Month: September 2020

Categories
League of Legends

Worlds 2020 Play-In results: Who advances to groups?

In one of the hardest fought Play-in stages in recent memory, four teams have advanced to the Worlds 2020 groups after a tight series of games. Team Liquid, PSG Talon, Unicorns of Love, and LGD Gaming will all advance to the next stage of the event. It is set to kick-off on Saturday October 3. 

But despite the huge names that have made it through, it was no cake walk. LGD in particular had tremendous trouble, almost dropping out of contention entirely. Their opening days were a disaster, and only by clawing things back in the knock-out stage did they eventually advance.

The two automatic advancements, PSG Talon and Team Liquid effectively flipped their groups on their head. The NA team in particular were uncharacteristically dominant. They then advanced to the main stage after highly proficient play-ins. However, the other major western region, Europe, was left to mourn the loss of MAD Lions. The underdog (or underlion) team were eliminated from contention by Turkish TCL team SuperMassive in a close 3-2 defeat.

But things weren’t sunshine for the TCL representatives. The pink ponies themselves, The Unicorns of Love from the CIS summarily defeated them earlier today. The CIS team looks to beat it’s regions best record at worlds in 2016, where Albus NoX Luna advanced to the quarter finals after upsetting some of the biggest names that year. UoL are potentially a far better team than that 2016 lineup, and could easily cause some heart break in the Worlds bracket.

The first day of Worlds 2020 main stage games looks something like this:

Keep your eyes locked on Dart Frog on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook for all the latest League of Legends Worlds 2020 news and analysis.

Categories
FIFA

FIFA 21 Global Series details announced with big changes

EA Sports have revealed all details for the upcoming FIFA 21 competitive season set to begin in late November.

The official pitch notes were released on September 29 and it details the changes coming to competitive FIFA this year.

One of the main changes of course being a shift to online gameplay due to the global pandemic.

League Operations Manager, Rushan Shekar said: “While this year may look a little different, the focus is still to allow for top level competition between the best FIFA players from around the globe.”

Let’s take a closer look at what we can expect from this year’s Global Series:

Regional play from home

EA Sports stated: ” To support our online ecosystem, we’ve sorted players into regions of play based on their country of residence.

“Players may only play in the region that corresponds to their country/territory of residence and cannot change regions once the season begins.”

There will be six regions of play with multiple countries in each. The list of regions and countries is as follows:

  • Europe: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech, Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom
  • North America: Canada (including Quebec), Mexico, United States of America
  • South America: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Netherlands Antilles, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, Venezuela
  • Oceania: Australia, New Zealand
  • East Asia: China (including Hong Kong and Macau), Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam
  • West Asia & South Africa: India, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates

South Africa will have its own qualifiers but will join West Asia for regional playoffs. Egypt, Israel and Turkey will join the Europe region.

Each region will have its own Xbox and PlayStation rankings. The regional leaderboards will decide which teams qualify for each Regional Playoffs.

As the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 will not be released until the season has started, it will remain on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 for the FIFA 21 season.

Oceania, East Asia, West Asia and South Africa will play exclusively on PlayStation 4. This is due to the PlayStation 4 historically having more FUT Champions Verified Players.

FIFA 21 Global Series tournament formats

All Qualifiers will be double elimination tournaments. Players will then be seeded based on their Global Series Points. For the first tournament of the season, cumulative Weekend League wins will be used to determine seeding.

Road to the FIFA eWorld Cup

The traditional Swiss format is being ditched this year despite its popularity. EA Sports said: ” Firstmost, this year’s Global Series is about earning Points based on your finishes across a number of tournaments.

“The Qualifiers are not singular events searching for the undisputed best players to move onto an important in-person event. Instead, this year the Global Series is in search of consistent performance across multiple events to qualify players to the Regional Playoffs.”

EA are focusing on this new format to help determine consistency throughout the season. It will also eradicate extensive waiting time between matches for players.

A total of $3 million will be awarded this season, a rise of one million from last year.

