NiP in the ESL Cologne Group Stage

Ritwik ritzbitzn Dutta

Ninjas in Pyjamas
#5 EU #6 World

vs.

Counter-Logic Gaming
#2 NA #15-20 World

The first match from Group A at ESL One Cologne will be a very interesting game, to say the
least. The matchup is between Ninjas in Pyjamas and CLG. Recently, NiP have been in a
slump in terms of performance. It is largely agreed upon that this slump is a result of their
playstyle one that despite leading to a major win, seems to have stopped working.
The NiP team has never had exceedingly structured strategies. In 1.6, up until 2010, f0rest
and GeT_RiGhT played on a team with Patrik cArn Sttermon (currently known as the CGO
for Fnatic), who was known for a looser and more informal leadership style. f0rest and
GeT_RiGhT were some of the best players of all time in 1.6, and the team could simply rely on
them to frag away, lurk around, and just generally out-skill the opponents. Since the early
days of CSGO, the NiP team has followed in the steps of the Fnatic 1.6 team in terms of this
loose call and play style. Back then, and even as recently as August of last year, it worked.
The team could simply out-aim and out-skill their opponents.
However, as the game matured, so did the competition. Teams like Fnatic and TSM stomped
other teams in their path, with others like EnVyUs and NaVi giving them little room to
breathe. At ESL Katowice 2015, with a second place finish, NiP showed that as of March, the
team was still capable of reaching the top tiers of skill, but more recent losses to lower-end
Tier 1 teams and a lack of Top 4 finishes at recent events have shown that the team is in a
definite slump. The noticeable problem seems to be a lack of preset executes for their Tsided play. Moving from the looser, mid-round call heavy style of the past to a more
structure style would certainly help, but it remains to be seen what style the team will emerge
with after their boot camp.
Their challenger in this match is none other than Counter-Logic Gaming, considered to be
the second best team in North America. Since the departure of Peter ptr Gurney in April
2015, they settled on Josh jdm64 Marzano as their fifth member, placing him in the role of
the teams primary AWPer. The performance of CLG has not been analyzed as deeply,
because instead of falling from the top, as NiP did, they rose from mediocrity, largely due to

their upsets against Fnatic and Keyd Stars during the ESL ESEA Pro League in July. Since then,
CLG hasnt made waves, per se.
When looking at the match history of both teams, it seems that CLG has rather inconsistent
results. In the past months, CLG has played against a variety of opponents both domestically
and internationally. Domestically, they have faced Team Liquid a myriad of times, but they
have not consistently won or lost. When it comes to other domestic teams, CLG have lost to
Nihilum, Tempo Storm, and Luminosity, usually with decently close score lines, around 16-10,
but they have also won rather frequently with similar score lines in their favor. In the
international space, CLG has battled EnVyUs and TSM, taking both of them to the edge (1613 and 16-12). This would suggest that they would be able to take on top-level Tier 1 teams,
but they lost to SK Gaming with a similar score line in the same event. In the months before
that, CLG saw very little international play, but when they did, they usually lost (except for
upsets).
The match history of NiP is quite honestly just as unclear. They have recently played a myriad
of both Tier 1 and Tier 2 teams, from Europe and North America alike. Their performance
against other top-level European fluctuates between close losses and distant losses, but wins
against Tier 1 teams are not very common. When playing Tier 2 teams, the ninjas tend to do
significantly better. Lower-end Tier 1 teams such as Flipsid3, Mousesports, and Dignitas win
about as often as they lose, so it can be said that they the opponents most evenly matched
to NiP. They also seem to be able to beat Virtus.Pro a slight majority of the time (63% win
rate in the past 3 months) and compete toe-to-toe with NaVi (50% win rate in the past 3
months). This ability may seem like evidence that NiP truly can compete for the Top 4 spot in
the world, but Fnatic, TSM, EnVyUs, and to a lesser extent NaVi and C9 still stand in their way
to reaching the top.
So now we have a decent picture of the playing field for both NiP and CLG but the
question is, how do they play against each other? The last time they played together was
March 12, 2015, during ESL One Katowice, where NiP beat CLG 16-7 on Mirage. It suffices to
say that clearly, the teams have both changed since then. CLG has improved, but NiP hasnt.
Its difficult to tell where they fall respective to each other, but some information can be
gleaned from their performance versus other teams. CLG seems to be able to get rounds
versus vastly superior opponents and make matches close, but they expectedly lose most of
those matches. However, despite getting similar amounts of rounds versus far worse teams,
they still dont win. NiP cant quite beat top-level teams either, and they frequently dont
come as close as CLG either, but NiP can almost always hold their own against anyone below
#9 in the world. The same cant be said for CLG, who frequently lose to teams who might be
ranked as low as #20 or even #25 in the world. Its pretty safe to say that in this matchup, NiP

is going to win. Even if CLG takes it to a close score line, they dont have a good chance of
closing out versus NiP.
Right now, neither team is in the top echelon, but the NiP lineup is far closer. It makes sense
when you think about it; CLG started at the bottom, so they have a long way to rise. The
ninjas fell from the top, but not very far and with some hard work and a few changes in
their style, I think they can be number one again.