ESL Pro League S21 Playoff Predictions: Will There Be Surprises or Will Spirit and Vitality Meet in the Grand Final Again?
Only 4 days remain until the end of the two-week CS marathon, and today the first two quarterfinals will take place. Before discussing the playoffs, I’d like to say a few words about the modified format, which, although shortened by almost a week with fewer participants, still turned out to be quite drawn out. If even viewers are feeling the general fatigue, how must the teams feel when they have almost no breaks between tournaments? This problem especially affects teams still striving to reach tier-1 status, who have to play all tournaments to maintain their ranking and receive invitations. The top teams allowed themselves to skip PGL Cluj-Napoka and, moreover, participated in EPL starting from the second stage – as a result, 7 out of 8 invited teams advanced to the playoffs. Let’s analyze the quarterfinal matches and determine which participants are closest to the coveted trophy.
Eternal Fire vs Team Spirit: The Turks Urgently Need Rest
The Turkish roster began 2025 with an excellent replacement of Calyx with jottAAA, which immediately yielded results, and the Turks became regular participants in playoff stages. However, by mid-March, due to the dense tournament schedule, Eternal Fire transformed from a bold, powerful team into an old, barely moving cart. Certainly, this cart has traveled many miles and is still running, but the speed is not the same, and some parts require maintenance. The Turks squeaked through the Play-In stage, experienced even more difficulties in the second stage, and throughout this time, they didn’t have enough time to rest, reset, try to develop something new, or at least fix existing gaps.
And against such a team, Team Spirit will play, where donk will run and look for opponents all over the map. The Dragons are the clear favorites in this match, and it’s even difficult to imagine under what circumstances the match would go to a third map. The Turks will again rely on their Anubis or try to risk picking Train, where the donk factor will play a lesser role due to the map’s specifics. But there’s no doubt that the reigning Major champions will be ready for all the traps that XANTARES and company will try to set in this BO3. Of course, there’s always a chance for a miracle, but here we’ll give no more than a 20% chance for such a sensation.
80 to 20 in favor of Team Spirit.
G2 vs MOUZ: Everything Is in m0NESY's Hands
This is the second major LAN without Nikola Kovač for the Samurai, and from their play at ESL Pro League S21, it’s clear that the team has not yet recovered from losing such a high-class player. According to various interviews, absolutely everyone is trying to take on the role of second caller, and there are even rumors that m0NESY might become a full-fledged IGL. The G2 sniper sits in the middle and communicates much more actively with the team, which is most likely seen as a necessary measure and Ilya’s own initiative, who doesn’t want to remain silent when he understands that something is going wrong. Fortunately, such active communication doesn’t affect his individual gameplay, but it’s clear that the team desperately needs good calls. For the attack, where they can improvise more and rely on pure skill, the Samurai are doing quite well, but in defense, where more coordinated actions are required – it’s close to a disaster.
Obviously, these problems won’t disappear in two days, and they will face the quite cohesive MOUZ, who are on an emotional high after winning the previous tournament. The solid slap from Vitality made them realize that not everything is rosy and they should continue working, which they showed in the very next match. Nevertheless, this team is quite young and heavily dependent on a good start. Also, the Samurai will have a clear advantage in the sniper position, and if malbsMd activates in this match, the Mice could experience serious problems. The individual potential of G2 players is too high, so they should never be written off.
In this match, we see a slight advantage for G2, 60 to 40.
NAVI vs The MongolZ: Time for the Mongols to Prove Themselves
The MongolZ have long moved up to the premier league, but they still haven’t managed to shed the dark horse label. Playing on stage is still a stressful circumstance that prevents them from playing their liberated and confident CS. At ESL Pro League, there will be no spectators, and the playoffs will be held in the same studio format as the group stage. This factor is definitely playing in favor of The MongolZ, who managed to come back from a 2:11 score against G2, which would hardly have been possible in an arena with spectators. Yes, they were quite toothless against Team Spirit, but NAVI is not in their optimal form right now either.
Moving on to Blad3’s protégés, the head coach clearly must have heard several warning bells during his team’s play. The defeat to SAW, the map given to TYLOO, overtimes against paiN – all this looked extremely depressing. The victory over G2 might have led the team to false thoughts that everything is fine, and there’s a possibility that NAVI will play carelessly against the Mongols. The MongolZ love when they’re underestimated, so Aleksib will need to focus seriously and not be toxic in teamspeak.
This match seems even more balanced than the previous one, and even the map pool doesn’t help identify a specific winner. Here we’ll take another risk and put The MongolZ slightly above NAVI in the hope of seeing at least one sensation in the playoffs. 55 to 45 in favor of The MongolZ.
Vitality vs Liquid: Without Unnecessary Words
The victory at IEM Katowice is Vitality’s main trump card in this tournament. The team was made to feel that all the changes were correct and that they are in perfect order. These guys exude a gorgeous vibe, where apEX is experiencing his third youth and can take the highlight tab in a match against MOUZ. Liquid’s captain will try to engage in trash talk with apEX, will try to encourage his teammates, but whether they can catch his will to win is an open question. NAF and jks sit with stone faces throughout all matches, and ultimate and NertZ can only bite back on the server. Such players are an easy appetizer before the next stages for the hungry Vitality, who want not only to take another trophy but also to get closer to the Intel Grand Slam and help ZywOo surpass s1mple in the number of MVPs.
Vitality’s victory – 95%
Semifinals and Grand Final
It seems few have doubts that we are waiting for a repeat of the grand final in Katowice, and no one has been able to show a level of play close to the two best teams in the world at the moment. Any other outcome would be a genuine surprise, which is why we allowed ourselves to give somewhat risky predictions for two quarterfinals, as the result will be the same anyway – Vitality and Team Spirit go further.
Will Team Spirit be able to take revenge? It seems not; Vitality looks too good and even better than they did a month and a half ago. The Dragons say in all interviews that they are ready and promise to give a fight, but at the moment, there are no objective prerequisites for a successful revenge. They can take one map, impose a more serious fight on the given ones, but they don’t look like the winners of the event in the Swedish capital.
Chances of Teams Winning the Event
- Vitality – 41.48%
- Team Spirit – 32.25%
- NAVI – 15.81%
- G2 – 15.38%
- The MongolZ – 11.11%
- MOUZ – 5.00%
- Eternal Fire – 4.76%
- Liquid – 3.45%
What Do Neural Networks Think?
We decided to diversify our predictions and asked the neural network from the social network Grok what it thinks about the results of ESL Pro League S21. Here are its thoughts:
1st place:
- Team Vitality – stability, roster depth, top form.
2nd place:
- Team Spirit – worthy finalists, but slightly weaker in Bo5.
3rd-4th place:
- MOUZ – strong EPL team, but lacks firepower against Vitality.
- Natus Vincere – strong but less stable, lost to Spirit.
5th-8th place:
- Team Liquid – too weak against Vitality.
- Eternal Fire – couldn’t handle Spirit.
- The MongolZ – hit a wall against NAVI.
- G2 Esports – m0NESY carries, but team play is lacking.
