ESL Pro League playoffs round 2 highlights

Monte 13-6 Complexity

Szymon "⁠kRaSnaL⁠" Mrozek has christened his team's time on the CT-side in style, putting a 500-damage ace on the board, as pointed out by Alex "⁠hawka⁠" Hawkins.

It's not the best start to the T-side that Complexity would have hoped for, but maybe they can get their comeback underway once rifles are in hand?

Monte 9-6 Complexity

Monte are off to a stellar start on their Ancient pick, and it's partly due to Ricky "⁠floppy⁠" Kemery's inability to get comfortable. The American, who is having a 1.22-rated tournament so far, has so far only managed to post just two kills, but has been killed 10 times. It's allowed Monte to race to a three-round buffer at halftime.

Round nine was the most highlight-worthy round, with viewers being treated to Alexander "⁠br0⁠" Bro's 4k with his MAC-10 before seeing Sergiy "⁠DemQQ⁠" Demchenko placing his knife between Håkon "⁠hallzerk⁠" Fjærli's shoulder blades to finish things off.

FaZe 10-16 MOUZ

The narrow margins of the first half completely dissipated once MOUZ were on the defense, FaZe seemingly running out of steam quite early on.

Dorian "⁠xertioN⁠" Berman continued to excel for his team, but the rest of MOUZ were on fire too as they butchered FaZe's attempts to attack bombsites.

Early aggression combined with excellence in the individual aim duels from MOUZ left Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen's men destitute and with only three T side rounds in hand before the map was brought to an end, with the team now looking to recover on their pick of Inferno.

Complexity and Monte are almost ready to kick off their playoff fixture in Malta, with the winner advancing to the quarter-finals, where they will play Vitality on Thursday, and the loser going home.

Up first is Ancient, Monte's choice, with Complexity's Overpass pick following and Anubis being the decider.

The two teams have yet to face each other in an official, and only four spots separate them on the world ranking, so it's not a clear-cut game.

The full veto is as follows:

1. Monte removed Inferno
2. Complexity removed Mirage
3. Monte picked Ancient
4. Complexity picked Overpass
5. Monte removed Nuke
6. Complexity removed Vertigo
7. Anubis was left over

FaZe 7-8 MOUZ

We're underway with a battle between Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen and his former organization, and things are neck-and-neck at halftime on MOUZ's pick of Overpass.

Kamil "⁠siuhy⁠" Szkaradek's men kicked off the map in strong form thanks to a pistol ace from David "⁠frozen⁠" Čerňanský and mounted an early lead off the back of it, but FaZe dominated the middle portion of the half to battle into the lead, 7-5.

Excellent rifle work from Dorian "⁠xertioN⁠" Berman and Jimi "⁠Jimpphat⁠" Salo allowed MOUZ to string together the last three rounds of the half, however, and so they enter the second half with a one-round edge going into their defensive effort.

Movistar Riders 8-7 9z

It's yet another 8-7 scoreline at the break — the third of the series — as Movistar Riders are up by one round at the end of their CT-side.

Apart from Antonio "⁠MartinezSa⁠" Martinez's stellar performance, the Spanish side were helped out by a strong performance from Alejandro "⁠mopoz⁠" Fernández-Quejo Cano. He may have had a dead-even 12-12 K-D, but topped his team's charts with 95 ADR, 20 more than their AWPer.

Movistar Riders 6-2 9z

Antonio "⁠MartinezSa⁠" Martinez is having a lovely game so far, walking on water as he sits on an 11-0 K-D — and 93 ADR — to power the Spanish outfit to a 6-2 lead on the CT-side of Ancient.

9z really cannot find an answer for the AWPer, and it's seriously costing them.

Movistar Riders 12-16 9z

9z have equalized the series following a comfortable 16-9 win on Anubis, and I think the scoreline could have been even more one-sided.

Movistar Riders won both pistol rounds and converted them too, gifting them four out of their 12 total rounds. 9z, though, were the far better team on the gun rounds, dominating for most of the CT-side before going on a seven-round streak on the T-side en route to forcing the Ancient decider. It was only a brief resurgence from the Spaniards that allowed them to get into double digits.

Ancient is up next. Who do you think gets the win over the line?

Eternal Fire 11 - 9 BIG

BIG are digging their heels in up against the Turks on the offense. First Johannes "⁠tabseN⁠" Wodarz turned a 3v5 around with a massive flank, and then Mateusz "⁠mantuu⁠" Wilczewski clutched a 1v3 through the smoke. Maybe running at the AWPer with a knife wasn't the best idea.

Eternal Fire 11 - 4 BIG

Anubis is well underway and Eternal Fire dominated the Terrorist side after losing the opening pistol round. It's none other than the new boy, Ali "⁠Wicadia⁠" Haydar Yalçın, on top of the charts — though, to be fair, he farmed BIG's low buys.

The 18-year-old and Ismailcan "⁠XANTARES⁠" Dörtkardeş did well to give the Turks the space they needed with seven opening kills between the two.

Movistar Riders 7-8 9z

9z have been a dominant force in the server so far on Anubis, winning six in a row on their CT-side to be narrowly up 8-7 at the break.

It could have been an even bigger cushion had they not lost to Movistar Riders' Desert Eagles in round eight and fumbled a 1vs1 to Antonio "⁠MartinezSa⁠" Martinez in round 15.

