The Favorites of ESL Pro League Season 15

After a long wait, ESL Pro League Season 15, one of the most important CS:GO events of the year, has finally begun. The tournament features 24 teams, offers more than $800,000 in prizes and provides not only a great spectacle to watch, but also numerous CS:GO betting opportunities to fans around the globe. In this article, you’ll discover who the favorites are for each group.

ESL Pro League Season 15 Group Favorites

The 24 competitors are divided into 4 groups of 6. In each of these groups, the winner advances to the Quarterfinals while the 2^nd and 3^rd place teams start the Playoffs in the Round of 12. Therefore, everyone wants to finish in 1^st place or at least secure one of the two remaining tickets to the Playoffs.

Group A

In Group A of ESL Pro League Season 15, the favorites are NiP, MOUZ, and G2 Esports. In NiP’s case, it’s probably safe to assume that even without dev1ce, who is currently inactive, the roster is strong enough to finish in the top 3 in its group. Sure, with opponents like MOUZ and G2 Esports, a few wrong steps are enough to lose the ticket to the Playoffs Stage. But NiP has already demonstrated that it has what it takes by winning its first two matches, against Fnatic and Entropiq. In the case of Entropiq, the victory means a lot because this is the only team that could have realistically stolen NiP’s spot.

As for MOUZ and G2 Esports, both teams are in great shape at the moment and could easily win the group with their formidable rosters. The two of them have actually encountered each other on March 10^th and MOUZ won after a highly disputed battle: 16 – 12 on Nuke and 19 – 17 on Mirage.

Group B

Group B of ESL Pro League Season 15 hasn’t started yet but its favorites are quite obvious: FaZe Clan, Vitality, and FURIA. Another team that’s worth keeping an eye on is ENCE.

In the case of FaZe and Vitality, the reason why their fans expect them to win has to do not only with their global rank (4^th for FaZe and 5^th for Vitality) but also with their recent performance. FaZe is the winner of the most recent IEM Katowice , a tournament in which they smashed G2 in the Grand Final (3 – 0). As for Vitality, it’s hard to miss the top 3 in a group like this when you have players like ZywOo (2^nd best in the world in 2021), as well as former Astralis stars like dupreeh and Magisk.

FaZe is almost certainly going to win the group while Vitality and FURIA will finish 2^nd and 3^rd. On paper, Vitality’s roster is at least as good as FaZe’s, if not better, but the synergy suffers a bit because of the language barrier. When Danes have to speak with French in English, it can get quite messy.

Group C

In Group C, Gambit, BIG, and probably Liquid are the big favorites, although Liquid has yet to prove itself after the IEM Katowice disaster. To be fair, Liquid’s opponents at this tournament were FaZe Clan (1 – 2), which ended up winning the trophy, and G2 (0 – 2), which ended up finishing 2^nd. Given that nitr0 has just returned from Valorant, it’s understandable why the team failed with him as IGL in the face of such formidable opposition.

The winner of this group should be, on paper, Gambit Esports. The CIS team is currently ranked 2^nd globally and has not made any roster moves in 18 months. As a result, it is extremely fluent in everything it does. And you can clearly feel this when a round gets chaotic.

Group D

In Group D, the situation is quite complicated. No less than 4 teams could qualify for the Playoffs and even the battle for 1^st place will be fierce. The list of teams in this group is the following:

• Natus Vincere
• Heroic
• Evil Geniuses
• Astralis
• Complexity Gaming
• AGO

With the exception of AGO and Complexity, everyone has a decent chance. Na’Vi is the clear favorite, despite the fact that s1mple and b1t are going through a rough time. Heroic is currently ranked 7^th globally and its recent results have been promising. Astralis, despite losing 3 members, is still a strong team as demonstrated by their 7^th – 8^th place at IEM Katowice. And Evil Geniuses has a new roster led by Stewie2K.