Virtus Pro stage a comeback, beat HellRaisers at ESL One Los Angeles

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HellRaisers opened up ESL One Los Angeles Online with a strong first game, but Virtus Pro bounced back and stomped their regional Dota 2 rival to win the first CIS battle. 

Alexander “Nix” Levin tried to be a consistent threat for his team, but the Virtus Pro frontline proved to be too experienced, letting their stand-in Igor “iLTW” Filatov and the ever-dangerous No[o]ne control the final two games. 

In game one, there was not a single instance where VP could take control. HellRaisers rolled to a dominant win in exactly 30 minutes. Nix’s Faceless Void and Arslan “xannii” Shadjanov’s Huskar scaled way too quickly for VP to answer with their own Bristleback-Wraith King frontline, leading to easy fights for HellRaisers as long as they controlled the support. 

The support game was easy for them to control. Yaroslav “Miposhka” Naidenov played a strong Disruptor, going untouched at 4/0/20, which let him back up his core heroes the entire game without delay. 

The 31-4 loss to open the event forced VP to act early with a first-pick Mars for Resolut1on, which they paired with a Slark and Sniper in the final rounds. And even with RodjER on Mirana and Nix playing a dangerous Riki, HellRaisers couldn’t do much against the VP core. 

Things remained close in terms of kills. HellRaisers still had decent team fight power and won some interactions despite never holding a net worth lead. VP didn’t shut their opponents down until the 28-minute mark when No[o]ne’s Sniper came alive. 

With everything evened up in the series, VP went with a strategic draft while it looked like HellRaisers went for comfort picks over counters. That led to a massive advantage going in for VP as iLTW was able to freely farm and win top lane while his teammates took care of business elsewhere. 

Only xannii showed up ready for a fight with his Templar Assassin, which wasn’t enough to keep No[o]ne’s Leshrac in check as VP was more than happy with walking into the TA and killing him. 

The game spiraled quickly and HellRaisers called GG after VP rushed the high ground, securing three big kills and hammering the base. VP now sit in third behind both OG and Vikin.gg in Group A and look ready to battle Gambit Esports on April 6.