Despite a recent roster makeover, G2 Esports continues to struggle in the European division of the ESL Pro League for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, coming into the fifth week of action hovering around the bottom of the standings. North, meanwhile, is still rolling over their competition. Here's how Week 5 played out.
G2 and HellRaisers kicked off Tuesday's action with a tense battle on Inferno. Desperate to claw their way back up the standings, G2 pushed a feisty HellRaisers to overtime, where HellRaisers cleaned up and won 19-15. The second map, Overpass, was a showcase for HellRaisers. Their teamwork was spectacular, and their mid-rounds were chock-full of blink-and-you-miss-it trade kills. HellRaisers controlled the map areas Monster and Bathrooms well, and G2 fell apart, looking increasingly uncoordinated as the game went on. At the end of the first half, G2's Alexandre "bodyy" Pianaro found an entry frag from Monster, but his own teammate blocked his escape route, and HellRaisers easily picked him off. G2 dropped the second map 16-9.
HellRaisers brought their A-game again on Wednesday, this time against more prestigious competition in Virtus.pro. Their first matchup, played on Mirage, was Bence "DeadFox" Böröcz's time to shine on the AWP for HR. He pressured long corridors of the map with a passive style reminiscent of Astralis' Nicolai "dev1ce" Reedtz, finishing with a 25/12 KD (kills/deaths). HellRaisers won Mirage 16-10. The series moved to Overpass, where HellRaisers showed off their world-class mid-round cohesion, baiting out Virtus.pro patiently before striking. Once again, Virtus.pro's online play looked unimpressive, a common theme for them, and HellRaisers breezed to a 16-10 win on Overpass.
Wednesday's closest battle occurred between Ninjas in Pyjamas and LDLC during its second map on Cobblestone. Early on, the teams grappled for control of the Mid area, and NiP's new acquisition William "draken" Sunden struggled to find picks on the AWP against a passive LDLC. Several times, draken appeared to be on a different page than the rest of NiP, holding angles with the AWP despite receiving zero flank coverage from his team. NiP had a disastrous CT side, a previous area of strength for them, but multi-kills from Christopher "GeT_RiGhT" Alesund around the Mid area clutched the map for NiP 16-14.
Thursday featured tense action around the board. With their backs up against the wall, G2 scraped together two wins against Kinguin. G2's Kenny "kennyS" Schrub was brilliant on Cache, posting a 26-11 KD and an unusually high average damage per round (ADR) for an AWPer of 111.2. Virtus.pro also snagged two wins over mousesports, who are surprisingly in third place with an 8-4 record after losing superstar Nikola "NiKo" Kovac to FaZe Clan. First place team North won a hard fought game against Heroic on Overpass 19-16. North's in-game leader Mathias "MSL" Lauridsen led the charge with a 30-25 KD. North then won its next map against Heroic on Mirage with ease by a score of 16-10.
After Week 5, the top tier of the standings in EU is starting to shake out. The two Danish teams, North (10-4) and Astralis (8-6) are in first and second, respectively. Mousesports (8-4) and Natus Vincere (8-4) are tied for third. FaZe Clan (7-5), HellRaisers (7-5), and Virtus.pro (7-5) are tied for fourth. Week 6 begins at at 12:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday, March 28.