Full schedule

Here is a full list of the scheduled tournaments across the year:

Europe

  • November 28th to 29th, 2020
  • January 9th to 10th, 2021
  • February 6th to 7th, 2021
  • March 6th to 7th, 2021
  • April 10th to 11th, 2021

North America

  • December 12th to 13th, 2020
  • January 23rd to 24th, 2021
  • February 20th to 21st, 2021
  • March 27th to 28th, 2021
  • April 17th to 18th, 2021

South America

  • November 21st to 22nd, 2020
  • December 12th to 13th, 2020
  • January 23rd to 24th, 2021
  • February 20th to 21st, 2021
  • March 27th to 28th, 2021

East Asia

  • December 12th to 13th, 2020
  • February 20th to 21st, 2021
  • March 27th to 28th, 2021

West Asia & South Africa

  • November 21st to 22nd, 2020
  • January 23rd to 24th, 2021
  • March 27th to 28th, 2021

Oceania

  • December 12th to 13th, 2020
  • January 23rd to 24th, 2021
  • February 20th to 21st, 2021

For all the information on the FIFA 21 Global Series, view the full pitch notes.

Are you excited for the new season?

Let us know!

For all the latest competitive FIFA news and analysis follow Dart Frog on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Categories
CS:GO

FURIA victorious at ESL Pro League Season 12 NA Finals

FURIA Esports has emerged victorious after great 3-0 series against 100 Thieves in the ESL Pro League Season 12 NA Finals. The Brazillian side was on the path to success all the way through to ESL Pro League weekly gamedays and maintained their form through the finals. Let’s recap how the Brazillian side managed their success.

The Regular Season

FURIA had great weekly showings throughout the Regular Season, dominating right until the end of Week 3 as they lost their first series against 100 Thieves. In Week Four, FURIA lost to Chaos.E.C. and that was the moment that Evil Geniuses surpassed them.

With the two late defeats in the Regular Season, it seemed like the momentum for FURIA had faltered. The story for the Playoffs was one of doubt, although, they had a favourable first match.

The Playoffs

With EG and FURIA taking first and second place, the two teams once again collided in the Playoffs Upper Bracket. While FURIA’s Regular Season momentum had somewhat subsided, Evil Geniuses had only grown with their first-place finish. Although the narrative for EG was to beat the only team that took them down in the Regular Season, FURIA.

It seemed like the FURIA was not shut down at all by the recent losses to other NA teams. FURIA came back strong in their first playoff round and destroyed Evil Geniuses. The results of the maps were not even close to. FURIA held Inferno strong with a 16-5 win, which is extremely unusual for an Inferno game. Moving on, Nuke went the way to the Brazilians with a 16-7 victory. This quick series advanced FURIA into the Grand Final with a 1-0 map advantage.

FURIA showing how dominant they are over EG.

The Lower Bracket twist of fate

It was Evil Geniuses and 100 Thieves that entered the Lower Bracket Final after the Aussies woke up with a great victory over Team Liquid. Both Evil Geniuses and 100T continued their trend of the 2-0 storyline as the Aussies put EG to bed with another 2-0 victory.

To give Evil Geniuses credit they managed a much better showing with two very close maps. 100T won both 16-14 Dust II with the next battle on Inferno going 16-13. The most iconic thing about this result is that Evil Geniuses’ monopoly on North American CS:GO has fallen as their trophy spree is over. With all that said, it was two new teams entering a Grand Final for a considerable time.

FURIA’s clean 3-0

100 Thieves emerging glory was put to an end with the power level that FURIA was on. The first map os the series was Vertigo, and FURIA may have changed the way the map is played forever. The side had discovered a brand-new boost in Vertigo that makes the map much more CT friendly than results in the past has told us. The new triple boost on the scaffolding blindsided 100 Thieves, challenging their on the spot creativity for mush of their T side. It is safe to say that FURIA stole the show on Vertigo and won the map 16-7, bringing them to series point of the tournament.

Don’t you love it when a team brings something new to the table?

The following map was Inferno where both teams put up a good fight. At one point in the map, both teams were on 10-10, showing how close the map was. Although, FURIA worked out how to take down 110T from there and won the map 16-10, taking home the NA EPL trophy.

FURIA has come a long way in the North American scene throughout 2020 and this victory is a huge payoff. Congratulations on FURIA for taking home the ESL Pro League Season 12 NA Finals trophy. $77,500 USD and gaining key Pro Tour points along the way.

Stay tuned to Dartfrog for all the latest news and analysis on CS:GO and follow us on our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitch. Image via DreamHack / Stephanie Lindgren.

Categories
Dota 2

Team Secret wins the OGA Dota PIT Season 3

It seems like nothing can stop the march of Team Secret. The European powerhouse managed to win yet another tournament after a nearly flawless performance. This victory means that Team Secron has won its last 8 Grand Finals.

