This article is part of our CS:GO Recap series.
ELEAGUE Season 2 Group B kicked off Friday evening with a couple of unexpected blowouts, setting up a classic rivalry match to end Day 1, with Virtus.Pro coming out victorious.
Virtus.Pro role to Grand Final Win
The defending champions of ELEAGUE Season 1 were able to grab a Grand Final win thanks in large part to a strong start on Cobblestone to open their match against Ninjas in Pjyamas.
Janusz 'Snax' Pogorzelski was able to boost the VP economy early, winning two consecutive rounds with a triple-kill to put the team up 5-0. A tactical timeout by NiP wasn't enough to stop the early barrage, as Filip 'NEO' Kubski continued the onslaught, getting a double kill to shut down the B-bombsite, solidifying a convincing 8-0 lead.
Down 11-4 at half, NiP managed to rally somewhat thanks to Adam 'friberg' Friberg, who scored a triple-kill in the second pistol round and then followed that up with a double-kill and defuse to earn a second consecutive round for his team. But VP's Wiktor 'TaZ' Wojtas quickly stopped the budding momentum, ripping through the NiP defense in the 18th round for a quad-kill, following up that play with a game-clinching triple-kill from behind NiP's defense to take the win 16-7.
The Best of the Rest
VP was able to advance to the Grand Finals thanks to an utter thrashing of Echo Fox during the first match on Friday. Jarosław 'pashaBiceps' Jarząbkowski's double-kill near the B-bombsite to start the game became a precursor of what was to come as the first half belonged to VP. Facing a 14-1 deficit at halftime, Echo Fox quickly lost the next two rounds to an aggressive offensive push from VP and as a result will need to traverse through Day 2 in order to stay alive in Group B.
NiP also parlayed an excellent opening into a strong finish during their first match of Day 2, jumping ahead on Overpass thanks to Christopher 'GeT_RiGhT' Alesund, who led the way with a 27/10 KD and 116.2 ADR. Down 5-0, G2 finally got back into the first half thanks to Cédric 'RpK' Guipouy winning the sixth and seventh round. However, GeT_RiGhT had other plans as the Swede ripped through G2's defense in the eighth round for an ace near the A-bombsite, extending NiP's lead 7-2. That lead only seemed to snowball from there as G2 quickly fell out of contention, ultimately losing the series 16-5.
With the Grand Final win, Virtus.Virtus.Pro have now earned their spot in the ELEAGUE Major come January while NiP will go on to face the winner of Day 2's match between Echo Fox and G2.
