With the first week of ESL Impact down, I've put together a summary of the games to catch you up on any of the excitement you missed! If video is more your thing, do also check out the quick recap video - though if you want all the juicy details, read on!
Europe
Kicking things off in Group A, Nigma Galaxy maintained their dominance from Season 1 and Valencia. Inferno, the map pick of Ninjas in Pyjamas, was a one-way street, with Nigma Galaxy not giving an inch on NIPs debut. While the whole squad contributed, Tory in particular shone at the top of the scoreboard with 21 kills, 10 assists, and 135 ADR across the 18 rounds.
Vertigo offered an opportunity for NIP, and on their CT start were able to string together 7 rounds - unfortunately letting a few 1v2 rounds slip against the clutch queens of ANa and twenty3. Thrown in the deep end against the reigning champs, NIP showed promise on their debut, particularly the CT side AWP of ASTRA and the multi-kill potential of pullox. 🐱👤
NOFEAR5 and Entropiq Queens gave us the only 3 map series of the European matches. Inferno kicked off with a strong start for the Queens, establishing a 12:4 lead off the back of their T side pistol. NOFEAR5 clawed back on the force buy, and pushed the map all the way to OT to secure the win. Ancient looked to be a close battle, but after an 8:7 half, Entropiq Queens took the map decisively 16:10 - helped significantly by Ailie doing a repeat of Inferno and wracking up 31 kills! The decider map of Mirage saw a full 30 rounds of play, with NOFEAR5 taking the win off the back key clutches from ksu and Stormy.
In Group B, Astralis faired better in their debut in a tight affair against BIG Equipa. Despite being the more established team, BIG Equipa come into the season with a new player and a shake-up in roles across the squad. The opening map of Dust II was a brawl, and despite an impressive performance from RachelFR and a pistol round ace from kezziw0w, BIG took the map 16:12, with JennyR not letting IGLing get in the way of her fragging, and D7 impressing at the top of the scoreboard.
Ancient was closer still, going all 30 rounds. Astralis took a slight lead at the half, and off the back of multiple nail-biting clutches, including an incredible 1v4 from spike, put themselves in a 12:7 lead. The experience of BIG Equipa kicked in, putting up a brick wall against the Astralis attack, with D7 once again stepping up and putting up 34 kills across the map!
NAVI Javelins and MostValuablePlayers started off with another close map on Dust II. After conceding an 8:2 scoreline early, MVP clawed their way back with individual heroics, including this 1v3 from f6tal:
NAVI were able to pull it back at the end, taking MVP's map pick 16:12 and seeing AWPer vicu 30 bomb. On Nuke, NAVI firmly established themselves as the team to beat on the map. Conceding just 2 rounds on their entire T side, they looked unstoppable, and a special shoutout has to be given to Danuu, who had an incredible 24 kills and just 3 deaths!
South America
Group A of South America started with a BANG! 💥 FURIA took on Black Dragons, who absolutely took them to task on Dust II. Normally a comfortable favourite for South American superstars, they started out strong with an 11:4 lead going into the T side, but Black Dragons took the fight to them and pushed the group favourites all the way to double OT! On the Black Dragons side, Babs and annaEX both put up 33 kills across the map, but it wasn't enough to stop FURIA closing it out with a flawless second OT. They certainly had to work for it, with OLGA sitting pretty on 38 kills. FURIA continued the momentum onto Mirage, where OLGA and izaa combined for 23 kills a piece, and comfortably closed the series with an almost flawless CT side.
w7m esports made quick work of Parabellum Esports, with yodinha2k putting up 27 kills across just 20 rounds of Inferno, including back-to-back 1v2 and 1v3 clutches early on the T side. A 12:3 half proved far too much for Parabellum to recover from, and w7m quickly closed their map pick. Parabellum got off to a great start on Dust II, kicking it off with a 5:0 lead on the T side, aided by two 4k rounds from katii. Unfortunately, this would be all they would muster, and w7m took the next 16 rounds consecutive the close the series.
INDEPENDENCE looked good on their map pick of Vertigo against MIBR, with dudi and Akela leading them to a respectable 7 T side rounds. Unfortunately they couldn't repeat this success on the CT side, where the aggression from MIBR was overwhelming. Arkynha in particular helped secure the team a flawless T side, with 4 multi-kill rounds and a 1v1 clutch to boot. Dust II saw a reversal of fates for INDEPENDENCE, who secured 7 rounds on the CT side, but only managed a single round of the offense. Once again Arkynha played a big role in their success, with 27 kills across the 24 rounds of play.
