Flashpoint 2: Group Stage Boogaloo - Reviewing Each Team’s Performance

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As the gunfire ceased and the dust settled on the group stage of the Flashpoint CS:GO tournament, it was Dignitas and Envy who clinched the last two playoff spots after recording 2-1 wins over forZe and Gen.G respectively to join BIG, OG, Fnatic, Virtus.Pro, MAD Lions, and MiBR in the final eight. With a million dollar prize pool up for grabs and a double elimination bracket that has the potential to provide all sorts of twists and turns, it’s shaping up to be one hell of a tournament when the action kicks off again with the playoffs next week. Before we jump into our overview, consider clicking the image below to check out our partners over at Midnite for safe, ethical, and most importantly fun bettting on the upcoming series!  

Who went home?

Of all the teams who went home, it was Cloud9 who faced the most embarrassing walk of shame as they failed to pick up a single map in any of their group games, despite targeting Flashpoint as a “must-win tournament”. They joined c0ntact, Gen.G, and forZe as the teams who failed to make it to the playoffs, and it is forZe who can probably count themselves the most unlucky to miss out after they narrowly lost to Dignitas in a 30 round thriller on Dust2 in the deciding map of their last-chance series.   However, as the old saying goes, nobody remembers the runners-up, so let’s move on and take a look at the eight teams that will go head to head in the next round:  

BIG  World Ranking #5 | 2/1 to win outright

Group Stage Form: 6W 2L | Avg Rating: 1.14 Key Player: Xantares (Rating 1.24 | K/D 1.32)

BIG have been the standout team of the tournament group stage and are favourites to go all the way. İsmailcan "XANTARES" Dörtkardeş has been their main man, leading the team in frags, but it is more thanks to his consistency of producing at least a good performance, rather than being a hard carry such as Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev who top-frags every game. He is the steady metronome that keeps BIG ticking, rarely ever dropping below a 1.0 rating, but he still has the potential to unleash insane impact plays as we saw in the Group B final vs MiBR on Vertigo with a series of crucial multikills.   Key Player Spotlight:

• Xantares’ 1.24 player rating is the 3rd highest of the tournament
• He has the 4th highest KD with 1.32
• Ah ah stayin alive! His record of only 0.58 deaths per round puts him in 5th place for lowest death rate

 

OG World Ranking #6 | 3/1 to win outright

Group Stage Form: 6W 3L | Avg Rating: 1.13 Key Player: Mantuu (Rating 1.25 | K/D 1.43)

It wasn’t an easy route to the playoffs for OG. They suffered a bumpy start with a dramatic 2-0 upset against Gen.G, but the shock must have woken them up, as they overcame Cloud9, got their revenge in 2-0 victory against Gen.G, and beat Virtus Pro fairly comfortably to win the Group C final. Mateusz “Mantuu” Wilczewski was their key man, with his AWPing providing the crucial impact that OG needed throughout the group stage. He won duel after duel to open up rounds and if OG are to do well in the playoffs, they’ll need their biggest impact player to be in top form.   Key Player Spotlight:

• Mantuu has the highest KD in the tournament with 1.43 K/D over 9 maps
• His ability to carve open teams has been crucial for OG, as he holds the highest success rate in opening duels in the tournament with 67.5%
• He also holds the joint highest rating with 1.25

 

Fnatic World Ranking #13 | 4/1 to win outright

Group Stage Form: 7W 3L | Avg Rating: 1.14 Key Player: Krimz (Rating 1.24 | K/D 1.36)

Fnatic is packed with firepower and experience with three of the legendary Major-winning lineup of 2015 on their side, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them go all the way in the playoffs, especially if Robin “flusha” Rönnquist ups his game to the levels we know he can reach, after a relatively poor start. Most of the team are performing well: both Freddy “Krimz” Johansson and Ludvig “Brollan” Brolin are in the top five players of the group stage with ratings of 1.24 and Jesper “JW” Wecksell has the highest number of AWP kills out of the players remaining with 105. It’s a tough choice, but ultimately it’s Krimz who stands out as the key man going forward.   Key Player Spotlight:

• Krimz was once regarded by some as the best player in the world at his peak, so you can never write him off. So far in the group stage he has had the highest KAST (percentage of rounds in which the player either had a kill, assist, survived or was traded) at 79.8%.
• Krimz also has the 2nd highest K/D in the tournament with 1.36, only narrowly behind Mantuu.
• He has always been known for his clutch ability, and with the 3rd highest number of clutches won (7), he shows no signs of stopping.

