ENCE have recovered from their 2-0 loss to Vitality yesterday by defeating Astralis, one of the heavy hitters of ESL Pro League season 14, today 2-0 (16-9 on Ancient and 16-11 on Nuke).
Although the result can’t be considered a total upset given the fact that Astralis are playing with its newest addition Philip “Lucky” Ewald instead of Andreas “Xyp9x” Højsleth, it’s a surprise that the international CS:GO team managed to keep Astralis on the ropes today. They didn’t allow Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander’s squad to get to double digits on Ancient, the first map of the series, and never really lost control of Nuke despite Astralis’ attempt to come back at the end of the game.
ENCE were powered by the performance of Polish AWPer Olek “hades” Miskiewicz, who officially replaced the Finnish legend Aleksi “allu” Jalli in June following a period of trials. The 21-year-old was dominant in both maps of the series, especially Ancient, where he averaged a 1.73 rating on top of producing a 29-14 K/D ratio and a whopping 112.2 ADR.
This result leaves Group A of ESL Pro League season 14 open to anyone. Vitality are the only team so far with a 2-0 record, followed by Astralis, ENCE, and Heroic, who have one victory each so far. The latter will still play today against Team Spirit and can either trail Vitality or be joined by Team Spirit, who were defeated by Astralis yesterday. Bad News Bears are at the bottom of the group, having lost to Heroic and Vitality already.
