Review of ESL One Hamburg 2018

The other tournament of the ESL One Hamburg 2018 series has ended up. The guys from Team Secret became the winners. Now it's time to sum it up.

Disappointing teams:

Mineski

Mineski showed that it was early for them to fight for the title of the best team in Southeast Asia at the qualifiers for rating championships, especially if we take big championships as ESL One Hamburg 2018 into consideration. We should mark that the roster has already approached the championship as an outsider but the win at Red Bull Guardians a week before created some expectations. The collective finished the group stage at the last position in their group with the statistics of two draws and three losses which wasn't enough to get to the playoff. As a result, the team got the 11-12 place and returned home having $3,000.

Alliance

The guys from Alliance have been playing together for a long time and showed good results but their trips to LAN were not successful - the collective visited World Showdown of Esports #1 and took the 5-6 position out of eight participants and then they failed at ESL One Hamburg, taking the 5 position in the group with the statistics of three draws and two losses. It is not clear what the collective lacked, as besides young, there are quite experienced esportsmen and their coach is LodA. The guys still have a lot of things to work on to perform at The kuala Lumpur Major 2018 successfully, but at the last championship the roster stopped at the 9-10 position, earning $5,000.

NiP

The guys from Ninja in Pyjamas might be the biggest disappointment of the championship as they weren't able to overcome the group stage. The collective consists of very experienced players who made it to at least the 5-6 place in the tournament of The International series, and the guys played well at online tournaments and qualifiers - the team managed to overcome the qualifiers for The Kuala Lumpur Major, taking the 3-4 position at Maincast Autumn Brawl and won GG.Bet Invitational Season 1. But at the very championship they collective had bad results as the group stage resulted in a win over EVOS eSports and a draw with Forward Gaming. As one of the players confessed later - the roster was very inspired by their online results and overestimated their skills. The European collective got placed on the 9-10 position and it is not the result their fans were expecting for sure.

Virtus.Pro

Despite the fact that the collective took the third place at the tournament and this result can be considered as good taking into account the fact that it was the first LAN in the season for the collective, we decided to put them on the list of the disappointing players. Only Virtus.Pro didn't change the players after The International 2018 and got to the championship with their full roster, so that's why the expectations were really high. The roster lost one meeting at the group stage by the score of 2:0 and it got clear that something is wrong with the collective. и уже было понятно, что с коллективом не все впорядке. Perhaps, the team didn't get used to working with a new coach ArsZeeqq who made the picks for the roster.

Teams performing as it was expected:

EVOS Esports

The guys from EVOS Esports made it to the championship being outsiders and nobody believed that they could pass the group stage and especially their win.  The collective managed to get points only after the fight with compLexity which resulted in a draw and all the other matches of the group stage brought them only losses. The roster finished participating in the championship taking the last place but they got a treasured experience which is necessary for such young teams as EVOS.

CompLexity Gaming

EternalEnvy and the team look weak as for the tier-1 stage, so nobody could think of their good performance and the captain confessed after the end of the tournament that the team hadn't prepared for the competition. Nevertheless, the collective managed to get four points in the group providing themselves with getting to the playoff and it surpassed the expectations. compLexity lost against Evil Geniuses at the first playoff round and took the 7-8 position by the results of the whole championship.

Forward Gaming

Resolut1on and the team got placed on the 7-8 position at the championship and we can say that it was a failure for the guys, but this is the first LAN for the renewed roster of the team and the main mider of the collective couldn't go, so Forward Gaming performed with a substitute. Playing without Yawar, the team managed to get to the playoff where they lost against a renewed roster of paiN Gaming. After ESL One Hamburg 2018, there appeared an interview where Roman Fominok told why the collective hadn't achieved good teamwork with Universe and performed at the championship in the 3+1+1 format, so this result is considered to be understandable.

Evil Geniuses

Evil Geniuses came to the championship with a substitute - SumaiL couldn't get a visa to Germany and CC&C performed instead of him, but this is an extra class team and even four skeleton players were enough to perform well at the competition. The  collective had draws with all four teams in their group, providing themselves with getting to the playoff where they lost against the champions - Team Secret. As a result, the team got placed on the 5-6 position at the competition and it can be a regular result as SumaiL is a very important part of the roster.

Team Secret

Team Secret withstood responsibility taken on them and fulfilled expectations of the fans becoming the champions of the competition. The collective had two replacements at the beginning of the season and it was clear that the team was going to be on top, but the guys were getting better even faster than it had been expected and they got the second title in this play season - two weeks before the roster became the winner of PVP Esports Championship 2018. By the results of this competition, we can say that Puppey and the team are the main favourites of the upcoming Kuala Lumpur Major.

We also have to remind that MidOne became one of the first player not from Virtus.Pro, who was honoured with a title of MVP at the tournament and got a Mercedes.

Teams that managed to surprise:

Team Aster

The Chinese collective from Team Aster performed well in their region at different qualifiers but they couldn't get to Three Best due to intense competition so it was hard to define their true powers. At ESL One Hamburg 2018, the collective showed a great game at the group stage and took the first place there getting only one win while the other matches were dictated by the roster from the Heavenly Empire. At the playoff Aster were treated differently and the guys lost against paiN Gaming at the lower bracket. In total, nobody had expected good performance at this tournament so we decided to place them here.

Vici Gaming

Vici Gaming “mixed” the roster after the end of The International and, as well as Team Secret, they started to show themselves well in their region. The true power was difficult to estimate as the collective had mixed results due to bad teamwork. At the  previous championship the roster showed their best side and after the second place in their group made it to the Grand Final in the winners’ bracket winning over Virtus.Pro and Team Aster. At the decisive match for the championship, the roster couldn't surpass their achievements of the previous season and stopped at the second place, earning approximately $65,000.

PaiN Gaming

PaiN Gaming joined the competition being a dark horse, but in our preview we said that the roster could surprise as they had showed themselves as very good players at the previous rating season, and after the end they had only one replacement. So that was what happened: the guys got the fourth position in the group and at the playoff they won over Forward Gaming and Team Aster, providing themselves with the fourth position at the first LAN tournament this year.