ESL Pro League S7 Finals: Preview

CS2 / News / 13 May 2018 — 08:21

Тhe tournament starts May 15!

ESL Pro League S7, the biggest event of the spring season, will take place on May 15-20, with NAVI.GG.BET set to join the fray. We are looking at the details of the tournament and how we can expect it to pan out.

The contestants for ESL Pro League S7 Finals were decided by the league's online portion, where the teams from four regions fought for the main event ticket. We placed third in the EU qualifier with 51 points from 18 wins and 8 losses. mousesports and NiP finished within the top 2, as they both scored 52 points. Team Liquid, NRG, and OpTic hover within the top 3 of the NA region.

Due to the event's expanding from 12 to 16 teams, EU was handed an additional main event spot, with the SEA region getting two ( MVP PK, Grayhound ) and South America set at one ( Sharks).

**REGULAR SEASON**
Team	Wins - Losses	Rounds	Points

mousesports	18-8	377-323	52
Ninjas in Pyjamas	17-9	379-313	52
NAVI.GG.BET	18-8	385-322	51
FaZe Clan	15-11	362-326	47
Space Soldiers	15-11	351-284	46
Astralis	15-11	386-327	45
HellRaisers	13-13	321-347	39
Heroic	14-12	333-366	39
North	13-13	323-341	37
G2 Esports	12-14	361-345	36
Fnatic	10-16	352-368	32
Team EnVyUs	8-18	304-369	25
AGO Esports	7-19	296-376	23
Team LDLC.com	7-19	288-407	22

The event will be staged by the Verizon Theatre in Dallas, Texas, which is where the fifth season of ESL Pro League took place. Unfortunately, that particular season had us struggle to bring forth positive results, as we didn't make it out of the group stage.

Aside from the changes to the number of teams participating, there have been some format adjustments. Now, the bo1 format will be applied to the openers only, with the remaining games being bo3 and the bo5 grand final. The group stage will use a double-elimination bracket. The top-placed team of each group will advance straight into the semis, while the runners-up and third-placed teams will get started in the quarter-finals.

Let's take a look at our group stage opponents. We've been drawn to meet MVP PK as the opening game. The latest accomplishment of the team is the gold medal at CS:GO Asia Summit 2018, where they reigned victorious over Grayhound in the grand final.

Verizon Theatre

IEM Sydney, on the other hand, hasn't been too successful for them, as MVP placed 9th-12th. The most prominent player of the team is XigN, who's been scoring excellent results so far in 2018 – +416 K-D and a 1,22 rating on 102 maps.

In case we win against MVP we'll be facing the winner of the NRG vs Heroic encounter. The latter team has stepped in for HellRaisers due to w0xic's visa issues. The Danes have gone through roster changes recently, which saw JuGi and Snappi step down. On top of that, their performance can possibly be jeopardized by RUBINO's absence, as he'll be skipping the event due to health problems. friberg and cromen will be standing in for the team.

NRG, in turn, have been the North American breakthrough of the year. They have been sitting at first place throughout the entire season until Liquid outraced them so NRG finished second with 50 points from 17 wins and 5 losses. The lineup's first LAN challenge was IEM Sydney, where, despite not finishing within the top, the boys brought the game versus Astralis to overtime (17-19) and fought till the very last against G2, losing both games in a very close fashion.

Quarter finals
Semifinals
Winners’ finals

mouz

Sharks

FaZe

Cloud9

NAVI.GG.BET

MVP PK

NRG

Heroic

TBD

Losers’ round 1
Losers’ round 2
Losers’ round 3
Losers’ finals

TBD

The most formidable contestants in Group A are mousesports, FaZe, and Cloud9, but because of the draw, we can face them only in the winners' final. With that said, winning the first two games will guarantee us the playoff spot.

Moving to other matchups, FaZe and Cloud9 will encounter each other in Round 1. They both have been through roster changes, as olofmeister stepped down from FaZe to be replaced with Xizt, and C9 welcomed aboard FNS after parting ways with Stewie2K. As to the latest results, C9 lost in two quarter-finals, while FaZe won IEM Sydney 2018 beating Astralis 3-0 in the final.

mousesports, in turn, have been the most consistent results-wise in 2018 and, alongside fnatic, have secured the most trophies. Their last two events, however, were pretty upsetting as they dropped out in the DreamHack Marseille 2018 quarter-final and the IEM Sydney 2018 semis. Interestingly, NAVI met mousesports 4 times in 2018, and the head-to-head record between the pair stands at 4-4 maps.

ESL Pro League S7 will be a stern challenge for Natus Vincere. We hope our boys will have a productive bootcamp and come to the event well-prepared! #gonavi