ESL Pro League Season 17 Group A Day 2 Recap

We round up the second day of action from the Mediterranean island

Until the end of the second day of play, every match in Group A of ESL Pro League Season 17 had gone exactly the way one might expect them to, with MIBR’s triumph over IHC Esports being the only slight surprise. However, the best (and only real) upset was yet to come, and it turned what would otherwise have been a relatively tepid day of CS (in terms of results) into a thriller. If you weren’t able to catch the action live, here’s our brief recap of everything that went down.

ESL Pro League Season 17 Group A Day 2 Matches

The day began with the aforementioned match between IHC and MIBR while Eternal Fire and Evil Geniuses fought simultaneously. Afterwards, Outsiders battled Fnatic, and the day ended with G2 Esports going up against Cloud9.

IHC Esports vs MIBR 

The North-East Asian side had caused quite a stir at Katowice by knocking out two Brazilian sides — paiN Gaming and FURIA Esports — back to back, and with MIBR being ranked far lower than the second of those, IHC were the favorites going into this. However, CSGO is rarely that straightforward, and MIBR had revenge on their mind for their fallen brothers.

IHC’s pick of Inferno seemed to have been a good choice when the Mongolians racked up a respectable 8 rounds on the T-side, but they soon went down 7-0 on the defense. A decent defense was mounted for a short time, but it was to no avail as MIBR managed to close the game 16-12. Talented rifler Breno “brnz4n” Poletto and veteran AWPer Henrique “HEN1” Teles led the charts for the Brazilians.

Moving on to MIBR’s pick Anubis, IHC once again put on a show on the T-side with 9 good rounds, but despite excellent efforts from two of their players, their CT-side lacked the same oomph and they ended up losing the game 16-14 with some rather sloppy, frenetic defending. Matheus “Tuurtle” Anhaia and HEN1 were solid for MIBR, while Garidmagnai “bLitz” Byambasuren and Tuvshintugs “ANNIHILATION” Nyamdorj’s efforts sadly fell just slightly short of pushing their team across the line and into a third map.

Evil Geniuses vs Eternal Fire 

It’s always interesting to watch games between evenly matched teams that rarely get to play against each other due to a difference in region. EG have been down in the dumps for a long time, and while Eternal Fire haven’t exactly been flying high, their recent results have been quite a lot better than those of the Americans. 

Following their early scare of G2, Eternal Fire once again went with Anubis as their map pick. EG are no G2, so EF were able to pick up a dominant 11 rounds on the attack. Once switched, it didn’t take long for them to shut down EG’s attack and close the game out at an easy 16-6 scoreline. Buğra “Calyx” Arkın, İsmailcan “XANTARES” Dörtkardeş and Ömer “imoRR” Karataş were all brilliant for the Turks.

EG’s pick of Overpass didn’t quite work out as well, with the American side being down 9-0 before managing to pick up a measly two rounds on the attack. However, Overpass is arguably the most CT-sided map in the pool right now, and EG mounted a powerful defense to take the score to 14-14 at one point. Sadly for the Americans, EF decided to wake up at exactly the right time, and finished things off 16-14 for a 2-0 sweep. Timothy “autimatic” Ta’s masterful turn went in vain as imoRR and XANTARES once again got their team the win.

Outsiders vs Fnatic 

Given their relatively shaky form, Outsiders weren’t the clear favorites to win this matchup as they might have been at a different time — especially after having lost their last encounter against Fnatic at Intel Extreme Masters Katowice. However, Fnatic aren’t exactly at the top of their game either, and it would really just come down to whoever was more in form. 

Outsiders justified their pick of Inferno with a brilliant 11-round T-side, but much to their surprise, Fnatic also put up the numbers on the attack. Just when it looked as though the Swedes might be able to close the map out, however, Outsiders managed to emerge triumphant in a 16-14 thriller. Evgeniy “FL1T” Lebedev was brilliant for the Russians, with Dzhami “Jame” Ali also providing good support. For Fnatic, Nico “nicoodoz” Tamjidi had a good run but couldn’t bring his team the win.

Moving on to Fnatic’s pick of Vertigo, The Swedes started extremely well, getting up to a 6-0 and then a 9-2 lead. Disappointingly for them, their T-side exploits ended right there, and once the tables were turned, the CIS squad bulldozed their defenses to the tune of a 16-12 victory. Once again, FL1T pulled off a masterclass while Jame and Aleksei “Qikert” Golubev also put in some good rounds to secure the straight sweep for their team.

Cloud9 vs G2 Esports

Given G2’s incredible run of form and Cloud9 being in the exact opposite situation, anyone watching this match expected G2 to win it with ease. However, the French team had shown some cracks in their close second match against Eternal Fire the day before, and Cloud9 were eager to take advantage. 

The CIS side picked Vertigo and won the Pistol only to lose the very next round, but they came back immediately afterwards and just never let G2 get anywhere close to an economic consolidation. Not a single G2 player managed a par rating as C9 pretty much ran circles around them. G2’s first loss on a pro map to anyone other than Heroic in a very long time ended up being a 16-6 massacre at the hands of C9. Dmitriy ”sh1ro” Sokolov was in devastating form with a ridiculous 1.99 rating, but Sergey ”Ax1Le” Rykhtorov’s performance can’t be understated.

Moving on to G2’s Inferno, the current world number 1 side was, for once, restricted to just 6 rounds on the attack — and even that was a hard-earned affair after having been down 8-3. Once on the CT-side, they did mount a pretty solid defense in the middle for a 5-round streak that made it seem as though they might come back, but C9 were having none of it, and closed the game and the series out with 3 straight rounds of their own. 

Join us again tomorrow as we look back at the third day of CSGO from EPL Season 17, and make sure to peruse our plethora of CSGO content while you wait.