What happened?

Team Secret had little to no problems winning this event. The team ripped through their competition like a knife through butter and had to play against VP.Prodigy in the grand final. VPP is one of the biggest surprises of the event and proved yet again that this is the future of the CIS Dota 2 scene.

Sadly, the team was unable to stop Team Secret from winning yet another event. Game one was really close as both Team Secret and VP.Prodigy had a good laning stage. In fact, VPP even took the lead at one point, but after a few wrong moves, the Europeans managed to regain control of the game. Needless to say, a team that’s as experienced as Team Secret managed to keep the lead and won the first game of the series.

It seems that the loss had a negative impact on VP.P’s performance as they couldn’t do much in game two. Unlike the first game of the series where they were really aggressive, the CIS team played super defensively. They’ve decided to pick heroes that have plenty of team-fight potential, but Team Secret knew how to deal with it. After just 33 minutes, Team Secret was able to deliver a knock-out punch and claimed the victory.

Just one game away from winning the event, Team Secret looked unstoppable. They decided to pick some of their best heroes and absolutely crushed their enemies. As a result, they became the OGA DOta PIT Season 3 champions.

Don’t forget to watch the other upcoming events. Even though we’re still waiting to hear more about TI 10, there are plenty of games worth watching.

Feel free to follow DartFrog on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitch for the latest Dota 2 news

Categories
CS:GO

ESIC bans 37 CS:GO coaches after spectator bug investigation

After a thorough investigation into the use of a CS:GO spectator bug, 37 coaches have been given bans by ESIC ranging from under four months to three years.

The Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) released their findings on September 28 which revealed the outcomes of the investigation.

There were 99,650 demos available to be examined however only 20% of these were investigated.

Despite this, ESIC details that these demos “likely comprise the most substantial cases of abuse.”

In the report, ESIC reveals that the bug had been flagged to admins in tournaments as far back as 2017. However, ESIC has chosen not to comment on these prior reports due to the fact that these were non-ESIC member tournaments.

With regards to further investigation, ESIC stated the following: “ESIC anticipates that it will only need to issue one further report at the end of October which will conclude the investigation into Spectator Bug abuse.”

Which coaches were banned and what does this mean?

Here is a full list of all 37 coaches who received bans, courtesy of HLTV:

Slaava “⁠Twista⁠” Räsänen (2 cases) – 15.75 months (12.50% concessions)

Peter “⁠casle⁠” Sørensen (2) – 10 months (0%)

Rodrigo “⁠dinamo⁠” Haro (2) – 10 months (0%)

Arno “⁠ArnoZ1K4⁠” Junior (1) – 10 months (0%)

Allan “⁠Rejin⁠” Petersen (7) – 19.8 months (45%)

Eliomar “glou” Hernandez (2) – 10 months (0%)

Arthur “⁠prd⁠” Resende (5) – 10 months (0%)

Alexey “⁠NooK⁠” Kozlovskiy (1) – 7.5 months (25%)

Henrique “⁠rikz⁠” Waku (1) – 10 months (0%)

Alessandro “⁠Apoka⁠” Marcucci (6) – 5.4 months (85%)

Aleksandr “⁠zoneR⁠” Bogatiryev (16) – 36 months (0%)

Germán “hellpa” Morath (2) – 10 months (0%)

Egor “fuRy^” Morin (1) – 7.5 months (25%)

Aset “⁠Solaar⁠” Sembiyev (2) – 10 months (0%)

Nicolai “⁠HUNDEN⁠” Petersen (2) – 8 months (20%)

Ricardo “⁠dead⁠” Sinigaglia (5) – 6.5 months (35%)

Nicholas “⁠guerri⁠” Nogueira (2) – 4 months (60%)

Faruk “⁠pita⁠” Pita (2) – 10 months (0%)

Erik “⁠AKIMOV⁠” Akimov (1) – 7.5 months (25%)

Ivan “⁠F_1N⁠” Kochugov (6) – 8.75 months (12.50%)

Bruno “⁠ellllll⁠” Ono (3) – 10 months (0%)

Pedro “⁠peu⁠” Lopes (2) – 5 months (0%)

Robert “⁠RobbaN⁠” Dahlström (1) – 5.5 months (45%)

Mariusz “⁠Loord⁠” Cybulski (2) – 6 months (40%)

Anton “⁠ToH1o⁠” Georgiev (2) – 10 months (0%)

Andrey “⁠Andi⁠” Prokhorov (1) – 10 months (0%)

Milan “⁠pepik⁠” Gellebra (1) – 10 months (0%)

Morgan “⁠B1GGY⁠” Madour (3) – 7.5 months (25%)

Christian “⁠chrille⁠” Lindberg (2) – 10 months (0%)

starix⁠ (1) – 10 months (0%)

Alexander “⁠ave⁠” Holdt (1) – 6 months (40%)

Jasmeet “⁠RoSeY⁠” Gill (1) – 10 months (0%)

Sergey “⁠lmbt⁠” Bezhanov (3) – 7.5 months (25%)

Henrik “⁠FeTiSh⁠” Christensen (1) – 3.75 months (25%)

Mikołaj “⁠miNirox⁠” Michałków (1) – 3.75 months (25%)

Nikolay “⁠pNshr⁠” Paunin (1) – 3.75 months (25%)

Casper “⁠ruggah⁠” Due (1) – 3.75 months (25%)

So what exactly does this mean for these coaches? ESIC detailed each sanction that will directly affect the coaches.

The coaches must not be physically present or communicate with the team 15 minutes prior to the official match start until the end of the match.

They must not be in the game server during the match or be on the official match channel.

Finally, they must not be a part of the official map veto process before each match.

Many players were disappointed with the severity of some of the bans. Complexity CS:GO player “blameF” was surprised that some were issued just “a few months ban for cheating.”

Do you think the bans were fair?

Let us know!

Follow Dartfrog for all the latest news and analysis on CS:GO and follow our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitch.

Categories
FIFA

EA Sports release pitch notes on FIFA 21 FUT Launch Update

The FIFA Live content team have revealed more information on what to expect from FIFA 21 Ultimate Team this season.

It is only a matter of days before players can get their hands on FIFA 21. Early Access for EA Play members begins on October 1.

If you have pre-ordered the Champions or Ultimate Edition then you have access on October 6, three days before the worldwide release on October 9.

During these early access periods, players can earn special rewards.

Early Access special rewards

One of the rewards available to early access players is a set of Pre-Launch Objectives. This gives players the chance to earn a reward pack which contains an untradeable 80-84 OVR player pick and a 10 game loan TOTW player.

In addition to more time in Season 1, EA Play members can receive a Season XP boost to give them an upper hand.

Early access players will be able to experience Live FUT Friendlies first with the Three Nations themed Live FUT Friendly Challenge.

They will also have the first opportunity to experience Events with a head start in the Humans vs. Machine community event.

EA have decided to feature exclusive Ones To Watch content for the first time. This includes a OTW Player SBC and a OTW Player Pick Vote.

Ones To Watch players confirmed

Ones To Watch players are Live Player Items that upgrade based on real-world performances. EA have confirmed six players so far that will feature in OTW this season:

OTW Team 1 will be revealed and released on October 9 and OTW Team 2 will be revealed on October 14 and released on October 16.

Live FUT Friendlies

In the official pitch notes EA Sports stated: “With Live FUT Friendlies, we’re combining Squad Rules with the different House Rules in Friendlies, to create fun and diverse new ways to play that will be active for a limited time.

“Live FUT Friendlies will present a new way to interact with campaigns and player programs throughout the year. Completing certain objectives in Live FUT Friendlies will earn you unique rewards.”

For more information on the FUT 21 launch visit ea.com for the full pitch notes.

Will you be gaining early access to FIFA 21?

Let us know!

For all the latest competitive FIFA news and analysis follow Dart Frog on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Featured Image: EA Sports

Categories
League of Legends

PSG upset LGD as Worlds 2020 kicks off with a bang

After what felt like an eternity of waiting, Worlds 2020 is finally here, and just one day into the Play-in stage, there’s already been twists and turns – namely the upset of LGD Gaming by PSG Talon.

LGD Gaming, the number four seed of the LPL Chinese league found themselves thoroughly defeated by the second seed of the PCS. The team based in Hong Kong upset the home-town LGD in incredible circumstances. Not only were the team seen as heavy underdogs headed into the matchup, but they were also competing with three substitute players.

How did PSG upset LGD?

