The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
That’s what everyone other than ENCE will be chanting to themselves in the mirror in prep for ESL Challenger Katowice, for the bounty is certainly on Dallas’ kings.
While there are threats at this event, ENCE come in as huge favourites given they were the best team at an inarguably more stacked event, and come to Katowice looking to win two trophies back-to-back.
Who stands in their way?
The two biggest enemies come from the east, with FORZE and Virtus.pro flying into Poland. FORZE are a perennial underdog who can often surprise but rarely dominate, and could quite easily beat ENCE and still lose the final.
Virtus.pro are a massive question mark; they’re back with their Major-winning roster, which is a mental sentence, but we’ve not seen them play for a while. Perhaps they’ll have changed their playstyle to something more aggressive, and fa-
Yeah, sorry, our heart really wasn’t in that. We can’t even finish that sentence.
paiN and 9z make up South America’s contingent, and honestly, paiN should be looking at this event as one they could make the finals at. Seriously. FORZE and VP are beatable, and every team below them are extremely beatable.
9z are a wildcard, joined by ECSTATIC. If things go wrong they can quite easily make it into playoffs and beyond, but nobody is going to be backing them until then.
Still, that’s a better shout than either Party Astronauts or Bravado, who you’d imagine will get smashed by everyone. Party Astronauts are probably a better team, and are more likely to get a win and could possibly do something, we suppose.
We’re just trying to be nice.
They do have Bravado in their group, after all. A win isn’t a crazy prediction.
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