The other ESL event

With Pro League in full swing, we know ESL Challenger Melbourne probably slipped under your radar.

Worry not, because we’ve got you covered with our quick recap.

The Group Play phase saw Apeks, Aurora, Rebels, and MIBR secure their spots in the Playoffs over Party Astronauts, sunday school, Rooster, and KZG.

No surprises there.

In the first semi-final, Apeks struggled to get over their post-Major slump and got knocked out by MIBR. On the other side of the bracket, Aurora swiftly swept Rebels to reach the Grand Final.

Ultimately, the Brazilian squad triumphed over Aurora in two maps, claiming the $50,000 prize and the coveted ESL Pro League Season 20 berth.

It seems the next generation of Brazilian talent is coming along quite nicely.

MIBR’s 20-year-old rifler insani obliterated the opposition in Melbourne, boasting an impressive 1.51 rating performance across 9 maps.

Bright future ahead for BR CS.

Fun fact: A Brazilian team has lifted the trophy 2 out of the last 3 iterations of ESL Challenger Melbourne, with paiN winning in 2022 and MIBR in 2024.

Does this mean Brazil will win a Major if it ever takes place in Australia?

Absolutely, mark our words.

Is this the worst map pool ever?

We don’t want to be reactionary, over the top and hyperbolic, but this might be the worst thing to ever happen in video games.

Not only have we lost the wonderful Overpass, we’ve replaced it with the tired, ugly, old-fashioned, puggy, uncouth, sandy cousin, Dust 2.

At least, that’s one way of looking at it. If you’re NiKo, or a BIG player, you’re probably happier that the new-fangled, far-too-big, not-as-complex-as-Jame-would-have-you-think, woke Overpass is out for the comfortable, iconic, based and cool Dust 2. Or something.

Some pros are calling this the ‘worst map pool ever’, while some couldn’t be happier to see the return of a map that makes them feel the way they did when they were a few years younger and still good at this game.

Aimed at nobody in particular.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. While there’s far too many ‘puggy’ maps (for want of a better word), it does have a mix of new, old, big and small. It’s hard for a big team to punish a weaker one in the veto, but perhaps that’s not a bad thing.

Inferno, Mirage, Dust 2, Vertigo and Ancient are all pretty close-up and brawl-y, while Nuke is the only bona fide tactical map. Anubis lies somewhere in the middle, for our money.

But… it’s a new game, and it’s easy to get lost in everything new. Sometimes you have to hark back to your roots and bring back all the soldiers we lost along the way. Dust 2 is going to get some 30 year old man back to playing Counter-Strike, and that’s beautiful.

Alternatively, the next Major is in China and it’s a business decision. Or, Valve just hate tactical Counter-Strike. Honestly, it could be anything.

Is it the worst map pool ever? Kind of. But it’s still better than playing any other game, so who gives a toss?

The Fire burned out

Despite being one map away from qualifying for the playoffs, Eternal Fire has burned out of EPL.

After losing their opening game to Astralis, Eternal Fire looked like they might still make it, beating both Imperial and Fnatic. Their Lower Final game started off amazingly as well, they took map 1 off FaZe, and then nearly went to OT on map 2. But map 3 didn’t go as well, and FaZe closed out as FaZe does. XANTARES specifically has to be kicking himself, he had a really rough map 3 despite nearly winning map 2 himself.

But hey, it wasn’t done yet, EF was still in the last chance stage… but not for long

They faced SAW who’d only won against Imperial all event, so naturally SAW 2-0’d EF. It wasn’t even a close series, EF managed 11 rounds across both maps. Big credit to arrozdoce who slaughtered EF on the server, he managed to average over 100 ADR, for the series. SAW then went on to be 2-0’d themselves by VP, in what was just as one-sided of a series as the last.

For Eternal Fire, it must sting seeing a team like 3DMAX make the playoff whilst they didn’t.

And we know there’s people saying “3DMAX only had to beat SAW and Fnatic to make it, EF played Astralis and FaZe.” And yeah, you’re right, but Eternal Fire also then lost to SAW. It’s not an excuse. It’s a shame though, Eternal Fire had shown quite a few interesting glimpses, but they haven’t had much to show for it. At this rate, the fire looks to be burned out.

Oh yeah, before we forget.

Over in Group B, G2 knocked out M80 in the last-chance game taking revenge for a 2:1 loss in the upper bracket. You can’t take anything away from M80, they fought hard but the map pool wasn’t in their favor. MalbsMd did what he does and played a great series, but it wasn’t enough to see the NA mix over the line. Hopefully aizyesque isn’t too upset he can’t push his Malbs agenda in a playoff.

The qualified teams in Group A: 
Astralis
3DMAX
FaZe
Virtus.pro

The qualified teams in Group B: 
Vitality
TheMongolz
BetBoom
G2

🛡️ Some things just aren’t VAC they seem

👔 Just trying to build a career man…

😎 It’s all about the visuals

This TL;DR was written by aizyesque, shoko, Horizzon and napz.
Welshy coded the email and Incipiens copy edited.

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