Shortly before the start of Worlds 2020, it was revealed that due to visa issues PSG would have to play the majority of the play-in stage without three of their starters. Korean’s Kim “River” Dong-woo and Park “Tank” Dan-won would be forced to sit out for the entirety of the stage, while Wong “Unified” Chun Kit, their starting Bot Laner would miss the majority of the games.

This left PSG without their starting Jungler, Mid Laner and Bot. However in terms of stand-ins and replacements, they couldn’t’ have done better. The team picked up Hsiao “Kongyue” Jen-Tso, adn Chen “Uniboy” Chang-Chu from PSG’s PCS rivals ahq eSports Club. They also recruited Chen “Dee” Chun-Dee, a player who’s been taking a break from the game for over a year. Still, this trio of superstar Taiwanese players took to the rift with gusto and showed their opponents up at every turn.

In a match that started slow, PSG swung the game in their favour with better teamfights and map awareness. The LPL team seemed paralysed in the opening of the matchup, failing to live up to the early-game aggression which the region is famous for. Instead, in a slow, methodical and decisive fashion, PSG was able to take control and defeat LGD.

The standout was freshly returned star Dee, who hasn’t taken part in a competitive League of Legends match for over a year. On loan from Machi Esports, the ADC player has been a standout for the LMS, ECS, and now PCS, but his performance at Worlds is still a surprise.

What now for LGD?

For a team widely expected to easily sweep through their group and head to the main event, LGD must now lick their wounds and return to the drawing board. The team seemed to lack their trademark aggression and even superstar jungler Peanut seemed off-kilter, even though he’s no stranger to the international stage.

However, there are plenty of games ahead in the play-in stage for LGD. They face the CIS’s Unicorns of Love on Sunday, and Latin America’s Lyon Gaming tomorrow, on Saturday, September 26. These should be a pair of slam dunks for LGD, but having already shown weakness, they’re in danger. UoL are no pushovers, and Latin American teams historically love to cause upsets. There’s a real risk that LGD could fail to make it out of the stage.

You can catch all the action from the matches on Riot Games’ official YouTube and Twitch channel.

Categories
CS:GO

ESL Pro League Season 12 North America – Who made it?

The ESL Pro League Season 12 North America Group Stages are over and it was an incredibly close four week of matches. There was a race for the fourth seed into the playoffs with 100 Thieves, Chaos, and Gen.G all racing for that final spot. However, 100 Thieves came out on top and head to the playoffs with Team Liquid, Evil Geniuses and FURIA Esports.

The race for fourth

The race for the fourth seed has been stemming from the beginning of the third week. The likes of Chaos, Gen.G and 100T had their super week, and it came down to the wire. Gen.G, unfortunately, had to compete against the top three teams after starting strong, but sadly they went 1-2 in week three. Meanwhile, Chaos started growing wins in week three with a 2-1 week, only losing to Evil Geniuses. 100 Thieves had a strong showing in week three, with a 2-1 week, only losing to Gen.G.

With these results, Chaos managed to take the fifth place from Gen.g, and the race was on between Chaos and 100T in week four. If either team lost and the other one it could decide the fourth-place team. Only in week four, both teams won. Chaos came in clutch with the 2-1 series win over FURIA. Chaos needed to get a sizeable round lead in their wins if they wanted to close the gap of positive round difference to contend against 100T. And that is what they did. Chaos brought their Overpass CT side to 16-3 in an impressive game three.

Chaos had a great Overpass showing against FURIA

Nevertheless, Chaos’ dream of making playoffs was shut down. 100T was the match after Chaos, and they got the clean 2-0 series win against Triumph. With that victory, 100T qualified to the ESL Pro League Season 12 North America Playoffs.

Evil Geniuses top the groups

Evil Geniuses remain the most consistent North American team in CS:GO. Throughout the four weeks of the EPL, Evil Geniuses has only lost one series to FURIA 0-2 and Triumph is the only team to take a map off them in their series wins. With Chaos beating FURIA, EG secured first place as the only team with a 6-1 record in the Group Stage.

Since FURIA and Evil Geniuses are the top two seeds from the Groups, they both head to the Upper Bracket Final. This will be a rematch, and it will be interesting to see if FURIA can beat EG once again on 24th September. Evil Geniuses are back-to-back North American champions, and they have continued to grow their trophy cabinet since coming back from the player break. Perhaps Evil Geniuses are destined for another trophy if FURIA is not able to repeat the Group success they had in week three.

