A look at the teams for ESL One Cologne: Part 11 – Team eBettle.
Part 1 – Cloud9
Part 2 – Immunity
Part 3 – mousesports
Part 4 – Virtus.pro
Part 5 – FlipSid3 Tactics
Part 6 – Kinguin
Part 7 – Luminosity Gaming
Part 8 – EnVyUs
Part 9 – Titan
Part 10 – Natus Vincere
That eBettle managed to qualify for ESL One Cologne 2015 came as a big surprise, which in some part would be that they recently changed organization after qualifying online for the offline qualifier http://www.hltv.org/news/15308-inshock-lose-team , where they was known as INSHOCK, but also in no small part due to they were not even regarded as the second best Polish team, which would be Gamers2, but as they failed spectacularly as well as Dignitas and HellRaisers, then eBettle prevailed. As they had qualified for the offline qualifier they sought a stronger organization and left INSHOCK, and was then picked up by eBettle.
The only two events that I will look at will be ESL One Cologne 2015 EU Offline Qualifier and AMD CS:GO Challenge Summer 2015.
ESL One Cologne 2015 EU Offline Qualifier was not a dominating display by eBettle as all of their matches ended up being close with the first against Epiphany they secured a win OT 22:19 (Train), and against HellRaisers they finished 16:14 (Overpass) in the Poles favor. In the winner’s final they faced the new Titan lineup, and on paper it should have been a one-sided show ending with the French on top, but Hyper carried his team to victory with the score 25:23 (Train).
While eBettle qualified they barely won against all of their opponents, and it was by no means a dominating performance, but they earned their spot.
At AMD CS:GO Challenge Summer 2015 they beat SKILITE 16:8 (Cobblestone), and then faced ROCCAT, the former ENCORE lineup, who the Poles won with 16:13 (Dust2). In the semifinal they faced Epiphany who they this time managed to beat more decisively 16:5 (Dust2), 16:11 (Overpass). In the Grand final they faced ROCCAT again, and they again managed to beat the Finns 22:18 (Cobblestone), 7:16 (Dust2), 16:12 (Mirage).
The event was not packed with high number of tier2 and tier3 teams, but they did show that they can beat teams convincingly.
If you want to look slightly more into eBettle take a look at HLTV, however, rallen joined in June, but I was surprised when I was skimming through their matches with them playing better than I had recalled, however, don’t put too much emphasize on their stats as they are heavily inflated by playing low level teams as e.g. in the Copenhagen Games 2015 qualifier.
Thoughts
While eBettle stands no chance of winning the major, and realistically with the caliber of teams there they are one of the weakest teams there in the same region as Immunity, Renegades and FlipSid3. Their first opponent will be FNATIC, and while they have showed moments of weakness they should win the matchup against eBettle 97 out of 100 times. Realistically they should end at the 13-16th spot, but might be able to reach 9-12 if they are lucky with the draws. There is not much point in looking at their maps, as I expect them to be blown away on most of the maps due to their opponents’ superior firepower, and I expect them to lose most of their matches.
