ESL Pro League S14 Group C preview

Who will be able to challenge Natus Vincere's dominance?

Group C in ESL Pro League Season 14 is set to kick off soon on Friday, August 27, with six more teams facing off in a round-robin format. This group features five partner teams and no team that qualified through ESEA Premier, meaning Group C boasts more of the large organizations, like Natus Vincere, FaZe, and fnatic, than the other groups.

In this preview, we walk through the teams of Group C, determining who is prepared to advance to the playoffs, and who will likely finish their EPL run in the group stage. Two teams, fnatic and BIG, will both debut new lineups, while Evil Geniuses will play with their coach Damian "⁠daps⁠" Steele as Peter "⁠stanislaw⁠" Jarguz has stepped down from the team for the event. NAVI stands as the only team to be all but guaranteed to advance, with consistent playoff appearances and a long-standing lineup.

Natus Vincere

After a long seasonal rivalry against Gambit, NAVI have for the time being come out on top, and will go into Pro League as the number one team. Gambit's wild success over this year shouldn't be used to discredit Natus Vincere however, as out of NAVI's six losses in the past three months, four have been at the hands of Gambit. The other two came at the EPIC CIS League RMR event, which had its own set of baggage, especially considering one of them was against Akuma.

As the most recent tier-one tournament, IEM Cologne will naturally have the largest impact on expectations for this event, and Natus Vincere's run at the first big LAN of the year was certainly one to praise. After a brief scare against Renegades in their initial match, NAVI quite handily defeated every team in their path and didn't drop a single map in the playoffs.

As far as head to head goes against other teams in Group C, NAVI has a perfect record, not dropping a single series to any of them in all of 2021. While Natus Vincere have not played against Evil Geniuses or fnatic, they defeated the current MOUZ lineup in a best of one at DreamHack Masters Spring. BIG was taken down at the BLAST Premier Spring Finals, while FaZe has been beaten four times in a row: twice against the pre-Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen lineup at the BLAST Premier Spring Groups, then against the new lineup at both the BLAST Premier Spring Finals and IEM Cologne.

It should be noted that Natus Vincere tend to start tournament runs off slowly, and dropping an early series to a team like BIG isn't out of the question. However, NAVI have not failed in the group stage of any tournament in 2021, and I doubt EPL will be different.

FaZe

The return of Olof "⁠olofmeister⁠" Kajbjer to FaZe's lineup while under karrigan's leadership seems to have breathed new life into the team after an overall abysmal 2021. Up until this roster iteration, FaZe had exited in the group stage of every single event they had attended, with the exception of the BLAST Premier Spring Groups, with three separate last-place finishes.

Of the two tournaments played with the karrigan + olofmeister reunion so far, the BLAST Premier Spring Finals was another last place, but this time FaZe played against much stronger opponents — Natus Vincere and G2. IEM Cologne is where things get interesting however, as they picked up one of their biggest wins in a long time against Complexity in the Play-In and moved on to the main event. Their main event run was even more impressive though, as FaZe took down Spirit, Vitality, and Heroic in a row to make the playoffs. The run culminated in the first round of the playoffs where FaZe beat the then best team in the world, Gambit, in a three-map series.

FaZe's head-to-head against Natus Vincere has already been mentioned, and against the other teams it isn't much better. FaZe haven't played against fnatic or BIG in a non-showmatch tournament in 2021, but at least they have a positive record against Evil Geniuses with a best-of-one win at the IEM Cologne Play-In. Against mouz, they have a losing 1-2 record, dropping series at cs_summit 7 and EPL Season 13, while winning at DreamHack Masters Spring.

With an overall middling head-to-head over the year, and their exceptional run at IEM Cologne, FaZe falls into the camp of likely to advance. It'll be difficult for them to take down a warmed-up Natus Vincere, but EG and fnatic should be safe bets for victory. FaZe's first match against MOUZ will probably be the key to determining how they place in Group C at the end of the day.

BIG

BIG has been the most active team of those in Group C, having participated in many tier-two events throughout the year, including ESEA Premier Season 37 and many a Relog tournament. Along with this, they have been quite inconsistent, with solid performances at bigger events like Flashpoint Season 3 and IEM Cologne but underperformances in lower tier events like ESEA Premier and the Elisa Invitational Summer. So while they have victories over the likes of Astralis, G2, and Virtus.pro, BIG have also lost series to lower-ranked teams like SINNERS, LDLC, and SKADE in the last three months.

The main thing going into Pro League for BIG will be their recent roster move, which saw Ismailcan "⁠XANTARES⁠" Dörtkardeş depart the team to join Eternal Fire, while former North player Nicklas "⁠gade⁠" Gade has joined. While gade won't be able to live up to the pure fragging power of XANTARES, he will likely take on more supportive roles to relieve pressure on players like Johannes "⁠tabseN⁠" Wodarz and Nils "⁠k1to⁠" Gruhne, letting them have a bit more freedom.

Not too much can be gleaned from BIG's head to head records against their group-mates, as they are 0-1 and 0-2 against Natus Vincere and MOUZ, respectively, 2-0 versus Evil Geniuses, and have not played FaZe or fnatic in non-showmatch games during this year. This places BIG firmly in the middle of the pack, and beating FaZe will be the key for them if they want to make the playoffs of this event.

