NiP are the second team to reach the finals of ELEAGUE Group B after bringing down OpTic 2-1 (3-16 on Cobblestone, 16-2 on Overpass, and 16-14 on Train).

The second semifinal of day three of ELEAGUE's Group B saw Swedish team NiP, ranked fourth in the world, taking on Canadian-American-Spanish team OpTic, who are currently ranked fifteenth.

With NiP having comfortably dispatched OpTic in two maps during the group seeding stage, the best-of-three series kicked off on NiP's map pick of Cobblestone. OpTic star Oscar "⁠mixwell⁠" Cañellas helped his team win their T-side pistolround with a double kill and the North American team powered ahead to an early 3-0 lead.

Following NiP shutting down a sloppy B-take by OpTic and thus winning the first gunround, OpTic yet again bought thanks to their economic management and saving of SMG's in the previous round and split open the B-site to give themselves a 4-1 lead and reset NiP's economy.



f0rest and NiP struggled against OpTic on Cobblestone and Train

OpTic continued to exploit the drop-connector area and moved forward, although NiP did pick up one round where Peter "⁠stanislaw⁠" Jarguz almost won a one-versus-three but fell to Jacob "⁠pyth⁠" Mourujärvi when he ran out of bullets.

William "⁠RUSH⁠" Wierzba and his teammates continued to punish NiP and moved ahead to a 10-2 score, and even forced NiP to use their tactical pause early, the thirteenth round saw Patrik "⁠f0rest⁠" Lindberg finally put some kills on the board (as he was 0-10) by winning a one-versus-two on the B site. But NiP's efforts were to no avail on the first half as OpTic finished up 12-3.

RUSH got three CZ-75 kills for his team on the second pistolround and thus gave OpTic a nearly insurmountable lead on the map which the team made good on by closing the remaining rounds and winning 16-3 on Cobblestone.



NAF-FLY and OpTic nearly claimed Train

Overpass was the second map and team captain Richard "⁠Xizt⁠" Landström seemed determined to give OpTic a taste of their own medicine as the Swedes took the pistolround and stormed ahead to a commanding lead on their T-side in the first half, with f0rest in particular making up for his abysmal Cobblestone performance. NiP finished the half up 13-2.

With OpTic seemingly resigned to their fate on the map, NiP won a two-versus-one on the second pistolround on the B-site (with pyth sticking the defuse) and picked up the following rounds to close the map 16-2.

Train was the decider map (a map widely considered to be OpTic's best map in the pool) and following a pistolround win for NiP on their T-side, Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic & co. struck back with forced-up pistols and equalised the score. The early game generally saw OpTic playing a better defense than NiP's offense, and the half finished 9-6 in favour of the North American team.

Things really began to look as if NiP were going to lose their favoured slot, and the game took on a tone of one of those classic battles, with rounds going tit-for-tat. With OpTic having the monetary lead and an advantage at 14-13 however, NiP force bought and somehow made things work and eventually claimed the final three rounds to take Train 16-14.

ELEAGUE Season 1 Best of 3 NiP Matchpage 2 1 OpTic 3 Cobblestone 16 16 Overpass 2 16 Train 14

NiP K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 Patrik 'f0rest' Lindbergf0rest 57 - 41 +16 85.2 1.30 Richard 'Xizt' LandströmXizt 47 - 44 +3 71.0 1.11 Christopher 'GeT_RiGhT' AlesundGeT_RiGhT 49 - 48 +1 82.6 1.08 Adam 'friberg' Fribergfriberg 38 - 52 -14 72.5 0.96 Jacob 'pyth' Mourujärvipyth 41 - 47 -6 68.4 0.92 OpTic K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 William 'RUSH' WierzbaRUSH 52 - 42 +10 78.1 1.19 Peter 'stanislaw' Jarguzstanislaw 47 - 45 +2 79.2 1.09 Keith 'NAF' MarkovicNAF 46 - 48 -2 75.0 1.06 Damian 'daps' Steeledaps 43 - 47 -4 74.0 1.00 Oscar 'mixwell' Cañellasmixwell 44 - 50 -6 69.8 1.00

Group B of ELEAGUE will conclude tomorrow with the televised group final between G2 and Null element at 04:00 on TBS. Make sure to tune in.

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