Last night, the ESL Pro League Season 11 officially kicked off. Originally, this was supposed to be an on-site tournament; however, due to the complex developments of the COVID-19 pandemic, the local government in Malta – the event’s host city – imposed entry bans on many countries and implemented various restrictions, forcing ESL to switch to an online format along with changes in the tournament brackets.
Specifically, out of the 4 groups, 3 groups will be from the EU region (including teams from this area and some North American teams that had previously moved over) and one group dedicated to North American teams. Some names like Renegades, Sharks, and Heroic also unexpectedly withdrew from the tournament and were replaced by Swole Patrol, BIG, and another team yet to be announced.
Last night, the first matches of Group A took place, with the highlight match being the clash between Astralis and NiP. Before the match, not many believed in a favorable outcome for the Swedes as they had lost all 9 of their recent encounters (in BO3 matches), and while Astralis had not been in their best form lately, they remained one of the top teams in the world with outstanding players like Magisk, dev1ce, and dupreeh.
The first map was Vertigo, NiP’s pick, and they stunned everyone with an extremely high performance from all team members. On a day when both dev1ce and dupreeh played poorly, Magisk alone was not enough to help Astralis fend off NiP’s organized and effective attacks. The first half ended with a dominant score of 12-3 for NiP, and in the second half, they only allowed their opponents to secure 3 more rounds before closing out map 1 with a score of 16-6.
The scenario of the first map continued to repeat itself as NiP members demonstrated complete superiority in individual skills and executed their strategies extremely effectively, while Astralis struggled to find a way into the bombsite. Map 2 ended with a score of 16-8, and ultimately NiP convincingly defeated Astralis 2-0.
An interesting piece of information is that this is the first time in over 3 years that NiP has defeated Astralis in a BO3 match, since the StarSeries i-league Season 2 Finals in September 2016. During this period, the two teams faced each other a total of 9 times in BO3 matches, with all victories going to the Danes.
Results from last night’s matches in Group A of ESL Pro League Season 11:
ENCE 0 – 2 Team Spirit
Vitality 2 – 0 GODSENT
NiP 2 – 0 Astralis
ESL Pro League Season 11 will continue to be played from now until April 12 in the evening and early morning hours. All these matches will be commented live in Vietnamese on the Youtube channel of 500Bros Studio.