ESL Pro League finals: mousesports, Evil Geniuses are through

History repeated itself in Europe as mousesports took down Astralis in a close series to set up a grand final against Fnatic while Evil Geniuses scored a comfortable win over FURIA to book their spot in the final and get a chance to exact vengeance on Team Liquid.

ESL Pro League Europe: déjà vu

Ultimately, Season 11 of ESL Pro League will finish very much the same way as Season 10 did: after pulling off an upset against Astralis in the semis, karrigan's mousesports squad will go up against Fnatic in the grand finals. Though Astralis absolutely crushed mouz in the group stage match (winning 16-3 on Inferno and 16-1 on Dust 2), karrigan's men had the last laugh as they fought their way back into contention multiple times throughout the series. Despite the Danes' strong start on Dust 2, mouz managed to claw their way back and could have closed things out in regulation, ultimately winning 19-17 on their own map pick. With Inferno once again a one-sided affair (16-5 to Astralis), it all came down to Nuke.

Though this used to be Astralis' lair, not even a 5-0 lead was enough to get them across the finish line as mouz ended their T half with 6 rounds and came back strong after losing the pistol, chaining together eight rounds and eventually closing out the series with a poor buy and some Deagle heroics by ropz on ramp.

With KRIMZ and ropz in red-hot form on their respective teams, and big-brain IGLs on both sides, we're definitely in for a treat at the grand finals. Of course, mousesports trounced the Swedes in the Season 10 grand finals, winning 3-0 in the best-of-five series, and it will be fascinating to see whether this will play out in a similar fashion.

ESL Pro League Europe Americas: third time's the charm?

Over in NA (at least virtually), Evil Geniuses scored a 2-0 win over FURIA, making up for their group stage defeat against the same side. Not allowing Mirage through this time turned out to be a good decision, and though arT and co. almost pulled it back on Inferno after a fairly straightforward Vertigo game, a 16-14 defeat consigned them to third place and $33 000 in winnings.

This, of course, makes it the third time EG and Liquid meet in the tournament, with EliGE and co. winning both previous encounters - a close-fought 2-1 win in the groups and a 2-0 victory (16-14 Nuke, 16-12 Dust 2) in the upper bracket final. With a one-map default advantage secured by their upper bracket run, Liquid are expected to take down this series with ease.