While Heroic was already through in first place in Group A at ESL Pro League Season 14, Astralis had everything to play for to try and advance to the knockout stage at the tournament. Astralis had to win, meanwhile, ENCE needed to lose against Bad News Bears to make it happen. None of the things went the way of Astralis tonight.
ENCE qualifies for playoffs at ESL Pro League
Since their last encounter at IEM Cologne, the form curve has reversed for the two teams. Astralis introduced a new young AWP’er Philip ‘Lucky’ Ewald before the tournament leaving Andreas ‘Xyp9x‘ Højsleth out on the bench throughout the whole tournament. A change of roster that has not yet kicked in. At least in a positive way. Today they got exposed by Heroic, who unlike Astralis has kept the roster together since the disappointing showing at Cologne. Back online, Heroic seems invincible right now.
Today it was Ismail ‘refrezh’ Ali who topped the ratings with some spectacular plays leading his team to a 16-8, 16-8 win on Inferno and Vertigo. With ENCE beating Bad News Bears, the fate of Astralis had already been determined before the end of their match, which only underlined how far Astralis was from qualifying for the next stage.
With today’s results we have found the three teams, that will advance to the next stage.
Qualified for the knockout stage at ESL Pro League:
Heroic (Directly to Quarter-Finals)
ENCE
Eliminated:
Astralis
Spirit
Bad News Bears
