NiP kickstart ESL Pro League Season 15 with a win

ESL Pro League, one of the biggest CS: GO tournaments, started its season 15 with three exciting matches. The Group A opener, G2 vs. LFO was dominated b y G2 Esports and they won with a 2-0 score. For the second match of the day, Ninjas in Pyjamas faced Fnatic on the maps of CounterStrike: Global Offensive.

NiP Dominated Mirage

The first pistol round was action-packed with both teams going at each other. The round ended with a 1v1 between NiP's Nicolas “Plopski” Zamora and Fnatic's William “mezzi” Merriman, with mezzi taking down Plopski.

The rifle round on Mirage that followed again saw Fnatic gunning down NiP pretty quickly. The tables soon turned for Ninjas in Pyjamas, when Patrick “es3tag” Hansen was the last player standing and ambushed site A successfully. By Round 6, they leveled the score at 3-3 and by Round 15, the score stood at 10-5.

The 21st Round on Mirage was intense. Fnatic's mezzi and Banjo tried to save the day, but in vain. ALEX, Peppzor, and poizon were quickly gunned down by Plopski, REZ, and es3tag. A few seconds later, REZ took down Banjo. And finally, mezzi was spotted and shot by REZ and Plopski. NiP won by 16-5 on Mirage.

Fredrick “REZ” Sterner put on some amazing pistol and gunplay. So it doesn't come as a surprise when he ended up with a K/D of +13 and 23 kills. Hampus and Plopski also contributed to the victory with some well-timed kills.

FNC was better on the CT side

NiP went for Vertigo for their T and they had a rather shaky start. Fnatic was better on the CT side this time and they did a commendable job taking down the Ts. However, with some quick gunplay by REZ, the Ninjas had gotten better of Fnatic and score looked 9-6.

For Round 17, REZ and hampus took down the entire FNC team within a few seconds. NiP pulled off another stunt like that in Round 20. This time around, it was phzy assisted by hampus and some grenades. For the winning round, es3tag the AWPer, went into a frenzy and gunned down the CTs one by one. However, phzy got the last shot, and they won the match 16-6.

Domination for @NIPCS as they convincingly take their opening series of #ESLProLeague 2-0 against @FNATIC.

16-5 Mirage
16-6 Vertigo pic.twitter.com/OoRjABniUX

— ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) March 9, 2022

Interestingly, none of the Fnatic players ended up with a great K/D ratio; Only Banjo and Peppzor had a K/D of zero. Prior to their first match, Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson was tested positive for COVID-19 and was replaced by Matias “Banjo” Kivistö.

REZ stole the show with 54 kills and a +16 K/D. phzy and es3tag followed up with 15 and 16 kills. As of now, Ninjas in Pyjamas have topped the Group A standings followed by G2 Esports and Entropiq. Next, NiP will go against Entropiq and MOUZ will face G2.

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