It's a trident of Maximiliano "⁠max⁠" Gonzalez, Nicolás "⁠buda⁠" Kramer, and Franco "⁠dgt⁠" Garcia who are powering 9z so far. They have 15, 14, and 13 kills, respectively, and were instrumental in keeping the Spanish squad at bay. 9z now move to the more favored T-side on their foes' map pick? Can they force Ancient?

Movistar Riders 4-1 9z

Okay, Franco "⁠dgt⁠" Garcia, that works. Sure.

The Uruguayan just spammed Alejandro "⁠mopoz⁠" Fernández-Quejo Cano perfectly through the smoke. The Spaniard will be annoyed about that one.

9z couldn't convert that man advantage, however, and the Riders are now slowly pulling away with a 4-1 lead on the T-side.

Eternal Fire 16 - 14 BIG

What a finish to the first map.

Eternal Fire kickstarted the comeback with a pistol round win and five in a row, until a Mateusz "⁠mantuu⁠" Wilczewski triple in defense of mid stopped the streak. It looked like BIG might just be able to squeeze out the win off of that, but the Turks persevered thanks to a couple of key plays from hero Ali "⁠Wicadia⁠" Haydar Yalçın and a 2v5 win in the final round.

Movistar Riders 16 - 13 9z

9z were down 9-13 at one point after a slow start to the half, but it seemed that with weapons in play the South American squad was making the best of their defense. Santino "⁠try⁠" Rigal even posted a massive quad-kill in yard to bring things even in the 26th round.

Movistar Riders called a timeout as it seemed the map was about to slip away — they were without money and facing an uphill battle against a solid defense. The Iberian squad won a pistol buy with four Tec9 kills, however, and set themselves up to run away with the map, 16-13.

Up next will be the jinetes' map pick, Anubis. Both teams have a 50% winrate on it in the past three months out of four matches played (each), so 9z can fans shouldn't lose hope that the series could end up going all the way.

Movistar Riders 8 - 7 9z

Movistar Riders trailed for the majority of the half, trying to keep up after losing some crucial rounds that went down to the wire early on. In the end, however, they stabilized to win six of the last seven and claim the lead.

9z will not be as happy as they could, as they trail in the live win probability matrix, with only 23.7%, but a strong start on the defense could quickly make those numbers shift to a more favorable percentage.

So far, it is Tiago "⁠JUST⁠" Moura and Alejandro "⁠alex⁠" Masanet, with 116 and 102 ADR, respectively, who have had the most impact on the server.

BIG 7 - 3 Eternal Fire

The Germans have been in cruise control so far after a second-round forcebuy win on the T side.

The Turks got a little bit of a breather when BIG didn't give themselves enough time to make the right decision, but they'll need to do a lot more to keep their streak on their trusty Vertigo pick going.

Movistar Riders 2 - 3 9z

9z won the pistol round on the attack to get ahead on their Nuke map pick, but barely managed to convert the second round by the skin of their teeth, losing all players and giving Movistar Riders two AKs in the process. The Spaniards, with weapons, then brought it to 2-2.

9z, playing an eco with only a hero AK, then planted on the A site and held out long enough in the post-plant to deny the kitless CTs a defuse. The South Americans remain in the lead for now.

The full veto for the series can be seen below:

1. 9z removed Vertigo
2. Movistar Riders removed Mirage
3. 9z picked Nuke
4. Movistar Riders picked Anubis
5. 9z removed Inferno
6. Movistar Riders removed Overpass
7. Ancient was left over

Date	Matches
ESL Pro League Season 18
27/09/2023	Movistar Riders 15:30 9z	Match

"I think we can go to the final or even win the tournament if we reach the playoffs. Our biggest opponent is ourselves."

Eternal Fire still have some ways to go before they fulfill Özgür "⁠woxic⁠" Eker's high ambitions, but his words certainly seem a lot more realistic than they did when he spoke to HLTV ahead of the Turks' Group D surprise run.

They have yet to lose a map since they went down to the Last Chance bracket and beat Cloud9 and Liquid to qualify for the playoffs and Astralis in the opening round. BIG are next on their hit list.

Read more

woxic: "I need to have freedom and make the game-changing calls"

The first round of the ESL Pro League Season 18 playoffs left two notable upsets. The first was Eternal Fire knocking out Benjamin "⁠blameF⁠" Bremer and Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz's Astralis, while in the second set of matches it was 9z who got one over Virtus.pro, taking revenge for their FiReLEAGUE Battle and ESL Challenger Katowice defeats before the summer break.

The other two matches of the day ended with Monte defeating fnatic in a three-map series and MOUZ demolishing FURIA — the Brazilians failed to reach 10 rounds in total across both maps.

Date	Matches
ESL Pro League Season 18
27/09/2023	BIG 15:30 Eternal Fire	Match
27/09/2023	Movistar Riders 15:30 9z	Match
27/09/2023	FaZe 19:00 MOUZ	Match
27/09/2023	Complexity 19:50 Monte	Match

The second round is now upon us, once again with two sets of matches running at the same time. In the 15:30 timeslot it is BIG going up against Ismailcan "⁠XANTARES⁠" Dörtkardeş and his Eternal Fire on the A stream and Movistar Riders facing 9z in a rare derby of Spanish-speaking teams at a big event on the B stream. The four teams set to play at 19:00 are FaZe vs. MOUZ and Complexity vs. Monte.

Today's winners will play the group stage's top seeds in the quarter-finals on Thursday and Friday in what will be the last stage of the progressive bracket, which can be seen in full below.