Why Has OG Already Been Eliminated From ESL One Birmingham 2020 Online: Europe?

• OG have been eliminated from ESL One Birmingham 2020 - Online: Europe & CIS after their loss against NiP yesterday.
• We explore the different reasons why this might have happened.

After yet another loss at ESL One Birmingham 2020 - Online: Europe & CIS against NiP earlier yesterday, OG has been eliminated from the tournament. The team only has a 1-5 win-loss record in the group stages, with their only win coming against Winstrike (who have lost every single match in this tournament).

^{Image Courtesy: Liquipedia}

They’re still yet to play Alliance later today. However, even if they manage to 2-0 their opponents, they will not be able to qualify for the playoffs.

Why Did This Happen?

Despite OG finally playing with the 5-man lineup which completely dominated the European qualifiers of the ESL One: Los Angeles EU Qualifiers in the only instance where they played together, they’ve lost to teams that OG usually doesn’t lose to. Why is this happening?

Ping/Latency:

Well, the most likely and obvious answer is the ping/latency issues. The five players are playing from different regions in the world. 

• SumaiL - North America
• Topson - Europe
• MidOne - SEA
• Saksa - Europe
• N0tail - Europe

They cannot min/max like they usually do (when they’re playing with minimal latency). They cannot use the superior skillsets of their players optimally and hence end up getting outplayed by their opponents.

MidOne’s Inexperience in the Offlane:

In many of OG’s games, MidOne has been making a lot of uncharacteristic misplays which cannot really be directly linked to latency disadvantages. We get the sense that the player is simply trying to accomplish too much with his limited farm and in the end, is detrimental to his team.

Although he has shown that he is still capable of pulling out some incredible outplays,

His overall decision-making in the offlane still isn’t as good as it used to be, back when he was playing with Team Secret or even with OG at the ESL One Los Angeles 2020 EU Qualifiers. Perhaps this could be linked with OG’s understanding of the patch, which brings us to the next point.

OG Has Not Adapted to the Patch:

Although they managed to qualify for the ESL One Los Angeles Major without losing a single match, this was in the month of February, that is to say, 3 months ago in a totally different patch. After that, Icefrog completely changed the game, reducing comeback potential and adding more emphasis on the laning phase.

Since then, OG hasn’t really been able to practice with all 5 members of the team and adapt to the new meta.

SumaiL has primarily been playing in North American pubs, N0tail and Saksa in EU pubs, while MidOne and (until very recently) Topson were playing in the SEA servers. Even if they were playing scrims together, this puts them at a disadvantage against their opponents who’ve all been able to practice in a singular server with the rest of their teams.

Topson’s Inactivity:

To this, Topson has just returned to Europe after 3 months of inactivity at a competitive level. Although he has been grinding SEA pub games (which he was not happy with), we doubt that he was scrimming with his team. Perhaps he has temporarily lost the competitive edge in the midlane, as a result, and will need to regain it in the upcoming weeks.

Overall it feels like OG just needs some time and some competitive games under their belt to regain their groove and fix some of their issues. Perhaps a new patch will accelerate it. Obviously, they have all the talent and skill to go right back up to the top. Fans of OG just need to give the two-time TI champions a little more time for them to regain momentum and go toe-to-toe with the best of Europe.

Image Courtesy: Valve, Epicenter