)
3rd-4th	IEM Katowice (4/5 of the current lineup)

One of the most interesting storylines going into ESL Pro League Season 5 Finals is Immortals' lineup change ahead of the event, as they have replaced Lincoln "⁠fnx⁠" Lau with Red Reserve's kNgV- who is trying out for the team.

After the change, Immortals were put to the task of finding a fitting role for their new player, who used to be a heavily dedicated AWPer in his previous teams.

Judging by their matches in ECS Season 3 North America (two of which took place offline during ECS' Super Weekend Live), both HEN1 and kNgV- now AWP very often, with the former seemingly above in the pecking order.

kNg is looking to prove his worth in Dallas

The Pro League Finals will give us a better look into their system, which they have barely had any time to perfect, seeing as they only started playing with the 22-year-old last week. Considering how little information there is on how Immortals now play, steel's squad could very well take some of their opponents by surprise with the double AWP setup.

It's unlikely it'll be enough to give them a shot at quarter-finals, but with the group playing out the right way, we could see the Brazilian team go further than expected.

Envy (#25)	Age	Rating
Christophe "⁠SIXER⁠" Xia	26	0.84
Cédric "⁠RpK⁠" Guipouy	27	0.81
Vincent "⁠Happy⁠" Schopenhauer	25	0.80
Alexandre "⁠xms⁠" Forté	20	0.76
Adil "⁠ScreaM⁠" Benrlitom	22	0.76
Damien "maLeK" Marcel (coach)

Offline results in the past three months
7th-8th	DreamHack Open Tours
7th-8th	cs_summit

Looking at Envy' offline results since the creation of the roster, in February, there is very little to be hopeful for. Even with two months' worth of practice before their first event, cs_summit, the Frenchmen posted unsatisfying results, to say the least.

So far, their only promising showing was against an underwhelming OpTic at that same event, while the other five maps they have played offline have ended in disaster for Happy and company.

EnVyUs' chances of making playoffs are slim at best

EnVyUs' online results differ substantially, as proven by their appearance in the team list for Dallas, with Train being their most played and best map, followed by Nuke. However, they rarely play Mirage and never pick Overpass, which puts them at a huge disadvantage in vetoes.

It would take a miracle for Envy to advance from their group judging by what we've seen so far, especially if no one lets them play one of their two favorite maps, like OpTic did.

Group B

North (#5)	Age	Rating
Kristian "⁠k0nfig⁠" Wienecke	20	1.08
René "⁠cajunb⁠" Borg	27	1.01
Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif	19	0.95
Philip "⁠aizy⁠" Aistrup	20	0.93
Mathias "⁠MSL⁠" Lauridsen	22	0.84
Casper "⁠ruggah⁠" Due (coach)

Offline results in the past three months
6th-7th	IEM Sydney
5th-8th	SL i-League StarSeries Season 3 Finals
5th-6th	IEM Katowice

Much like Cloud9, North have been struggling to find their way back to their level of late 2016, when they still had Ruben "⁠RUBINO⁠" Villarroel in the roster and won EPICENTER: Moscow.

While a lot of the focus when analyzing North's issues is on aizy, who has so far been underwhelming in the Danish squad compared to his time in FaZe, Magisk has also had a dip in form in the last few months, and the hard-hitting trio that he, k0nfig, and cajunb used to be is now disrupted.

North can't afford to crumble as the favorites again

Despite the Danes' tough exit at IEM Sydney, where they fell short to SK and FaZe, and ultimately bowed out following a shocking Nuke display against Chiefs, North are confident after spending more time working on their CT sides.

The defense has been one of their major issues apart from overall form, perhaps most strikingly on Cache, their second most played map after Cobblestone. Whether they have made progress there or not, North are favored to advance from their group as they seem to have the upper hand against every opponent apart from Natus Vincere.

However, they have been known to crumble while being the favorites, as showcased by their exiting losses to Immortals, HellRaisers, and Chiefs at their last three events.

Natus Vincere (#6)	Age	Rating
Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev	19	1.09
Ladislav "⁠GuardiaN⁠" Kovács	25	1.04
Egor "⁠flamie⁠" Vasilyev	20	1.01
Ioann "⁠Edward⁠" Sukhariev	29	0.94
Denis "⁠seized⁠" Kostin	22	0.91
Andriy "⁠Andi⁠" Prokhorov (coach)

Offline results in the past three months
5th-6th	DreamHack Open Tours
3rd-4th	SL i-League StarSeries Season 3 Finals
5th-6th	IEM Katowice

With their semi-final finish at StarSeries in April, Natus Vincere looked to be slowly but surely gaining back some much-needed confidence, with GuardiaN looking more like his old self.

Now it seems they're back to the drawing board, as the Ukraine-based squad bombed out of DreamHack Open Tours with stunning losses to MOUZ and Misfits, with the Slovakian sniper failing to show up.

GuardiaN has to bring his StarSeries level for Na`Vi to get back on track

With the two crushing losses on Mirage and one on Train in France, Na`Vi don't have many maps to rely on anymore, perhaps aside from Inferno, where they're still largely unproven as they have only played it twice against top-tier competition.

That is a worrying prospect for seized's squad, who will have to be prepared for at least four different maps in the groups, or six, should they advance to playoffs. Nevertheless, Na`Vi have enough firepower to deal with most teams in their group. That is, if they don't shut down individually again.

