ESL Pro League S9 group D day 1 recap

The Europe and Latin America groups of ESL Pro League Season 9 have been played out, with HellRaisers picking up a win in their LAN debut.

In the first game of the day, BIG took on HellRaisers, with the latter team picking Mirage to kick it off. The first half, which the Germans played as CTs, was a contested one, with HellRaisers managing sporadic rounds but climbing up to 7 in total on the offense. After the switch, they added the second pistol to their name, but lost to BIG's force buy which saw the momentum completely shift. Johannes "⁠tabseN⁠" Wodarz stepped up as well, leading his side to a 16-9 win with a 28-kill performance.

Things moved to Train then, where BIG couldn't get things going on the offense, starting 9-0 down. One of the new additions to the HellRaisers side, Christian "⁠loWel⁠" Garcia Antoran, had a standout performance, pushing his team to a 12-3 half. Fatih "⁠gob b⁠" Dayik's team then claimed the pistol and five of the first six rounds, but the deficit was too big and HellRaisers closed Train out, 16-8.

Overpass was the decider, with HellRaisers taking the 3-1 lead on the CT side, but BIG didn't let them build any momentum, replying with a trio of rounds going their way. The dynamic continued for the rest of the half, ending with a tight scoreline, 8-7 in favor of Kirill "⁠ANGE1⁠" Karasiow and co. The Ukrainian IGL led by example in the final map, and together with loWel propelled his squad to a 16-8 victory after a resounding Terrorist side, securing three points in ESL Pro League.

The second game was a much more straightforward one, as Astralis took on #44 in the world, ex-3DMAX. The series started on Mirage, the Frenchmen's map-pick, with them taking the pistol and the two consecutive rounds. Astralis established themselves when the guns rolled in, taking the lead with a five-round-winning streak, and only allowed David "⁠Davidp⁠" Prins and co. three more for the half. After switching to the easier, defensive side, ex-3DMAX didn't have a better time, with Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander's men ending the map with a swift 7-0 Terrorist side.

Considering they were going up against Astralis on Nuke, ex-3DMAX had a great start on the CT side of the second map, taking a 7-3 lead after losing the pistol round. However, they were unable to end the half on the high, seeing Astralis take a 8-7 lead, and they only built on that after the switch, finishing the map with another perfect half, 8-0. With that, Astralis extended their Nuke winning streak on LAN to 30 maps.

The Argentinian side Isurus took on the South American mixture Denial in the first match of the Latin America group, and Inferno was the map pick of the latter team. Juanes "⁠sickLy⁠" Valencia and co. took four of the first five rounds, but then ended up broken by Isurus, who claimed momentum for the rest of the half. Not even another pistol round win in the second half helped Denial make the map truly competitive, with Nicolás "⁠Noktse⁠" Dávila's showing pushing Isurus to a 16-8 win.

Isurus showed true dominance on their map pick, Overpass, running up a 13-2 lead on the offensive side of the map. The Argentinians added a CT pistol to their name as well and quickly tied up things, 16-2, moving on to day two with three points in the bag.

The second match of the day in the South American region wasn't much more competitive either as the Brazilian side DETONA faced off against Infinity, a Colombian-Guatemalan mixture. Infinity didn't impress on the Terrorist side of their map pick, Nuke, claiming only three rounds towards the start of the half. DETONA added a second-half pistol round win to extend their lead to 14-3 swiftly before closing out the map 16-6.

Inferno followed, where Infinity shocked the Brazilians at the start with a strong 7-2 start. However, Vinicius "⁠vsm⁠" Moreira woke up and enabled a comeback for his team that won seven out of the following eight rounds as Terrorists. The momentum continued in the second half, seeing DETONA take the map 16-9 and the series 2-0.