With the best of North America off prepping for either the ELeague Premier or ESL One: New York, it was an incredibly light week in the ESL Pro League. As such, it was time for some of the mid and lower tier teams to earn a bit of the limelight.
While Misfits (8-2, 24 points) only ended up playing two games this week due to its series against NRG Esports being postponed because of Hurricane Irma, it still made the most of its opportunities. Playing against Splyce (3-7, 10 points) on the final day of the week, Misfits somewhat easily walked away with the 2-0 win. That puts it in a two-way tie with OpTic Gaming at the top of the standings. Despite not having nearly the same name recognition of some of its peers, Misfits have looked pretty good over the last couple weeks. Time will tell how it performs once the likes of SK Gaming (6-2, 18 points) come back into the picture.
Outside of Misfits holding strong, Rogue (2-8, 6 points) was another worthwhile story this week, simply because it finally managed to win a game. Not only did it win one game, but it walked away with a sweep of Ghost Gaming (1-9, 3 points. Ghost is currently another basement dweller in the North American standings, but a win is a win for Misfits. Will it continue to climb the standings in relevancy? Probably not, but one can dream.
Rogue may have come away with that sweep, but it wasn't necessarily a banner week for the organization -- it got swept earlier in the week by another team struggling for relevancy. That team was none other than the aforementioned Splyce. Sure, it went on to get rocked by Misfits at the end of the week, but considering Splyce only had a single win in the first two weeks, this was another confidence booster, to be sure.
All in all, it's hard to really evaluate the state of these standings with teams like SK, Team Liquid, and Immortals away from the action. Everyone will have a full week off, though, which should give a handful of the struggling teams some time to get things into gear. NA will be back in action Tuesday, September 26 at 7 p.m. ET with OpTic Gaming taking on compLexity Gaming.