Another favourite in Group B, B4 Esports, had a great start to the season against ENDGAME. Starting off on the CT side of their opponents map pick of Vertigo, B4 took a 9:6 lead at the half, with AWPer yungher putting up an incredible 21 kills at the half - and the majority with a rifle! ENDGAME evened things out early on their CT side, but once B4 got their hands on rifles the rounds quickly went the favour of the Ts, only conceding a single round to a luhflickzz AWP 4k on their way to a 16:10 finish.
B4 continued their streak onto Inferno, where the new addition of young gun poppins popped off, putting up 18 kills on the T side, a significant part of their 11:4 score at the half. ENDGAME fought back in the pistol and were able to convert against the force, but B4 closed the door, and nani showed why she is one of the best banana players in the scene!
North America
In North America, it came as no surprise to see the new look CLG Red start the season strong. Their Group A opener opponents Saints got off to a good start on their map pick of Inferno, taking the pistol and follow up round. But as soon as the guns came out, it was the CLG Red show the whole way, dropping just a single further round. Every member of the star studded international roster chimed in for a quick and easy 16:3 map. 🌠
They didn't slow down going into Overpass, with Kaoday kicking things off in round 2 with a lovely anti-eco ace. The French AWPer continued to shine across the rest of the map, ending on a lovely 30 bomb, and the Saints struggled to find a way to stop her. They scored three nice consecutive rounds early on, including one supported by a 4K from lisa, but it wasn't enough against the onslaught of CLG Red who closed it out 16:4.
Our other Group A match-up saw Valkyries take on Reversal, starting out on Ancient. The map pick of Reversal started out an even affair, with Reversal bouncing back after losing the pistol and follow up round. After equalising at 2:2, the Valkyries took flight and were untouchable, closing it out 16:3. Vertigo looked like it would go the same way, as after a strong start from Reversal, Valkyries would find 9 consecutive rounds and an 11:4 half on the T side. Reversal found their form in the second half, and off the back of a fantastic 4K - including a 1v2 - from pur, looked in arms reach of closing. Valkyries were able to take the map to OT, where they were able to close the series out 19:17, with galy finding 35 kills in the process.
Perhaps the most exciting - and anticipated - match-up of Group B was the clash between Please Send Bocks and Evil Geniuses. It started off with a bang, with the Bocks taking a strong early lead of 7:2 on their pick of Overpass. Momentum would shift to the women in blue, who managed 10 consecutive rounds before the Bocks could fight back. Empathy in particular impressed from EG, but it would be the Bocks to force OT after staring down a 15:10 scoreline. In OT, EG found the first round but Please Send Bocks had no issue closing it out 19:16, with senna being the star of the show.
On Dust II, empathy continued to impress, pulling off an impressive 1v4 in the 3rd round. Though the Bocks found some success on the CT side, it was the clutching prowess of EG that took them to a 9:6 half - winning 5 1vX scenarios! PSB evened the scoreline on their T side, but from then on it was one-way traffic for EG and a comfortable 16:11. Momentum now firmly with them, the decider of Ancient started competitive with an early 6:6 scoreline. That would be all the Bocks would find though, and aided by a fantastic performance from milk, EG easily took the third map 16:6.
The last match-up would see Hot Flash and ECHO kick things off on an explosive Overpass, picked by ECHO. It was a back and forth battle early on, with Hot Flash looking in control, despite a couple of great rounds from Follygag - including a 1v2 into a 4K. With one round separating them at the half, Hot Flash managed to turn it into a 12:7 lead, only for ECHO to lock the door with 8 consecutive rounds to find map point. They were given a scare off a 1v2 clutch from sunnypp, but closed the map out directly afterwards.
Inferno looked to be a similar story, with ECHO getting off to a commanding lead on the CT side and ending the half 10:5. Hot Flash found some success early on the CT side of their map pick, but the continuing heroics of sunnypp and Summer would not be enough to slow down ECHO, who comfortably closed the map out 16:9 to take the series.
Following the script?
It wasn't too surprising to see many of the favourites take their opening games. The more established rosters - particularly those from the ESL Impact Season 1 Finals and ESL Impact Valencia finals - looked confident, but the scorelines show this season looks to be incredibly competitive! Considering it was also the debut of quite a few teams in this first week, and there's still plenty of time to see what these teams can do as the weeks progress. Our standings following week 1 look as follows:
