Season 2 Week 1 Predictions by Java (GW2 ESL Pro League)

So here we are, week 1 of Season 2’s Pro League Matches.

Feels like it’s been forever since we had Pro League (2 months believe it or not!) and many teams have changed drastically in playstyle and skill level.

Today I’ll be going over the matchups for Week 1, what comp I think each team will bring, and which teams should win and why.

Maps: Forest of Niflhel, Legacy of the Foefire, Battle of Kyhlo

This is the first matchup of North America’s Season 2 and should be a good one. E Dream has been looking to get into the competitive scene for a while and I think they have what it takes to hold onto a Season 3 spot, unfortunately they drew a really difficult lineup for the first 4 weeks, facing all my projected top 4 teams in the first half of the season.

That said, Team PZ has been having a lot of difficulties figuring out just what each person on the team is going to play, leaving some players playing below their potential. If there were any week they’d be able to beat PZ it’d be week 1. The team that wins will probably be whichever can train down the enemy’s Necro better.

This season Final Form is in a meta where 1v1 Ranger and DPS Mesmer are very effective. You can expect to see some big Moa and Portal plays out of Supcutie and lots of 1v1 wins on side nodes from Eurantien. With Gems and Tonic’s current roster I don’t think they’ll be able to deal with Eura without an over-rotation which could lead to some very snowbally games in FF’s favor.

If GnT can manage to isolate the less comfortable players of FF (Bob, Zeromis and Ozie) into vulnerable positions they may be able to snag outer nodes to bunker down with their hyper sustain comp but I doubt FF will let this will happen. GnT is new to the scene and shows promise, but FF are veteran players in a meta that suits them. GnT’s gonna have to give it all they have if they want to win this one.

Spookie has had some serious roster issues this season, losing all their best players to other games or other teams. This roster is admittedly little more than a guess because as far as I know Spoookie hasn’t even been practicing for anyone to know their real roster. I’m expecting a very disappointing season ending in relegation for them.

EzPz isn’t in much better shape, but they’re playing this season’s “god comp” which should be all they need to take a win over the beaten and broken Spoookie. Spoookie has some potential to win if they can get some surprise thief kills (particularly onto the always out of position Ostricheggs) that lead to a snowball, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

This is my match of the week as we’ll be seeing Olrun finally get his shot to do what he’s always dreamed of: take down The Abjured. The Abjured is missing Wakkey this week (your boy’s off chillin’ in the sun for Spring Break) and were unable to find a comparable sub so they settled on Aeroxe. This combined with how well Never Lucky’s been doing lately could lead to a potential upset.

Never Lucky’s victory here is going to be reliant on their ability to exploit Aeroxe to get team fight wins, which could be dependent on Olrun’s ability to keep enough pressure on Abj’s home node that his team can outnumber the team fight.