NRG vs MVP PK

ESL Pro League Season 7 Finals,

With the first round of the ESL Pro League Season 7 finals already done and dusted, we move onto the second round -- best of three elimination bracket. In this specific match, we have NRG taking on MVP PK. As stated before this will be a best of three matches and the loser will be eliminated from the event. We will discuss in detail the ins and outs of these teams as well as how their previous matches in the event went. Considering this is the lower bracket, the previous matches did not go well. Let's dive in.

NRG:

After losing 6-16 to the newly formed Heroic, NRG find themselves in a tight spot as they will have to take on MVP PK. The team NRG lost to is Heroic, who recently went through a two-man roster change and this is their first event together as a team. This can often lead to a newly established success and then a crashing failure. When new teams are formed, lesser teams like NRG can lose to them because of unpredictability, however, I don't see upper tier teams like Astralis or Faze to lose to Heroic. Heroic is a good opponent for NRG to lose to however because NRG may have an easier time going through the lower bracket to have a more successful event run.

Maps: NRG's map pool looks like this; Mirage is 13-4, Inferno is 11-5, Overpass is 11-3, Train is 8-2, Cache is 7-1, Nuke is 6-1, and Dust 2 has yet to be played

MVP PK :

Arriving in the bottom bracket after losing 7-16 to Natus Vincere, MVP PK finds themselves ready to take on NRG for their life in this event. Losing to Natus Vincere is not common, however losing that great can be seen as an issue. This is mostly due to the fact that Natus Vincere is an established team and running strategies against them can work and they can be predictable. Without MVP PK doing their research into Natus Vincere, they put themselves out of the battle before it even began. This might produce a similar result when duking it out against NRG.\

Maps: MVP PK's map pool looks like this; Inferno is 17-8, Mirage is 8-7, Nuke is 3-5, Train is 3-3, Cache is 2-1, Dust 2 is 0-1, and Overpass is 0-1

Map Pick/Ban :

This is a best of three series, so each team will ban two maps, pick one, and the remaining one map shall be the deciding map that defaults to be played if the series goes to three maps. MVP PK will want to ban Overpass and Nuke as they are no fond of these maps. NRG will ban Dust 2 and Inferno to take away the worst map of their and the best from MVP PK. The remaining maps will be Mirage, Inferno, and Train.

Final Thoughts:

Looking at these two teams on paper they seem relatively the same caliber of skill. However, MNP PK's favorite map was Cobblestone and without Cobblestone being in the map pool anymore the adjustments from MVP PK may be off, allowing NRG to step in and have the map advantage as they were not fond of Cobblestone. This map pick and bans do favor NRG and I feel confident in NRG's ability to take this best of three series. Medium bet on NRG.