 

Virtus.Pro World Ranking #15 | 4/1 to win outright

Group Stage Form: 5W 3L | Avg Rating: 1.01 Key Player: Jame (Rating 1.15 | K/D 1.26)

Virtus.Pro made it through to the playoffs by virtue of finishing runners up to OG in the Group C final after wins over Cloud9 and Gen.G. Dzhami “Jame” Ali is the talisman of the team, leading the way in virtually every metric, and it is his performances that Virtus.Pro will be relying on if they are to get anywhere in the playoffs.   Key Player Spotlight:

• Jame has been the best clutcher in the group stage, winning nine 1vXs.
• He is also the only player in Virtus.Pro to have a positive K/D, however it’s his ability to stay alive which is the main reason for this stat - he only has two more kills than the next best player on his team, Mareks “YEKINDAR” Gaļinskis, but 28 less deaths.
• His 5th highest KD in the tournament of 1.26 highlights just how much of an asset he is to Virtus.Pro

MAD Lions World Ranking #31 | 11/1 to win outright

Group Stage Form: 4W 3L | Avg Rating: 1.04 Key Player: sjuush (Rating 1.25 | K/D 1.22)

MAD Lions made a reasonable start to the tournament, with a tight 2-1 win over Fnatic in overtime, and a 2-0 win over Dignitas, before making it to the playoffs as runners up in Group A, after losing 2-0 to Fnatic in the group final. With some strong AWP performances from Frederik “acoR” Gyldstrand and some incredible performances from their star man Rasmus “sjuush” Beck, and from what we’ve seen so far they could be a dark horse to go all the way in the playoffs.   Key Player Spotlight:

• Sjuush has the joint highest rating alongside Mantuu (1.25)
• He also has an ADR (avg damage per round) of 94.4, the highest in the tournament by quite some distance.
• While Sjuush is essentially carrying MAD Lions with 145 kills and a 1.22 K/D, he’s got to hope his teammate, Rasmus “HooXi” Nielsen, doesn’t drag him down with only 97 kills and 0.72 K/D so far.

 

MiBR World Ranking #33 | 16/1 to win outright

Group Stage Form: 4W 3L | Avg Rating: 1.04 Key Player: vsm (Rating 1.25 | K/D 1.22)

MiBR took the longest route to the playoffs, playing a whopping 11 maps to get there. After losing their initial match to BIG, including two humbling 16-2 defeats on Mirage and Dust2, they overcame Envy and forZe in the lower brackets to make it to the Group B final, again against BIG, this time putting up a much more respectable showing despite finishing as runners up, even pushing BIG to the full 30 rounds on Vertigo. I wouldn’t write them off - they certainly have the potential to do well in the playoffs, especially if their star man Vinicius “vsm” Moreira performs as he did in the group stage.   Key Player Spotlight:

• vsm has the 3rd best K/D in the tournament with 1.22.
• He also has the highest total kills (228), including five 4ks and eleven triple kills, though this is largely in part due to the extra game played, it's still an average of 20+ kills per map, which is consistently strong levels of performance.-
• Despite losing 2-1 to BIG, the favourites of the tournament, vsm still managed to rack up the most kills in the server with 74 over 3 maps.

 

Envy World Ranking #58 | 33/1 to win outright

Group Stage Form: 4W 5L | Avg Rating: 0.99 Key Player: Calyx (Rating 1.19 | K/D 1.20)

Envy lost both group games against forZe and MiBR before defeating Gen.G 2-1 in the last chance match to make it to the playoffs by the skin of their teeth. It’s a big ask for a team that lacks real firepower besides Buğra "Calyx" Arkin, who has top-fragged all three of Envy’s games so far.   Key Player Spotlight:

• Calyx has the 2nd highest number of headshots (102), with a 58% headshot rate.
• He’s Envy’s key playmaker, shown by the fact that he is 2nd for success in opening duels (65.9%) with 29 total opening kills.
• He also is the only player on Envy who has a KD higher than 1.02. Three players on Envy have ratings below 1.

Dignitas Vie World Ranking #148 | 80/1 to win outright

Group Stage Form: 4W 6L | Avg Rating: 0.92 Key Player: Hallzerk (Rating 1.00 | K/D 0.97)

The long shot. With 80/1 odds it’s a massive ask for Dignitas to even come close to winning this tournament. There were glimpses of brilliance during their last chance match against ForZe, with Adamn “Friberg” Friberg and Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg rolling back the years with back to back clutches to help them stomp ForZe 16-4 on Nuke, before a tight 16-14 win on Dust2 to clinch the series. If they are to go far in this tournament, it’s Håkon “Hallzerk” Fjærli who is the key man that Dignitas will need on top form. Key Player Spotlight:

• Hallzerk is the only player on Dignitas Vie to have a rating of 1.00 or higher so far this tournament.
• With 97 AWP kills he is 4th deadliest AWPer out of remaining players in the playoffs.
• The bailot: While Friberg and f0rest provided some key clutches, it is Hallzerk who has won 6 out of the 7 clutches he has faced, an impressive 85% clutch rate.

How do the playoffs work?

It’s a double elimination, so each team will start in the upper bracket and in each round the losers in the upper bracket will drop into the lower bracket which provides a second chance route to the grand final. The opening playoff bracket has been drawn as follows:

• MAD Lions vs Virtus.Pro
• BIG vs Envy
• Fnatic vs Dignitas
• OG vs MiBR

(Courtesy of Flashpoint)

The first game starts on Monday 30th November with MAD Lions vs Virtus.Pro, so make sure to place your bets on midnite.com!

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