Poor Start, Solid Come Back in ESL
After a poor start to the second split of the ESL Spapdragon Open Season 4, a steadying of the ship means Pale Fox Esports ended up finishing in 12th place in the table. The team’s last outing in ESL competition saw them finish in 11th place overall, but the falling back a position is being seen in a positive light after a roster switch and a big improvement in performances.
After Muted’s departure from the roster at the end of the last ESL split, Kurk was brought in to fill the gap alongside oNLy and Rayyes. However, two disastrous tournaments in the opening two cups followed with the team well beaten twice in round two after round one byes. NAVI and F/A Ghost both earned more than deserved 2-0 victories over the new-look roster.
With performances below par, the roster was shaken up again, with RoUND brought in on trial for the rest of the split, replacing Kurk. Improved outings from there saw Pale Fox Esports go on to reach a stage further in each of the next cup events, with wins over Smok, Dogster Lobster, and VitaNavitas bagged and defeats to world’s contenders Reply Totem and HMBLE the only negative results.
The final standings for the event’s top 16 teams were:
1st – Totem Esports – 445 points
2nd – OneTrickPonies– 340 points
3rd – Team Queso – 295 points
4th – VN Esporting – 285 points
5th – HMBLE – 265 points
6th – F/A Proxima – 235 points
7th – Kebap – 230 points
8th – F/A India – 180 points
9th – Natus Vincere (NAVI) – 175 points
10th – Waffle – 140 points
11th – VitaNavitas – 135 points
12th – Pale Fox Esports – 100 points
13th – SoiLoStrirato – 100 points
14th – AM O Fantezie – 85 points
15th – AO Instinct – 80 points
16th – F/A Ghost – 80 points
Speaking about the latest ESL Snapdragon split, Pale Fox Esports’ Dragonfly said: “Watching the team in the first few weeks of competition was tough – it wasn’t at the standard that we would expect of our players, and we didn’t do ourselves justice. It wasn’t where we wanted to be, and nor is 12th to be fair at the end, but I’m happy that we took action to solve the situation – it wasn’t working as it was.
“Tough days breed tough people, and we’ll be coming back much stronger after our experience in this split. We know what we have to do to reach higher levels of play and we’ve learnt some tough lessons in this one. I say 12th isn’t where we want to be, but considering the start we had we’re probably grateful to get there.
“The players know we have to step it up from here, and there’s a better feel around the camp for the last week or so now. It was rocky at times, but fair play to them for getting things back on track. There were some really solid performances in there on the last couple of events and we beat some very good teams and played well.”