Stay tuned to Dartfrog for all the latest news and analysis on CS:GO and follow us on our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitch. Image via ESL / Helena-Kristiansson.

Categories
Dota 2

rmN- will continue to substitute KuroKy in the OGA Dota PIT Season 3 EU/CIS

We are just a few days away from the beginning of the OGA Dota PIT Season 3 EU/CIS. We will once again see some of the best teams in the world fighting for that impressive prize pool. Of course, one of the main favourites to win the entire event is Team Nigma.

The European powerhouse has been in excellent form recently, although they’ve been playing without their leader KuroKy. Unfortunately, the legendary Dota 2 player will continue to be away due to his injury. This means that Roman “rmN-” Paley will continue to be a stand-in for the team.

rmN- steps up

In case you’ve forgotten, the OGA Dota PIT Season 2 took place in July this year. This was when we first learned that Kuroky won’t be able to play for his team. Even though he is an integral part of Nigma’s success in the last couple of years, Kuro had to go through a specific physical therapy.

Sadly, the player picked up an injury, which prevented him from taking part in the Dota PIT Season 2, as well as the OMEGA League: Europe Immortal Division. Luckily, Nigma actually managed to find a really good substitute in the face of rmN-. As expected, the player will continue to fill in the gap left by Kuroky, until the player is back on track.

So, here is the full Nigma Roster for the upcoming event:

  • Amer”Miracle-” Al-Barkawi
  • Aliwi “w33” Omar
  • Ivan “MinD_ContRoL” Borislavov
  • Maroun “GH” Merhej
  • Roman “rmN-” Paley

Be sure not to miss this event because it’s going to be interesting to see what will unfold. Even though many don’t believe it, we think that Nigma has what it takes to put an end to Team Secret’s reign.

Feel free to follow DartFrog on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitch for the latest Dota 2 news.

Categories
CS:GO

ESL Pro League Season 12 Europe – The Group Stage winners

The ESL Pro League Season 12 Europe Group Stages are over. The top four teams from each group are decided and will head to the quarterfinals beginning on 29 September. With that said, let us take a look at the eight teams who made it out of the Groups.

Group A

Over in Group A, Natus Vincere was the most consistent team in the ESL Pro League Season 12 Europe. The team was constantly in the top two teams of the Group with a first-place finish by the end of Group A. The only team to beat them in their group was ENCE, who was tied first place with Na’Vi until they fell off in the final week. For Natus Vincere, this a huge deal after their recent tournaments has been sub-par considering their standard. The Group Stage of the EPL has woke them up into the giants we know they are.

As mentioned in the week before, Group A was becoming a lot tenser by the second week. The likes of Heroic, G2, OG and BIG were climbing and the battle for the three other seeds in Group A was tough. In the end, Heroic and BIG grew into the role of quarterfinalist, with BIG even knocking ENCE out of the top two to take the second-place group finish.

Heroic’s win over OG sent them to the quarterfinals

Group B

Over in Group B, Astralis came from being a bottom team to a top team in the space of two weeks. They are the most improved team in the ESL Pro League Season 12 Europe league by far. In Week Two, Astralis got their in-game leader, Lukas “Gla1ve” Rossander back. Every other game they rotated Lucas “Bubzkji” Andersen Patrick “es3tag” Hansen, which seemed to have worked. By the end of the Group Stage, Astralis sit in first place with a 6-1 record, just like Natus Vincere in Group A.

As for Group B, it was rather close as it was all the way through the group stage. Complexity fell off as the favourites for Group A in the final week as mousesports played upset and took the world number five down ina 2-0 series. Moving on, FaZe Clan somehow managed a victory over them, making space for Astralis to pass them. With mousesports clutch win, they managed to keep them in the playoffs race before locking it in with a win over Vitality. Surprisingly, Team Spirit made it through tho the quarter-finals after a great series. They made their way into the groups after their victory over mousesports in the final week.

mousesports getting in a key round which leads to a 2-0 series over Vitality

Quarters

On the 29th September, Natus Vincere will play mousesports in the first quarter-finals of the day. Moving on, Complexity and ENCE will battle in the following series. BIG and Team Spirit are the third matchup of the day with Astralis and Heroic closing the day with a Danish darby. The losers of these series will play on 30th September in the Lower Bracket Round One elimination matches. The action is expected to kick off at 14:00 CEST for both days.

Stay tuned to Dartfrog for all the latest news and analysis on CS:GO and follow us on our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitch.