On Day 3 of the EUL, TT9 and G2 at the bottom of the table played top-ranked Heroic and Wolves, BDS faced Outsiders in the first Shaiiko vs Dan match in a year, Secret and NAVI played to solidify themselves in the mid-table, and Rogue played MNM in a repeat of Stage 2’s barn-burner meeting.
Firstly, here are the final scores by the end of the day:
- Heroic 7 - 5 TT9 Esports
- Team BDS 8 - 6 Outsiders
- MNM Gaming 8 - 7 Rogue
- G2 Esports 7 - 5 Wolves Esports
- Team Secret 8 - 7 Natus Vincere
Play of the day: LeonGids quad-kill
While the kills came against players not looking in his direction, a quadruple kill from Rogue’s LeonGids in the space of nine seconds was the flashiest play of the day to save a 2v4 situation:
BiBooAF also had an 18-second quadruple kill on Azami, but three kills were off camera, so it’s hard to judge the play properly.
Player of the day: Kantoraketti
While his team lost, Kanto’s 18 kills to nine deaths was very close to Tyrant’s 18-13 performance for MNM. This mirrors their last meeting, where Cryn and Yuzus ended with 20 kills each.
What puts Kanto ahead is that he did this on a less aggressive operator -- Sledge and not Nokk -- he got his team’s only clutch, and his teammates performed notably worse. A total of 18 kills was just below the kill counts of LeonGids, Deapek, and Cryn combined, as the trio earnt nine, three, and seven kills, respectively.
As well as the lone clutch, it was Kanto’s kills that both got Rogue to overtime and got them to round 15. Tyrant performed amazingly, and so did a number of his teammates, leading to the MNM win.
Surprise of the day: MNM Gaming
While “surprise” may be the wrong word, considering SiegeGG called them the historical favourites before the match, MNM Gaming’s win over Rogue was still momentous. MNM are the only T1 roster with a perfect record against this core Rogue team, thanks to a comeback from 1-5 down on their attacks.
Top moments of the day
Finally, here’s a quickfire rundown of other notable moments in the EUL on Monday:
Fabian screws up the map bans
Despite beating Wolves on Theme Park, G2 Esports had no intention of going to this map and hadn’t practiced it at all. Fabian seemingly messed up during the map ban phase, surprising his players with the eventual pick
Worst play of the stage?
Always killed himself and injured both dan and m1loN with a single grenade. This mistake is reminiscent of Doki’s grenade double team-kill last stage and, in yesterday’s game, ultimately led to a flawless defeat in the round to tie the scoreline at 5-5.
Very one-sided rounds, very tight matchup
All but two rounds in the G2 vs Wolves game ended in a 1v3 or worse situation. Nevertheless, the match was close between teams when looking at the scores. The first half ended 3-3 and a 1v2 by Doki -- the only clutch of the game -- was the difference that led to a 7-5 G2 win.
A 0-8 for LikEfac and Shaiiko
After SiegeGG highlighted the duo’s amazing 14-3 opening record during the first two weeks of games, Shaiiko and LikEfac both started their game against Outsiders with zero kills and four deaths each.
On round five at 1-3 down, LikEfac earnt the opening kill against Rask, while Shaiiko on Ash got a triple kill against m1loN, Always, and p4sh4. However, BDS still lost this round as Dan won a 1v1 post-plant clutch.
On the other side, Dan peaked with 10 kills to two deaths.
As sides switched, BDS managed to hit match point first, thanks to a successful defensive half, before a LikEfac triple closed the game out at 8-6.
LikEfac: We focused too much attention on the Kaids on their setup instead of playing our game, our play style. That’s why we lost too many rounds on the attack. At 6-6, I said let’s play fast, let’s just destroy them, let’s go and that’s what we did and we won the round.
Team Secret have won six of their last eight games in the EUL
With two 8-7 results in a row against G2 Esports and now Natus Vincere, Secret are on a roll. They’ve beaten Heroic, Wolves, TT9, BDS, G2, and NAVI in their last eight games, all but one of which came in overtime. They have not lost an overtime game since Stage 1.
Their next games will be against Outsiders, Wolves, and then MNM, each of whom look like a tough game. All three of those teams will hope to get out of the mid-table, while Secret hope to cement themselves in that midfield after an awful season so far.
This week’s game stood out in particular due to NAVI’s comeback from 3-6 down. The team won three rounds in a row, including a 1v3 clutch on time by Nathan, before then only losing the game in a failed retake onto the CEO objective on round 15.
Heroic vs TT9 clutches
Amision added to his growing clutch count with a 1v1 clutch over Meloo on the Statuary objective, as he got the kill with nine seconds left and finished the defuse seven seconds later.
This was then reversed, as jume successfully got the defuser down two seconds before he was swung on to win a 1v1 against Niko2k.
Heroic alone at top, five-way tie for fifth, Russian squads back at the bottom
Next week, Heroic will play BDS as the league’s top two teams fight for first. Both teams have yet to lose in Stage 3 so far as well. Heroic already have twice the points of fifth-placed Wolves, so a win for them puts them in a very strong position to qualify for another Major.
