Forecast for the quarterfinals of ESL Pro League Season 19. Who will advance further?
The most interesting part of the 19th season of the ESL Pro League has arrived – the full playoffs. No more long group stages lasting several weeks and no more awkward first rounds of the decider. There are only eight strongest teams left in the tournament, which will fight for a prize pool of 750 thousand dollars and a slot at IEM Cologne 2024. Complexity, Virtus.pro, MOUZ, G2 Esports, Astralis, Team Liquid, Team Vitality and FaZe Clan will perform in the quarterfinals. Very soon we will find out the name of the new champion of the tournament series from ESL, and in this material we will discuss the upcoming quarterfinals and decide on the teams that will advance further.
Complexity vs Virtus.pro
The final stage of ESL Pro League Season 19 will open with a confrontation between the updated Virtus.pro and Complexity, who are on the verge of reshuffles. This match is extremely important for the North Americans to prove the performance of the roster, and for Virtus.pro the tournament serves more as a test of their capabilities and the formation of the status of favorites in all upcoming championships. Virtus.pro have already come very far for a team that is playing for the first time with their new player. However, she definitely won’t stop there. Denis electroNic Sharipov came to the team with the goal of winning tournaments and VP will take advantage of any opportunity presented to compete for the main trophies.
For Virtus.pro, the group stage and the first rounds of the playoffs were difficult. The team had to overcome the Last Chance Stage, and started the decisive stage from the very bottom. But, nevertheless, she has already dealt with GamerLegion and gave a brilliant performance against TheMongolz. The Mongolian team will long remember Virtus.pro’s strong-willed comeback at the decisive Ancient from a score of 2-11. For CT, the «bears» played flawlessly and took 11 rounds in a row. It would seem that the team no longer has a chance to return to the game from such a devastating score, but they showed a great will to win and coped with a serious task. This will definitely give the team a boost in morale and energize them for the upcoming matches. Virtus.pro have reached their maximum goal at ESL Pro League Season 19 and will be able to perform with an updated lineup on the big stage, but they are capable of going further.
Their opponent confidently passed the group stage, defeating PERA and Heroic, and also sensationally won Natus Vincere. But it’s not a fact that this will be a plus: while Virtus.pro was playing and getting into shape, Complexity could only watch what was happening. Moreover, the group stage and the playoffs are completely different things and the team’s level of play can differ radically. The American roster still has a lot of problems and is hardly ready to compete against the best teams on the big stage. In this match we are more confident that Virtus.pro will win with a 65% chance.
MOUZ vs G2 Esports
G2 Esports once again reached the final stage of another tournament, showing a disgusting game in the group stage. The team was on the verge of failure, and the defeats against TheMongolz and M80 cannot be attributed to bad days; G2 showed absolutely nothing in these meetings. However, she made it through the Last Chance Stage and played more confidently in the playoffs. The match against BIG turned out to be quite simple, thanks to the insane performance of Nikola NiKo Kovac. But in the meeting with 3DMAX, G2 Esports traditionally faced enormous difficulties. The team again could have lost to one of the main outsiders of the championship, but thanks to its main stars, it was still able to pull itself together and move on. The demonstrated level of play clearly does not make the team look good in front of its opponent in the quarterfinals. MOUZ are charged with the championship title and clearly will not forgive such gross mistakes that Ilya m0NESY Osipov’s roster constantly makes.
Unlike G2 Esports, MOUZ showed a very confident and beautiful performance in the group stage. The team defeated Bad News Kangaroos, GamerLegion and Team Liquid with a clear 2:0 score on maps and advanced to the playoffs from first place. The defeat in the grand finals of IEM Chengdu 2024 clearly charged the team to grow further and they will take advantage of all the opportunities already at ESL Pro League Season 19, and G2 Esports is now clearly not the opponent that can interfere with them. We estimate MOUZ’s chances of winning at 70%.
Astralis vs Team Liquid
A couple of months ago, this meeting would have looked like a battle of outsiders, but at IEM Chengdu 2024, both teams entered the race for trophies at major championships and are performing much better. Astralis and Team Liquid suddenly went from the status of teams that are at most likely to qualify from the group to a state where they are ready to fight for the championship title. But Astralis still achieved greater success. Nicolai device Reedtz in the position of captain began to play like in his best years and is regaining his status as one of the best snipers on the planet. But the team itself began to play much better and has already dealt with world giants more than once. It’s not for nothing that the team is considered one of the main favorites of ESL Pro League Season 19. Astralis completed the group with a clear result against Eternal Fire and 3DMAX, and it also easily dealt with one of the favorites – FaZe Clan.
Team Liquid also showed a good performance at the tournament, but it did not compare with the performance of Astralis. Casper cadiaN Meller’s roster coped with FURIA, Monte and FlyQuest, but is approaching the quarterfinals as an outsider. We estimate Astralis’ chances of winning at 70%.
Team Vitality vs FaZe Clan
Previously, this confrontation was worthy only of the grand final, but a lot of time has passed and Team Vitality no longer looks like such a powerful team, and the performance of Mathieu ZywOo Herbaut is not enough to easily deal with any opponents. FaZe Clan continues to show confident play in CS2, and the vacation allowed the team to gain new strength and continue dominating the professional scene. FaZe Clan did not finish the group without mistakes, but in the playoffs they had already completed one of their main tasks – they took revenge on Natus Vincere for the grand final of PGL Major Copenhagen 2024. At ESL Pro League Season 19, the major champions did not have a chance, FaZe they were simply destroyed.
It is quite difficult to assess the level of Team Vitality’s performance due to the simple group. The team came out of first place, beating Sharks, BetBoom Team and TheMongolz. But Mathieu ZywOo Herbaut is still capable of putting on an insane personal performance and turning the tide of a fight in which they are clearly not favorites. However, we estimate FaZe Clan’s chances of making it to the semifinals at 60%.
In the semi-finals we expect Virtus.pro vs MOUZ and Astralis vs FaZe Clan to meet. Each of these teams is capable of claiming the championship title, which means that we will have very beautiful matches, the outcome of which is extremely difficult to predict. The playoffs of ESL Pro League Season 19 are already turning out to be colorful and rich in interesting confrontations. And we will see very soon which team will show itself better than the rest.