NRG vs Rogue

ESL Pro League Season 7 North America ,

Another day, another wonderful opportunity to see some high level Counter Strike be played. Fortunately yesterday we correctly predicted the Torqued game and piggy backing off of that victory, we come to today's match up with two North American Squads; Teams NRG and Rogue. Both of these teams aren't the best in North American by any means, but they do however have players that could be on potentially top tier squads. That being said, this game will be a mixture of team play and just sheer carry potential by the stars of each line up. Let's get into the analysis.

NRG :

After making several roster changes NRG have now solidified themselves as an all around organization and I am very impressed with the strides they have made as a team with their recent pick ups. Cerq is a definite player to watch as his results are almost unparalleled compared to the rest of his team. The only other player that can have a stand out performance like Cerq is Brehze. Who has stand out performances on maps like Mirage.

RNG's maps are as followed ; Mirage is 2-1, Cache is 1-1, Inferno is 1-1, Train is 1-1, Overpass is 0-1, and maps Nuke and Cobblestone have yet to be played in recent form by this squad.

Rogue :

Rogue have always been a team that has never really been on my radar until they acquired former Team Liquid player Hiko. Hiko had outstanding performances on Liquid and was often refereed to as the Clutch King. Ever since his departure I can't say for sure if Liquid is better off without him, but because of his departure it has allowed other players to shine and step up to become better players. Going back to Rogue, with Hiko joining, he has had much influence on the growth of this squad. Picking up European stars like Cadian, and home town North American hero like Sick. Rogue is a team to soon be feared, but their latest games aren't really living up to their potential.

Torqued's maps are as followed ; Inferno is 5-6, Mirage is 7-2, Overpass is 2-2, Cache is 2-1, Cobblestone is 0-3, Train is 2-0, and Nuke is 1-0

Map Pick/Ban :

This series is a best of two with each individual match being counted as its own. Each map is also predetermined and for this specific game, Mirage will be the map to be played. This doesn't give a clear advantage to either team as Mirage is a staple in almost every teams map pool. So this will come down to pure skill and execution of the map.

Final Thoughts:

Looking more into the overall rating of these two teams and their individual players I see that this will mainly be a battle of who shows up between Cerq from NRG and Sick from Rogue. Both of these players are absolutely insane on this map and though every other member of each squad can put on a show as well, these two players will be the ones to decide the game. Because of his consistency and his impact he puts on the game, I will have to give my favor to Cerq and the NRG squad to take this over Rogue. Medium on NRG.