ELEAGUE Premier Group B preview

Following last week's matches, which saw FaZe and G2 advance to the ELEAGUE Premier 2017 playoffs, four new teams have made their way to Atlanta in hopes of making it to out of the groups.

The second week of ELEAGUE Premier is about to start

Group B features DreamHack Open Montreal winners and DreamHack Masters Malmö runners-up North, PGL Major Krakow silver-medalists Immortals, ESG Tour Mykonos champions MOUZ and fnatic, who have not had any memorable runs in recent times.

The teams will play out a now-standard GSL-style group stage, with the initial matches and the winner's match being BO1 and the rest of the matches being BO3. North playing against fnatic in the first match means we will have a Scandinavian duel in the opening round, followed by the clash between the European mixture of MOUZ and the Brazilians of Immortals.

Let's take a look at the four competing teams and their chances this weekend:

North (#3)	Age	Rating 2.0
Kristian "⁠k0nfig⁠" Wienecke	20	1.21
Valdemar "⁠valde⁠" Bjørn Vangså	22	1.17
René "⁠cajunb⁠" Borg	27	1.06
Philip "⁠aizy⁠" Aistrup	21	1.05
Mathias "⁠MSL⁠" Lauridsen	22	0.97
Casper "⁠ruggah⁠" Due (coach)

Offline placings in the last three months
1st	DreamHack Open Montreal 2017
2nd	DreamHack Masters Malmö 2017
5-8	PGL Major Krakow 2017 (4/5)
9-11th	ESL One Cologne 2017 (4/5)

What might've looked like an open contest just a while ago is now a group in which MSL's team is the clear-cut favorite to finish at the summit. North have managed to turn things around after the break, with the addition of valde and a return to a more tactical style paying dividends for the Danes.

North kicked off the second half of the year with an impressive second place at DreamHack Masters Malmö—defeating SK, Immortals and Gambit along the way—before living up to the favourite status at DreamHack Open Montreal, taking the title in Canada over Cloud9 and Immortals.

The Danes can still rely on the star-power of k0nfig, who was the best-rated player in Malmö at 1.32 and also delivered in Montreal, where he finished with a 1.20 rating. The 20-year-old is currently on a run of nine above-average rated LAN events, making him a menace for the opposition in Group B.

k0nfig, who has been in great form this year, now has the backup of valde

However, there is more to North's post-break renaissance: with the addition of valde, cajunb and aizy, who had struggled for a whole, are now able to contribute more to the team. One may think that team's current ratings are a bit inflated by the lower tier competition at DreamHack Open Montreal, but North actually had more convincing wins in the playoffs, where they met Cloud9 and Immortals, than in the group stage, against Gale Force and Kinguin.

With a wide map pool that fits the opposition in Atlanta quite well and Immortals missing Vito "⁠kNgV-⁠" Giuseppe, it's hard to see a world in which North don't advance to the ELEAGUE Premier playoffs, even if they potentially get upset in one of the BO1 matches.

Immortals (#6)	Age	Rating 2.0
Henrique "⁠HEN1⁠" Teles	22	1.11
Ricardo "⁠boltz⁠" Prass	20	1.09
Lucas "⁠steel⁠" Lopes	23	1.02
Lucas "⁠LUCAS1⁠" Teles	22	1.01
Raphael "⁠cogu⁠" Camargo (stand-in)	32	1.02
Rafael "⁠zakk⁠" Fernandes (coach)

Offline placings in the last three months
2nd	DreamHack Open Montreal 2017 (4/5)
5-8th	DreamHack Masters Malmö 2017 (4/5)
2nd	PGL Major Krakow (4/5)
12th-14th	ESL One Cologne (4/5)
6th-8th	PGL Major Krakow Main Qualifier (4/5)
3rd-4th	DreamHack Open Summer (4/5)

With a new tournament once again comes a new dose of out-of-game issues connected to Immortals. Leading up to DreamHack Masters Malmö, rumors about the team wanting to split ways circulated, but the organization managed to deal with the issues and keep the roster together. In the end, that didn't seem to have an effect on the team, who played well and earned a top-eight finish.

Last weekend, however, Immortals had to deal with a forfeit loss of the first map in the DreamHack Open Montreal grand final, caused by the three players who were allegedly looking to leave the team arriving late at the venue. It's impossible to ignore the potential turmoil this could create inside a team and, to make things worse, the squad has to field a stand-in for kNgV-, who has returned to Brazil to sort out his visa to re-enter the US.

