Yesterday the Virtus Pro Staff Cup#1 groupstages took place and was finished. Despite having one of the hardest groups Ninjas in Pyjamas suprised and managed to get out of the group and proceed to the playoffs.

The opening game for NiP staff was versus the feared team Fnatic with Devilwalk in the forefront. With the veto finished it turned out to be de_dust 2 in the first map of the tournament for the NiP staff. With some great invidual skill and team play NiP managed to secure the win versus Fnatic.

In the upcoming match we played versus the Ukraine team Gameinside.ua, this was the first de_mirage of three to come. The game started very well for the NiP staff but Gameinside.ua got closer at the score of 15-11. Gameinside.ua took round after round and managed to pull out a overtime. The overtime seemed a bit shaky for NiP staff but in the end they managed to close out the match with a final score of 19-17.

The third match was once again against a Ukraine team and also on de_mirage, with the learned mistakes from the last game. NiP staff took the game in their hands and pulled out a victory with a final score of 16-12.

In the final match of the day versus E-frag everyone was talking in Teamspeak saying to not play de_mirage once again but in the end of the veto it came down to de_mirage anyways. The first knife round of the tournament was lost for NiP staff and E-frag choose to stay on CT-side. But despite being on T-side on mirage, NiP started out great with a 7-8 score first half. E-frag had a great T-side as well and managed to pull it to a match point but with three great comeback rounds NiP forced the game into overtime. The overtime was six very close rounds but in the end E-frag came out victorious.

NiP staff’s team leader Petter ”PRiEST” Nilsson had this to say about this packed day of staff games,

”So the group stage is over and it’s fair to say things worked out better than expected. We started off strong with a win over Fnatic and moved on to win two more.Ultimately E-frag got the better of us but with 3 wins and 1 loss we proudly made it out of the group stage! This week we’ll be looking to iron out the kinks and hopefully have a good showing next Saturday” 

With three games won and one loss we proceeded to the playoffs and will be playing on next Saturday the 22th of November. Be sure to tune in and watch the games!