In Owen “oBo” Schlatter’s debut match for Evil Geniuses in ESL Pro League, they swept Astralis 2-1 with strong matches from both Tarik “tarik” Celik and Tsvetelin “CeRq” Dimitrov.
Map One: Nuke
On map one, Astralis got off to an early lead, winning the pistol and a force buy, and were up 4-1. However, on the first real gun round, EG looked dominant, and round after round, the American squad got the opening kill and strung seven rounds together leading to an 8-4 scoreline.
Astralis struck back, winning their retakes at the end of the first half, and won the first three rounds of the second half. But, the Geniuses refused to go down, with Vincent “Brehze” Cayonte getting opening kills in back-to-back rounds to give the Geniuses the push they need to win the map.
Map Two: Vertigo
On map two, Astralis won the first three rounds, but as a team, they looked disjointed and were picked apart by Tarik and Cerq’s AWP. Off the two players, EG went up 6-4, but unfortunately for the Americans, Astralis woke up with Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz and Emil “Magisk” Reif flanking over and over to put together five rounds for a 9-6 half.
On Astralis’ CT side, aggression was the name of the game. Emil “Magisk” Reif pushed down A ramp, while Nicolai “device” Reedtz switched to a rifle and pushed down B. Meanwhile, dupreeh took up AWPing to give Astralis a 14-8 lead. But, tarik refused to lose. On a save round, he flanked the B site players to open up a site, and the round after, got four kills. However, after Astralis’ timeout, device mowed down EG two rounds in a row to close out the match 16-10.
Map Three: Inferno
Despite Astralis winning the pistol, CeRq was on a tear. After an amazing 4k clutch in round three, he had eight kills on the board. After that, Astralis continued to play the gambling game and stacked sites over and over while EG read them perfectly. Each member of EG seemed to be playing perfectly with tarik opening rounds while Brehze, oBo and CeRq closed out rounds. Despite device and Magisk getting their team two rounds, EG closed out the half 12-3.
In the second half of Inferno, Astralis did pickup the pistol round, but EG answered back immediately and won with their force buy. Astralis still had hope though and won the next two rounds forcing EG to save, but the Geniuses won another force. Finally, Evil Geniuses had match point after an amazing 4k by Brehze and closed out the series 16-7.
Takeaways
For oBo’s debut match, his performance wasn’t amazing in the first two maps, but he did step up when it mattered. His slow start could be due to EG’s break where they may not have fully integrated oBo into their setups. For Astralis, Lucas “Bubzkji” Andersen said the debut match for the six-man roster of Astralis would be at ESL Pro League, but that has yet to happen.
Published: Mar 25, 2021 06:11 pm