Bad News Bears is first team to be eliminated from ESL Pro League Season 14

EPL Day 5, served us some exciting series with Heroic and Vitality beating ENCE and Astralis respectively to qualify for the playoffs. Meanwhile Bad News Bear became the first team to be eliminated from this season of Pro League.

In the opening game of the day, Team Spirit took down the Bad News Bears. Coming into the match both teams had no wins in the group stage so far, and for the Bears, that losing streak will continue into the final day. The game was a quick 2-0 affair starting on Inferno where Viktor 'sdy' Orudzhev, who had been quiet throughout the group stage so far, finally showed up. He was able to pick up 22 kills and shut the Bears down with a 16-6 win.

Spirit's specialty of Dust 2 didn't go much better for the Bad News Bears. They were unable to get consecutive rounds till the very end of the half and went into the second half down 12-3. Spirit quickly converted that into 14 rounds, but Shakezullah's troops were able to pick up 5 rounds. Nevertheless, Abdul 'degster' Gasanov's amazing performance was too much to shut down for the NA squad. Bad News Bears lost the map 16-8 and were eliminated from the event.

In an absolutely insane series, Heroic managed to edge out ENCE. The game kicked off on Mirage, where from the get-go, ENCE was on fire with 32-year old veteran IGL, Marco 'Snappi' Pfeiffer getting 11 kills in the first 4 rounds without dying once. He continued that strong start throughout the map as he played the best map of his career. He led the international squad to a snappy 16-5 win as he dropped 32 kills.

Heroic bounced back on Overpass, winning the first half 10-5. ENCE managed to edge a lead in the second half but Heroic won a streak of rounds to reach match point. Olek 'hades' Miskiewicz tried his best to take ENCE into overtime but Heroic finally shut down the game 16-14.

The final frontier was Nuke where both teams had identical stats going into the game. The game was back and forth throughout and the first half ended 8-7 with Hades continuing his strong performance. In the second half, the exchange of rounds continued but Heroic off the back of Ismail 'refrezh' Ali and Martin 'stavn' Lund's performance reached matchpoint quickly. ENCE looked like they had done enough for the win as they broke Heroic's money going into the final round. But an amazing round from Casper 'cadiaN' Møller with his saved AWP led to Heroic's triumph in the series. They continue their unbeaten streak from EPL Season 13 and qualified for the playoffs.

The French squad looked on point today as they managed to beat Astralis in a comfortable 2-0 series. Despite the seemingly close scoreline, Vitality always looked in control and have secured playoffs after this win. The match began on Overpass where Astralis won the pistol round and the subsequent gun round, which propelled them to a 6-1 lead. But once Vitality had the guns back out they were unstoppable as Kévin 'misutaaa' Rabier's entry and Jayson 'Kyojin' Nguyen Van's trades led them to a 9-6 half. The second half was much of the same with Astralis getting 3 rounds from the pistol but Vitality winning the next 7 in a row to close the map out as their economy swelled out of control.

The second game, was an even stronger first half for the French as two-time world no.1 Mathieu 'ZywOo' Herbaut was on fire. His CT side AWPing got Vitality an 11-4 lead after he started strong with a pistol round 4k. The second half started well as the French squad secured 13. Astralis finally woke up, winning a set of 5 rounds to get their tally up to 9, but by that point Vitality's win seemed inevitable and they closed the series out 16-9, securing a berth into the playoffs.

Tomorrow, on the final day of Group A, we'll see a Danish derby that could determine whether ENCE or Astralis will make it to the playoffs. Stay tuned to Esport.gg to check out our coverage of ESL Pro League and the latest CS: GO news.