ESL Pro League Season 18. Group B

Heroic

Although Heroic are playing worse than they did a few months ago they remain the biggest favorite in this group, and one of the main favorites for the whole tournament. They had some struggles in previous tournaments, but in its core their roster is consistently stable over a long period of time.
In this group they don't have any dangerous opponents except for ENCE who already beat them twice earlier, but they won't meet until the group final either way so Heroic should have an easy pass to the playoffs

Rooster

An absolute joke of a team who has no place whatsoever in this tournament. Only reason they are here is the terrible state of AU scene, but even there Rooster fail against their countrymen.
On paper this team is worse than even EG, and it will be a total surprise if they pick up a single map, let alone a bo3

BIG

BIG have fallen a lot and had trouble even against teams like MOUZ and Apeks, but recently they've been grinding tier3 tournaments and it helped them get some structure and confidence.
Most of the teams in this group won't be far better than BIG's opponents in CCT and such, so they actually have a non zero chance of surviving it, especially since their opening match against Monte is kind of a 50/50. With that being said, they are not fully ready yet and it's hard to say whether they will surprise or disappoint

Monte

After losing BOROS, Monte have been only a shadow of the team that impressed everyone in Paris. However, they are one of the most hardworking teams in lower divisions, and they've grinded close to 50 maps since the player break already.
While they don't have the firepower to compete with teams like Heroic or ENCE, they could dominate the lower bracket against EG, MIBR and such, and even if they drop to Last Chance stage they should have no problem dealing with that pool of teams

MOUZ

MOUZ are very much a dark horse team in this tournament, they can either completely fail against low teams or go quite far. We haven't been able to see much of them in this season yet, and half of their matches was against tier3 teams where they feel much better, but there is definitely a positive trend for them since the addition of siuhy and Jimpphat. At the same time it's clear that they need more time to keep up with higher level of competition, but luckily for them half of the teams in this group are of no danger at all.
If MOUZ did their homework during the past few weeks of preparing for Pro League and if they show up better than in Cologne, we should see them in playoffs, but it's more than likely that they will be on the edge of not making it

MIBR

This is clearly a wrong tournament for MIBR, as they can't even put up with the tier3 tournaments like CCT. They shouldn't lose in a complete blowout but they are pretty much a locked spot in Last Chance, and from there they don't have much of a chance, if any, to go further

Evil Geniuses

EG's situation is nearly identical to MIBR's, though at least they have been grinding a lot of maps recently while playing NA qualifiers for IEM Sydney. Granted, it was against shit NA teams and it's not like EG had perfect success there either, but it's still better than having almost a month of no official games like MIBR do.
Either way, there is nothing EG could show to turn this group around and get a spot in playoffs, maybe a bo3 in lower bracket or Last Chance at best

ENCE

Seemingly out of nowhere ENCE came all the way to the top and they are now one of the contenders for the entire tournament along with Heroic, Vitality and G2. Out of the last 4 tournaments they won 1 and had second place in the other 3, which is surprisingly consistent.
This group should be a free run for them as well, especially considering their recent success against Heroic in two tournaments in a row, and the only "decent" team on their side of the bracket being MOUZ