The ESL Pro League continues, the matches of the first two groups have already been completed, and today the games of group C start. In the first meeting of the day, Heroic will face MOUZ. Both teams had a long break, so the match looked highly intriguing. But who will be the winner?

Maps

The veto map can pass in different scenarios. In this match, the order of picks will play a very important role because the teams have the same permaban, which means that one of the teams will definitely be able to remove the opponent's strong card from the pool in the first stage. If MOUZ gets such a privilege, they will probably ban Overpass, while Heroic will remove Ancient or Mirage. Further map veto also depends on the order of peaks because the set of cards in the two scenarios will be very different. Heroic will want to play Overpass or Nuke, and MOUZ is ready for Mirage or Ancient. The most likely decider is Inferno. This card is convenient for both teams. Thus, the most likely versions of the veto maps are Ancient-Overpass-Inferno, Mirage-Overpass-Inferno, and Mirage-Nuke-Inferno. For Heroic, the first two options are very convenient because the Danes will be able to choose their Overpass, and the last set of maps is perfect for MOUZ. The map advantage will depend on the order of picks if teams do not try to surprise by choosing an unpopular card.

Shape

It is very difficult to analyze the shape of the teams because the players had a very long break. This applies to Heroic to a lesser extent. They performed at the BLAST Premier Fall Groups at the end of August and directly applied to MOUZ, who, after the Player Break, only managed to play the qualifiers at RMR. Speaking of Heroic, we can say that the Danes had a terrible time in their last tournament, as they couldn't get directly to the BLAST Premier Fall Final. However, the level of the teams they lost cannot be called low. Liquid did well on BLAST, and NIP beat Heroic in a hard-fought battle. Other than that, there was no stopping Heroic from getting in shape during the break they had. MOUZ, in turn, still cannot be fully considered a shooting range-1 team. The team recently broke its streak of failures at LAN tournaments, taking 5th-6th place at IEM Cologne, where MOUZ beat Heroic. However, the team can continue to perform at a high-level thanks to the long break. It can be said that the advantage in terms of shape depends entirely on Heroic. If the team did not work on the mistakes after two failed tournaments, the Danes would definitely lose to MOUZ.

Result

It is very difficult to determine the favourite in this match. In the fog is the state of the collectives and the veto map, the advantage of which will be determined by the order of picks. However, if you look at all the available data, MOUZ looks a little more favourable because of its achievements before Player Break. Detailed pre-match statistics can be viewed here.