OpTic (#10)	Age	Rating
Oscar "⁠mixwell⁠" Cañellas	21	1.14
Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic	19	1.08
William "⁠RUSH⁠" Wierzba	23	0.95
Tarik "⁠tarik⁠" Celik	21	0.88
Jason "⁠jasonR⁠" Ruchelski	22	0.86
James "⁠hazed⁠" Cobb (coach)

Offline results in the past three months
3rd-4th	IEM Sydney (4/5 of the current lineup)
3rd	cs_summit
11th-12th	IEM Katowice (4/5 of the current lineup)

After months of struggles with their lineup, OpTic have finally decided to stick with jasonR as their fifth and hazed as coach, at least until the PGL Major's offline qualifier.

They've only played one offline tournament with that lineup, cs_summit, and finished third, beating Envy, Liquid (placed in their group in Dallas), and Cloud9 in three tough series. 

Some more practice with OpTic's new lineup could make a world of difference

Afterwards, OpTic had to use hazed instead of jasonR at IEM Sydney and advanced to semi-finals, largely thanks to a series of upsets from other teams and favorable draws as a result (ViCi, Chiefs, FaZe, and Chiefs again).

A lucky draw is now out of the question as it is a round-robin format, and OpTic will be pitted against two tough teams, Na`Vi and North, and 50/50 match-ups in MOUZ and Liquid. Now that they have got more practice with their set lineup and that they are perhaps more comfortable on maps other than Train, OpTic have a reasonable chance to advance, provided they beat the group's clear underdogs, NRG.

MOUZ (#15)	Age	Rating
Tomáš "⁠oskar⁠" Šťastný	25	1.21
Christian "⁠loWel⁠" Garcia Antoran	20	1.14
Denis "⁠denis⁠" Howell	22	0.98
Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool	17	0.90
Chris "⁠chrisJ⁠" de Jong	27	0.87
Sergey "⁠lmbt⁠" Bezhanov (coach)

Offline results in the past three months
3rd-4th	DreamHack Open Tours

After a long period of offline inactivity, during which the team bid farewell to Timo "⁠Spiidi⁠" Richter and welcomed FPL star ropz, MOUZ made their debut at DreamHack Open Tours earlier this month and finished third-fourth, notably beating Natus Vincere 16-3 on Mirage before dropping the semi-final series to G2.

With some much-needed experience of playing offline and on a real team, the Estonian newcomer should now be much better accustomed to this type and level of competition. There is little doubt he will become a much more impactful player than Spiidi, although perhaps not just yet: in Tours, he mostly held his own but didn't make waves.

ropz will play his first big event very early on in his career

Whether he will be able to do that in his second attempt is in the stars; so far, loWel and oskar are the team's propellers, and they should be the ones who will get hard countered in Dallas.

There, MOUZ are set to meet North and Natus Vincere early on. If there's any truth to the Danes starting out slowly, there might be a chance for the European mixture to take them by surprise. Otherwise, mouz are not exactly favored to make it out alive and will find themselves in a group of three teams (alongside Liquid and OpTic) who will most likely fight tooth and nail for that third spot.

Liquid (#19)	Age	Rating
Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken	17	1.09
Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski	19	1.05
Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella	21	0.94
Peter "⁠stanislaw⁠" Jarguz	23	0.86
Josh "⁠jdm64⁠" Marzano	27	0.82
Wilton "⁠zews⁠" Prado (coach)

Offline results in the past three months
7th-8th	DreamHack Open Austin
5th-6th	cs_summit

Despite stanislaw being widely regarded as one of the best in-game leaders in North America, Liquid have struggled to translate their potential into results thus far, finishing 5th-6th at cs_summit and 7th-8th at DreamHack Open Austin.

There were positives to take from their first two endeavours with the current lineup, however, as they took down Ninjas in Pyjamas on Nuke and Cobblestone, and played out a close series against G2.

Liquid's map pool is extremely top-heavy

For an AWPer, jdm64's impact is simply too small at this point, and he is the one who will need to step up so that Liquid can get some respectable results, especially when facing the likes of GuardiaN and oskar.

Liquid's map pool is a bit worrying as well, considering how Cobblestone-heavy it is, with 22 of the 66 maps played in the last three months being on that map. The other teams will be aware of that and shouldn't give Liquid the chance to play it in groups, making a playoffs appearance for stanislaw's team a very difficult scenario.

NRG (#31)	Age	Rating
Vincent "⁠Brehze⁠" Cayonte	19	1.13
Peter "⁠ptr⁠" Gurney	27	1.07
Jacob "⁠FugLy⁠" Medina	22	1.01
Damian "⁠daps⁠" Steele	23	0.92
Derrick "⁠LILMAN⁠" Boyne	23	0.88	*
Andrew "⁠Professor_Chaos⁠" Heintz (coach)

Offline results in the past three months
5th-8th	Copenhagen Games (4/5 of the current lineup)

The second debuting team at ESL Pro League Season 5 Finals are NRG, who benched Edgar "⁠MarKE⁠" Maldonado last month following a 5th-8th place at Copenhagen Games.

For the last month and a half, the team has been trying out LILMAN, who will remain with NRG at least until the end of ECS Season 3. With the new player, daps's team have been able to qualify for the $750,000 event as well as for the Americas Minor, set to take place from June 8-11. They're also still in the running for a spot at ECS Season 3 Finals, with four maps still left to play. 

NRG will be looking to Brehze and ptr to create plays

A large portion of their online successes have come down to Inferno, which they have only lost twice in the last 12 matches, beating teams such as SK and Cloud9. However, having played Overpass and Cache only once in that period and avoided Nuke altogether, NRG will be severely countered in vetoes.

Combining their map pool, experience, and lack of firepower compared to some of the teams above, there isn't much of a chance for NRG, on paper. There is always a little bit of leeway between North American teams, but it shouldn't be nearly enough to give Brehze and company a shot at the playoffs.