HellRaisers have avoided relegation from ESL Pro League by beating both Penta and BIG in the relegation playoffs.

The double-elimination playoff bracket pitted HellRaisers against PENTA in the first round of the relegation playoffs. PENTA, who were fresh of a victory at the ESEA Global Challenge LAN, were blown out of the water by the Eastern European side with a convincing 2-0.

bondik was a big factor in the deciding game

HellRaisers' series against BIG started rough, with the German side managing a comeback on Cobblestone to close out the first map in their favor. On Overpass, Fatih "⁠gob b⁠" Dayik's continued their strong from and got off to a 7-1 lead, but they let HellRaisers come back into the match, with a Patrik "⁠Zero⁠" Žúdel clutch on A playing a pivotal part to HR's resurgence.

After closing out the second map with a 10-0 CT side, HellRaisers went 13-2 on the CT half of Train, leaving BIG no room for a comeback after winning the Terrorist side pistol. The score was 16-2 in the end, with a 2-1 for the series.

ESL Pro League Season 5 Europe Relegation Best of 3 HellRaisers Matchpage 2 1 BIG 10 Cobblestone 16 16 Overpass 9 16 Train 2

HellRaisers K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 Kirill 'ANGE1' KarasiowANGE1 59 - 44 +15 103.8 1.47 Vladyslav 'bondik' Nechyporchukbondik 63 - 40 +23 88.8 1.35 Bence 'DeadFox' BöröczDeadFox 51 - 40 +11 72.4 1.20 Patrik 'Zero' ŽúdelZero 49 - 39 +10 69.8 1.19 Martin 'STYKO' StykSTYKO 39 - 42 -3 65.8 1.01 BIG K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 Johannes 'tabseN' WodarztabseN 55 - 59 -4 96.2 1.12 Nikola 'LEGIJA' NinićLEGIJA 41 - 49 -8 67.4 0.87 Johannes 'nex' Magetnex 35 - 49 -14 56.9 0.78 Kevin 'keev' Bartholomäuskeev 39 - 51 -12 57.3 0.75 Fatih 'gob b' Dayikgob b 35 - 54 -19 52.9 0.69

In the lower bracket, the legendary Polish side Virtus.pro was fighting to avoid relegation against the European mixture PENTA after losing to BIG 2-0 in the first match. Despite losing to HellRaisers in their first match of ESL Pro League, PENTA's form was still fairly good considering their LAN win last weekend.

After two tight maps, it was the underdog side lead by the Finnish duo Jesse "⁠zehN⁠" Linjala-Miikka "⁠suNny⁠" Kemppi that took the victory, keeping their Pro League dream alive and relegating Virtus.pro to ESEA Premier for the next season.

ESL Pro League Season 5 Europe Relegation Best of 3 PENTA Matchpage 2 0 Virtus.pro 16 Inferno 7 16 Train 7

PENTA K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 Miikka 'suNny' KemppisuNny 49 - 22 +27 98.6 1.66 Jesse 'zehN' LinjalazehN 43 - 24 +19 95.7 1.53 Kevin 'HS' TarnHS 39 - 32 +7 94.7 1.31 Paweł 'innocent' Mocekinnocent 30 - 27 +3 70.2 1.06 Kevin 'kRYSTAL' AmendkRYSTAL 22 - 28 -6 56.5 0.87 Virtus.pro K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 Janusz 'Snax' PogorzelskiSnax 35 - 37 -2 86.0 1.07 Paweł 'byali' Bielińskibyali 31 - 35 -4 82.3 0.97 Jarosław 'pashaBiceps' JarząbkowskipashaBiceps 29 - 37 -8 61.8 0.77 Filip 'NEO' KubskiNEO 20 - 40 -20 63.2 0.61 Wiktor 'TaZ' WojtasTaZ 18 - 34 -16 54.9 0.60

Professeur writes for HLTV.org and can be found on Twitter.