Virtus.pro started off Group B of the FACEIT League 2015 Stage 1 finals with a closer-than-expected 2-0 win over American eLevate; meanwhile recent respective offline champions Na`Vi and TSM fought a duel for supremacy, with the Danes taking the spoils at 2-1.

The first day of the FACEIT League 2015 Stage 1 offline finals continued with Group B play, with three European and one North American team entering the brouhaha to determine who would advance out of groups.

Seeking to avenge their humiliated American comrades Liquid, eLevate squared off with Virtus.pro, the recent ESEA Season 18 Global Finals champions. With de_nuke making a rare appearance as the first map of contention, VP pulled off a passable CT half at 11:4.



VP were challenged by eLevate but ultimately prevailed

However, American teams are known for their strong CT play on nuke, which was seen as recently as ESL One Katowice (with both CLG and Cloud9 squeaking out 16:14 wins on de_nuke against European opponents).

Things indeed began to look grim for Virtus.pro with David "⁠Xp3⁠" Garrido 's men starting to pick up CT rounds in subsequent order until the score was equalised at 14:14. However, the Poles gathered their inner discipline and manged to grind out a win in the end, taking de_nuke 16:14.





de_cbble was also closely contested, however, despite a narrow first half advantage for VP, they managed to run away with the game on their T side and took the second map 16:10. eLevate can walk away with the consolation of taking 24 rounds in total over two maps; six times as many as Liquid managed.

FACEIT League 2015 Stage 1 Finals Best of 3 Virtus.pro Matchpage 2 0 eLevate 16 Nuke 14 16 Cobblestone 10

Virtus.pro K - D +/- ADR Rating 1.0 Janusz 'Snax' PogorzelskiSnax 51 - 40 +11 - 1.24 Filip 'NEO' KubskiNEO 42 - 34 +8 - 1.14 Paweł 'byali' Bielińskibyali 40 - 34 +6 - 1.09 Jarosław 'pashaBiceps' JarząbkowskipashaBiceps 40 - 36 +4 - 1.06 Wiktor 'TaZ' WojtasTaZ 42 - 39 +3 - 0.99 eLevate K - D +/- ADR Rating 1.0 David 'Xp3' GarridoXp3 48 - 42 +6 - 1.16 Daniel 'roca' Gustaferriroca 35 - 45 -10 - 0.92 Derek 'desi' Branchendesi 35 - 41 -6 - 0.88 William 'RUSH' WierzbaRUSH 39 - 48 -9 - 0.85 Tyler 'Storm' WoodStorm 24 - 41 -17 - 0.64

The second match of Group B saw two recent champions locking horns: Na`Vi (winners of the ESL Pro League) and TSM (winners of the CCS Kick-off Season finals).

As expected, the series came down to the wire. On de_overpass, Ladislav "⁠GuardiaN⁠" Kovács led his teammates to an early lead that looked like it was going to run away in Na`Vi's favour until the Danes buckled down and started to deploy a good defense on their CT side.

However, a tactical in-game pause followed by brute force attacks by Na`Vi finally opened up the B site with the score at 14:14, and allowed the Eastern European outfit to take the first map 16:14.



karrigan's TSM scraped out the win in a long series

de_cache looked to repeat the results of the first map, with Na`Vi seemingly in control of the game at first, however Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen's men dug in deep to ultimately display their renowned style of CT play and managed to take the map 16:13.

With the decider being de_mirage, TSM seized the moment by taking T pistol, unfortunately for the Danes, Na`Vi forced their economy next round and some good end-round play by Ioann "⁠Edward⁠" Sukhariev set the score to 1:1.

Capitalising on Na`Vi's uncertainty, TSM re-eco'ed Danylo "⁠Zeus⁠" Teslenko's men and started pulling away with aggressive play on both bombsites. The Danes closed the half at 12:3, dismantling a usually strong Na`Vi defense on de_mirage.

Na`Vi started to fight back on their own T side however, picking up five rounds before TSM's defense woke up and forced the map for the Danes: 16:8.

FACEIT League 2015 Stage 1 Finals Best of 3 Natus Vincere Matchpage 1 2 TSM 16 Overpass 14 13 Cache 16 8 Mirage 16