ESL Pro League Season 18. Group D

Cloud9

Russian superteam had an underwhelming start of the season but they've been grinding and they are coming into EPL after a good warm up in BLAST qualifier, where they won 4/5 matches. Despite how stacked this group is, Cloud9 are one of the first candidates for the playoffs spot as they are in the opposite sides of the bracket with G2. The individuals are strong too, anything below at least top6 in the tournament would be considered a failure for them.
C9's opening match is against Eternal Fire, which they've already beaten 2-1 earlier this week. Next in the bracket would be winner of Complexity/9INE, and they will most likely pass that to meet G2 in the upper bracket final. It's hard to imagine a scenario where C9 would fail to get the spot

Eternal Fire

We rarely see Eternal Fire on LANs but they are a solid tier2-3 team that can often contest some of the better teams as well. They have been out of tier1 meta for too long and they don't have the strategic knowledge to compete against grands of the scene, but on the individual level they can cause a lot of problems to most of the teams here.
XANTARES, woxic and Calyx have always been great mechanical players, and in 2023 it doesn't seem to be any different. The question here is whether it will be enough to pass through to playoffs. EF are pretty much guaranteed to fall to lower bracket, where they could have an easy pass as long as they don't meet G2 or VP down there. Going to Last Chance wouldn't be too bad for them either, and there is actually a good chance we will see Eternal Fire surprise everyone

Complexity

Not necessarily a waste of spot, but a huge disappointment of a team. They started this season with a disastrous 10-12th place in BLAST and 13-16th in Cologne, and their only success was dominating tier3 NA teams in local qualifiers.
On paper Complexity should be a lot better than they are, but no matter what they try they can't find the key to make it work. This group is also the most competitive one, which makes their chances to get to playoffs close to zero. Their opening game against 9INE is already a 50/50 at best, and if they lose they will play against Cloud9/Eternal Fire loser. There is a very serious possibility that they go straight to the Last Chance stage without showing anything

9INE

Sort of a mystery team. 9INE are one of the most consistent tier2 teams but this consistency is only against lower teams, whereas any competition against better teams becomes a russian roulette where everything depends on hades' and KEi's individual performance.
9INE haven't had that many games so far into the season, and most of those were online qualifiers against tier3 competition so it's hard to say if they are ready to show their best or not. They had some close maps against Into the Breach and Looking4Org recently, which is a bit concerning.
At this stage 9INE's chances for playoffs are no more than 50%, it will essentially come down to how long they can survive in lower bracket without dropping to Last Chance

Liquid

Liquid could actually compete for the waste of spot nomination, there is way too many problems around this team. First of all, Patsi had a visa problem so they will play with daps standing in - which could automatically mean Last Chance stage if things go really bad. He is supposedly flying to Malta already though, but it's still doubtful whether he will play the opening match.
Then there are also rumors about potential YEKINDAR replacement, nothing has been confirmed so far but it's not a good sign either way. Finally, Liquid's decisions with roster changes have been just absurd. Picking up tier3 bot Rainwaker who has 0.9 rating in 19 maps playing with Liquid was a suicide for them.
Even if we put the Patsi situation aside, Liquid need to be extremely lucky just to survive in the main group without dropping to Last chance, let alone getting a spot in playoffs

Virtus.Pro

Despite all the clownery with -n0rb3r7 +n0rb3r7 -n0rb3r7 +n0rb3r7, Virtus.Pro actually look like a dangerous team with huge potential. They've been absolutely dominating the tier2-3 scene, and even had impressive matches against teams like G2 and Faze. Of course they aren't ready to be a stable top10 team but they are definitely close.
As long as they don't have any problems in the opening match we should see them go far even if they fail miserably against G2, but actually the G2 match shouldn't be as one-sided as people might expect. While G2 are undoubtedly the best team in this group, they have some issues as well and as VP already showed they are ready to fight. If there's any team in this group to upset G2 it's gotta be Virtus.Pro

G2

There isn't even much to say about G2, they are clearly the best team in this group and one of the main favorites for the entire tournament, after Heroic's elimination they are top2 with Vitality. With a free win boost that they should get from Lynn Vision there is even less chance for some sensational failure. In fact, they should go 3-0 unless they lose to Cloud9 in upper bracket final

Lynn Vision

Just like their comrades 5yclone, Lynn Vision have no place in this tournament whatsoever. ESL keeps allocating spots for regional qualifiers, completely ignoring the fact that any region besides EU and NA (who's gonna tell him) are dead and even the best teams there are hardly on par with the average tier3 grinders from EU CCT tournament.
On top of that, this group is far more stacked than all the previous ones, and even Liquid with daps would probably beat these guys without a sweat. Unlucky for China but it is what it is