The Counter-Strike juggernaut finally has a weakness. After six weeks of the North American ESL Pro League, SK Gaming finally lost its unbreakable status, as they dropped games for the first time this season. The rest of the league stuck to the script, with little movement in the upper echelons of the standings.
SK (14-2) had blitzed its way through the first five weeks of the season without dropping a single game. Week 6 was another animal however, as SK Gaming split both series. SK Gaming's first match was against OpTic Gaming (10-6) on Tuesday, and from the start, things looked off. Rallying back from an uncharacteristic early deficit, SK Gaming fell short, losing 16-14 to OpTic Gaming, saddling SK Gaming with its first loss of the season.
The Brazilian squad recovered in the next game with a 16-7 win to split the series 1-1. As one of the only two teams to have two series this week, SK also took on Renegades (9-7) on Wednesday. Given OpTic's success in past months, a series split with the Green Wall shouldn't have raised an alarm. However, splitting its next series with Renegades, in which they lost Game 2, 16-8, is a bit concerning. Especially when you consider that the first half of that game went 14-1 in Renegades' favor. Hopefully for SK this is simply an aberration and not a sign of things to come.
Cloud9 (12-4) was the main beneficiary of SK's Week 6 mishaps, gaining ground on the opposition in the standings. C9 started the week playing against a struggling OpTic on Tuesday. While OpTic started off nicely with a 10-5 first half in the first game, C9 blew everyone away in the second half, recording a 16-11 win. That seemed to break OpTic's will, as C9 took the second game even more convincingly, picking up a 16-6 win.
C9 took on Counter Logic Gaming (8-6) on Thursday to close out the week, but it certainly wasn't a cakewalk. C9 won the first game in a 22-18 overtime thriller, but was taken to task in the second, dropping the map 16-9. The 3-1 showing this week puts C9 just two games behind SK, and with the two finally facing off in Week 7, a new king of the NA ESL Pro League could be crowned.
OpTic certainly had a busy Week 6, playing three full series, catapulting it up the standings. In addition to that 1-1 split with SK and the tough 2-0 loss to C9, Thursday saw the Green Wall take care of business against Misfits (7-9). Needing a win to keep pace in the standings, OpTic dominated Game 1 to the tune of a 16-3 victory on Cobblestone. While it slipped up initially to start Game 2, eventually trailing at the half 10-5, a furious rally by OpTic saw it claim a16-11 win, picking up the series sweep.
With just four weeks of the season left, the road to the finish will be paved with drama and intrigue. The top four in the standings are still SK, C9, NRG Esports (11-5) and Team Liquid (11-5). For as strong as SK has been this season, SK is still only three games ahead of the third place team.
The teams are taking a week off before Week 7 kicks off April 11 at 7 p.m. ET with C9 taking on Selfless Gaming.