14 of the 16 participants of the ESL Pro League final are known after the decisive matches of the so-called middle playoff of groups C and D in which BIG defeated Heroic and GamerLegion ENCE.
German fans are celebrating the success of BIG, which for the first time in 2024 made it to the finals of a major competition. Once a top 10 team in the world, BIG has currently fallen to 37th place due to poor results this year, including missing out on major events like IEM Cologne and the PGL Copenhagen Major.
Their play in the ESL Pro League hints at some better days to come, and like many other teams, they took advantage of Heroic's weak spot in the form of a problematic AWP position that is rumored to be changing soon, and deservedly won 2-1.
Heroic convincingly won on Nuke with a score of 13-5, but BIG managed to recover on Vertiga where we saw two equal halves, and after overtime they won 16-13. Ancient decided the winner, and on it, BIG takes 8 rounds on the T side and with the help of the ball leaves only one round to the rivals in the continuation for a convincing 13-5 and passing on.
In group C, the new five of GamerLegion showed their potential, and especially Henrich "sl3nd" Hevesi and Andreas "aNdu" Maasing stood out with 39 frags and 1.54 and 1.40 ratings respectively.
ENCE is not able to repeat the good performances from IEM Katowice and it is slowly becoming evident that changes in the team will be necessary if they want to seriously compete against the best teams in the world. GL made it clear that they were the favorite in this match when they took the opponent's pick Nuke 13-5, and then celebrated with a 13-10 victory on the Overpass map.
ENCE is expecting a match against FURIE today, and the winner of that duel will play against the better team from the Monte - FORZA match for a place in the playoffs.
While in group D, Heroic and Ninjas in Pajamas will meet again, as at the start of the tournament, and FlyQuest will play against Pera Esports. By crossing the winners of these matches, we will get the last passenger to the next stage of the competition.