Despite BIG's inconsistent results over the past three months and their brand new lineup, I would still place BIG as the dark horse in Group C. The German side tend to play their best in the biggest events, and when they are on point they can beat almost anyone.

mousesports

MOUZ seemed to have been steadily improving since adding Christopher "⁠dexter⁠" Nong at the start of the year, going from last place finishes at ESL Pro League Season 13 and the Fantasyexpo Spring Cup to a nearly perfect run in Flashpoint Season 3, only suffering map losses to Movistar Riders, Complexity, and Ninjas in Pyjamas. However, the lineup's first LAN in Cologne seemed to serve as a stumbling block, suffering losses to both Ninjas in Pyjamas and Liquid. It isn't a terrible placing all things considered, as their first match in the main event was against Gambit, but it's still a ways from their form during Flashpoint.

Pro League Season 14 will be important for MOUZ to stay on track, and they will be under a lot of pressure to make the playoffs. They are in a precarious position, and I would wager mouz are the team most vulnerable to being upset in this group. As the longest-standing lineup in Group C, they will naturally have higher expectations placed on them, and combining that with a long player break, there is definitely potential to drop a series to a lower-ranked team.

Interestingly, MOUZ actually have the second best head-to-head results against teams in Group C. Not only have they played all the teams in their group this year, but they have positive records against all but Natus Vincere. In addition to their 2-1 and 2-0 records against FaZe and BIG, respectively, mouz sport a victory against EG at the IEM Cologne Play-In as well as two series wins against fnatic at Snow Sweet Snow 3 and Flashpoint 3.

At the end of the day, mousesports are favored to advance to the playoffs, putting them in the second-third spot alongside FaZe. Luckily, their more important matches are later in the group, giving them time to warm up and to avoid getting caught off-guard by one of the new lineups.

Evil Geniuses

The team with the absolute lowest expectations in the group are undeniably Evil Geniuses. This fact is not just a representation of the state the team has been in this year, but also an invaluable weapon for them during this event. It goes without saying that EG have been extremely bad for most of 2021, with their lowest point coming in last place finishes at Funspark ULTI and cs_summit 8. This led to the removal of Wilton "⁠zews⁠" Prado as coach and eventually the addition of daps.

Their group-wide head-to-head further reinforces the bad form, as they have negative records against every other team in Group C during 2021, sans Natus Vincere, not winning a single match against any of them. Two of their matches, against FaZe and MOUZ, came at the IEM Cologne Play-In, giving them more relevance, while the losses against fnatic and BIG mostly featured different lineups from multiple months ago.

To add on to the bad form, in-game leader stanislaw has decided to step down from the active lineup for the duration of ESL Pro League, meaning their brand new coach, who has only just come back from a period of playing professional VALORANT, will be standing-in. It would be easy to then completely write off the team and say that they will definitely place last, and it would be correct to have no expectations. However, teams with no pressure and effectively dead lineups have a history of garnering unexpected results, and this lineup is no stranger to that.

In June of 2019, this same core of players had just removed daps from their lineup under NRG and replaced him with stanislaw. However, due to ESL's roster lock for Pro League, the team competed at the LAN Finals using daps. They managed to place first in their group, defeating two top ten teams in fnatic and Astralis, and overall placed top four at the event despite the dead lineup. Granted that NRG team was much better then than this Evil Geniuses one is now, but the power of a daps stand-in can't be written off completely. I am still expecting them to likely place last in Group C but wouldn't be surprised if they take a couple of maps or even a series due to their power trio of fragging power.

fnatic

The last team in Group C is a complete and utter question mark. fnatic has been completely missing from the scene for over two months now, having not played any officials since IEM Summer at the beginning of June. On top of that, they have undergone a massive roster overhaul, replacing two players, including their in-game leader, and changed their in-game communication language to English with the addition of British players.

On paper, the new lineup looks quite good. It took away the two clear weak links of the previous lineup and replaced them with what most would consider to be upgrades. Some may consider the recent Cloud9 project to be a disappointment, but for the lineup they fielded, I contend that their results were within the margins of expectation. William "⁠mezii⁠" Merriman continued to play incredibly while on Endpoint, and Alex "⁠ALEX⁠" McMeekin remains one of the better IGL choices in the space.

The problem in the mid-term comes with the new players meshing with the old core. It's no secret that Swedish teams have unique cultures and historically have preferred to stick with fully Swedish lineups. This doesn't preclude Swedish players from being in international lineups of course, but it's something that the older fnatic players will have to get used to. In the short term, the team's inactivity will be the biggest hurdle. mezii is really the only player who has been active in the past couple of months, with the Swedes' break being said already and ALEX not having played since March.

Much like Evil Geniuses, fnatic will have very little or no expectations coming into this particular tournament, but unlike them, will have much higher expectations going into later tournaments, especially IEM Fall if they hope to make it to the Major. Asking this squad to take down the likes of NAVI, FaZe, or mouz at the first outing is a bit much, but their final match against EG could serve as a good litmus test going forward.