A big performance from HEN1 is needed if Immortals are to get to the playoffs

Stepping in for kNgV- is the 32-year-old CS 1.6 legend cogu, who currently resides in the USA and plays for the Brazilian team Gorilla Core, but hasn't been able to accomplish too much yet. Having such a veteran on the team could bring Immortals together and help zakk with the tough task of keeping the egos and emotions in check. On the other hand, the lack of individual skill will probably make cogu a liability for the Brazilian side.

Considering the opposition and the format here, Immortals' biggest chance to make it out of the group is to win two straight BO1s. That could happen, even against the individually skilled lineups such as MOUZ and North, if Immortals' two main players—HEN1 and boltz—are on point.

Big individual performances are something that Immortals often rely on to get wins, so it wouldn't be too crazy to see something similar happening in Atlanta. However, it is more likely that we will see LUCAS1 and co. outperformed here, leaving them with a group stage exit.

MOUZ (#12)	Age	Rating 2.0
Tomáš "⁠oskar⁠" Šťastný	26	1.23
Miikka "⁠suNny⁠" Kemppi	23	1.17
Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool	17	1.04
Chris "⁠chrisJ⁠" de Jong	27	0.96
Martin "⁠STYKO⁠" Styk	21	0.92
Sergey "⁠lmbt⁠" Bezhanov (coach)

Offline placings in the last three months
1st	ESG Tour Mykonos 2017
13th-16th	DreamHack Masters Malmö
12th-14th	PGL Major Krakow (3/5)
9th-11th	ESL One Cologne (3/5)
1st-2nd	PGL Major Krakow Main Qualifier (3/5)
5th-6th	DreamHack Open Summer (3/5)

A disappointing showing in Malmö, where they were eliminated after just two maps, certainly wasn't the start MOUZ were hoping for with their new squad. Adding suNny from PENTA and STYKO from HellRaisers paid off soon after that, though, as MOUZ got series wins over Heroic, Gambit, Virtus.pro and Liquid en route to the ESG Tour Mykonos title.

It must be said that the European side was helped by Liquid, who took out SK in the semi-finals, as beating the Brazilians in a BO5 grand final would probably be too tall of an order for chrisJ's team. However, nothing can be taken away from the impressive tournament oskar and suNny had as the duo lived up to the hype and played like true stars in Greece.

The win in Greece will raise the stock of chrisJ's team going into ELEAGUE

The map pool still feels a bit shaky for MOUZ as there is a reliance on the likes of Mirage, Train, Cache and Cobblestone, with the latter being a map we could see a lot in this group. But two wins on Nuke—where chrisJ plays the main AWP role over oskar—could make MOUZ turn to that map as well.

Unless MOUZ show up in Atlanta in poor individual form or worn out from being on the road for the fourth consecutive week (OMEN Challenge Gamescom, DreamHack Masters Malmö, ESG Tour Mykonos and now ELEAGUE Premier in Atlanta), STYKO and co. should be able to secure a playoff spot this weekend.

fnatic (#14)	Age	Rating 2.0
Jesper "⁠JW⁠" Wecksell	22	1.08
Jonas "⁠Lekr0⁠" Olofsson	24	1.03
Freddy "⁠KRIMZ⁠" Johansson	23	1.01
Robin "⁠flusha⁠" Rönnquist	24	0.96
Maikil "⁠Golden⁠" Selim	23	0.94
Jimmy "⁠Jumpy⁠" Berndtsson (coach)

Offline placings in the last three months
9-12th	DreamHack Masters Malmö 2017
5th-8th	PGL Major Krakow (3/5)
9th-11th	ESL One Cologne (3/5)
7th-8th	ECS Season 3 Finals (3/5)
2nd	DreamHack Open Summer (3/5)

Somewhat similar to MOUZ, fnatic didn't impress in their LAN debut with two new players in Malmö. With Golden coming in and taking the reigns, and Lekr0 once again making the move between GODSENT and fnatic, the Black and Orange picked up a win at DreamHack Masters, eliminating Envy, but went out to Immortals after losing a BO3 series - their second defeat of the tournament against the Brazilians. 

As MOUZ' win at ESG Tour Mykonos shows, we shouldn't write off a team after a bad debut, so it is too early to get a good grasp of the new-look fnatic. The team's online results don't help us asses the Swedes either, as they have mostly faced and defeated "lower tier" opposition such as BIG, LDLC and Envy, not having faced teams of the caliber that they are about to go up against in Atlanta.

Lekr0's second debut for fnatic didn't go too well

What could go fnatic's way is that Immortals, who would normally be the second favorites to get out of the group, don't have their full lineup for this event, and MOUZ have played a lot over the past few weeks, allowing Jumpy and Golden to get a good grasp on what and how they play. Anti-stratting has never been something fnatic have relied on, but it just might be something they need to add to their repertoire to break back into the top ten—and get out of the groups here.