ESL Pro League Season 18. Group A

Vitality

Currently the #1 team with good structure and one of the strongest rosters in terms of firepower. They are coming into EPL with a fresh win in Gamers8 where they got $400k, and they won't aim for anything below at least semi-final here.
Vitality have a deep mappool and very strong individuals, which makes it really hard for any team to stop them, and even those that could do it are in different groups.
With the seeding for ORKS in first match, winner of Astralis/NIP in second, and the winner of FURIA/Movistar Riders/Grayhound/GamerLegion in third, they are looking to go for a flawless 3-0 in group stage

ORKS

ORKS are hardly a tier3 mix of low level players who should never be here to begin with and they are the first candidate to go out without a win. Their journey to EPL was a complete joke as they got the spot by beating ex-Domination, Bad News Eagles and SAW. In the meantime, they also fumbled their Pinnacle Cup run, where they lost to teams like los kogutos and ECSTATIC.
Their matches in EPL will be against Vitality and the loser of Astralis/NIP, and even if they survive for a little longer in Last Chance stage there is absolutely no place for them in playoffs

Astralis

Although Astralis are stull unstable, they've been able to show good progress so far into the season and climbed from #16 to #6. There are some concerns about Buzz and b0RUP keeping up with tier1 but dev1ce and BlameF are good enough to compensate for them, and Staehr is not a disappointment yet.
Astralis will most likely have to go through the lower bracket, but with such a pool of teams they have good chances of securing playoffs

Ninjas in Pyjamas

NIP is the biggest dark horse of this group. They've been lacking for quite a while now, and bringing back hampus didn't help much. After one good run in BLAST they couldn't show anything and even struggled against tier2-3 teams.
On paper they still have a capable roster though and it will be a matter of preparation and teamplay for them to survive. Just like Astralis, they will have to go through the lower bracket but luckily for them the rest of the teams such as Grayhound or Movistar Riders should be an easy victory. Right now NIP don't have a very good chance of making a deep run, but if they can gain form during the tournament they could just about claim the spot

FURIA

While FURIA aren't expected to bomb out immediately, they aren't expected to show anything good either. They have been struggling for months and it's been only going downhill, and bringing FalleN wasn't a justified decision to say the least.
FURIA went out of Cologne after losing to Monte and TheMongolz, and for the past month they've only played Pinnacle Cup where their results aren't promising. They should be able to get at least a couple wins here in EPL but going further is out of the quesiton

Movistar Riders

Ever since losing SunPayus Movistar couldn't find even 1/5th of the success they used to have, and it's been only declining. Now they made another change, replacing dav1g and sausol, but they weren't able to show anything so far into the season - they played several qualifiers and got last or second to last place in all of them.
They simply don't have enough firepower to compete even against lower level teams, let alone tier1. Given the format of EPL they might not get eliminated immediately but they are doomed to fail either way

Grayhound

Unfortunately for Grayhound they are locked in AU region, which doesn't give them many opportunities for improving or even keeping up with the rest of the scene. Although they have a potential to be a stable tier2 team, and we've even seem them pull off upsets over time, all they really are is just a team that ruins pickems.
When it comes to stepping up a bit more they ultimately fall apart and they would need a crazy miracle to survive in this group, which doesn't seem likely even in the slightest

GamerLegion

GamerLegion had a massive success in the last season, but during the player break they lost their key elements - iM and siuhy. Without them they have been mediocre at best, and even though they didn't fail completely it's clear that they can't be on the same level as old GamerLegion.
With that being said, they are still capable of giving tough fights, though in this group they will have to rely on other teams underperforming if they want to go further. If the favorites come well prepared, GamerLegion will be in serious danger