Ninjas in Pyjamas mounted an impressive CSGO comeback against G2 Esports in the second map their ESL Pro League series, capped off with two insane back-to-back AWP clutches from Simon ‘twist’ Eliasson and Fredrik ‘REZ’ Sterner.
The Ninjas in Pyjamas are still a long ways away from reaching the heights their legendary roster once obtained. But the new look NiP players are racking up tons of impressive highlights on their road back to glory.
On November 13, NiP took on G2 Esports in round group play of the ESL Pro League. Both teams are competing in Group B alongside BIG and North.
NiP were in trouble early, losing the first map on Dust2, and were trailing 10-5 at halftime of map two on Inferno. But the Ninjas maintained their composure, winning round after impressive round on their CT side to tie the map at 13-13.
On the wrong side of a comeback, G2 Esports stormed in to the B bombsite in the next round, but into the waiting scope of NiP’s newest addition in twist.
Despite only wounding Kenny ‘kennyS ‘ Schrub and leaving himself vulnerable in the process, twist was able to find the one hiding spot on the bombsite, and drop the other four G2 players with his AWP. This 4k included two impressive wallbangs, and that initially hit and very wounded kennyS was forced to retreat and surrender the round to NiP.
But while twist unleashed a flurry of shots that decimated the G2 front, his teammate in REZ only needed one to destroy the French side’s remaining hope.
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What you’re hearing is the sound of a man’s brain breaking. CSGO caster HarryG was unable to put into words what happened, as REZ retreated from car with three kills and only one shot to his name.
- As impressive as these plays were, neither player earned man of the map honors, as the young Nicolas ‘Plopski’ Gonzalez Zamora finished the map with an astounding 36-16 KD scoreline. Even more impressive, he had another big performance on map three, notching 32 more kills in a decisive map three on Mirage.
Despite the superior stats from Plopski, twist would steal the show in map three as well, with an anti-eco ace late in the map to shut the door on G2.
Since signing twist from Fnatic, Ninjas in Pyjamas have been making a slow resurgence. At DreamHack Malmo and BLAST Copenhagen, they had strong tournament runs which each ended in losses to the eventual champions of those events in Fnatic and FaZe Clan respectively.
NiP are a top ten team again for the first time since June, and with a potential star in plopski being so young, and with Fnatic in the midst of a resurgence themselves, the old Swedish rivalry could be due for a renewed place at the top of the global leaderboard.