Group A’s third-place finisher, Fnatic, will take on Group B’s second-place finisher, ENCE, in what will be the first game in the opening round of playoffs, with a spot in the quarter-finals on the line. Fnatic finished their pool matches with three wins and two losses with both of their losses being 0-2 and all of their wins being 2-1. Whereas for ENCE, they finished their pool matches with four wins and one loss, making them actually tied with FURIA in Group B, but finishing second on round difference.

Fnatic will enter the playoffs against ENCE with quite a bit of knowledge of how ENCE play. They have played ENCE in two BO3 series in November and December of 2021 for 2-0 results in both series, but they did lose 12-16 in a recent best-of-one match last week. Fnatic did lose one of their best players before the ESL Pro League started, with Ludvig “Brollan” Brolin leaving to sign with Ninjas in Pyjamas just days before they played each other in week one of this tournament. Since that 2-0 loss to NiP though, Fnatic have looked solid taking three wins from their next four games to advance through to playoffs and beat the likes of G2 and MOUZ to take the third qualifying spot in Group A.

ENCE, alongside FURIA, would have to be the real surprises to finish in top two in Group B. ENCE, ranked no.14 in the world, beat the teams ranked second (FaZe), fifth (Vitality) and sixth (Virtus.pro/Outsiders) to that top-two spot and beat all three of them quite convincingly in their pool matches as well. ENCE dropped only four maps out of their 13 total maps played and if you exclude the 2-1 loss to FURIA, they only lost two maps out of 10 total. If ENCE can keep up this strong performance in the playoffs, they will have a lot of teams keeping tabs on them as they progress.

ENCE and Fnatic have some recent history with one-another and ENCE will be looking to overturn that history with Fnatic taking the last two BO3’s, but ENCE does have the most recent win over Fnatic in a best-of-one series last week. We could have a cracking series on our hands here. We suggest taking the over 2.5 maps, which is paying -111.11 at BetOnline.

This playoff series between Group B’s third-place finisher, FaZe, and Group C’s second-place finisher, Players, is one of the more surprising matches in Season 15 of the ESL Pro League. With FaZe being ranked second in the world and being the highest seed in Group B, and Players (Gambit) being the third-ranked team in the world and highest seed in Group C, many people would have expected these two teams to win their groups and be waiting in the quarter-finals.

FaZe ended their pool matches with a 3-2 record, showing that they may have a little bit of an IEM Katowice hangover after they took out that Major only a few weeks before the start of the ESL Pro League. FaZe started off slowly with two straight losses to ENCE and Outsiders, but then FaZe really kicked into gear, taking their last three series only losing one map in their last seven maps played. FaZe have a very talented roster, they know they can beat anyone on any day. FaZe have only lost four series since the start of 2022, winning IEM Katowice along the way also. If the FaZe that turned up to start ESL Pro League, turns up against Players they will struggle to win and go through to the quarter-finals.

Players ended their pool matches with four wins and one loss, with their only loss coming against Movistar Riders who topped Group C undefeated. Players, which is Gambit under a new name, are the third ranked team in the world and many would be expecting to see them run deep in this ESL Pro League. Players were near perfect for their pool matches, only losing three maps out of their 12 total maps played, giving them the equal second-best map win-loss ratio for the entire tournament with Heroic as they sit below NaVi who lost only one map the entire group stage. If Players want to make the quarter-finals and therefore go deep in this ESL Pro League, they will have to be on their A-game to take out another strong team in FaZe.

Given the quality of these two rosters we should be in for a really good series. These two rosters are stacked with talent and being the second and third ranked teams in the world, we should see a back-and-forth battle that goes the distance over three maps. Therefore, our money will be on the over 2.5 maps market.

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