Stage 2 surprises at CS2 ESL Pro League Season 22

We saw some surprising upsets as top teams lost to less favored opponents. A celebrated player also made a comeback, joining his team for a major competition. Overall, the esports event was excellent, which most fans expected.

The ESL Pro League Season 22 for Counter-Strike 2 had reached its final Swiss stage. Sixteen teams – eight who advanced from the previous round and eight top-ranked organizations – competed for the limited spots in the Playoffs.

While the overall outcome of the competition wasn’t much of a surprise, the journey to get there was full of unexpected twists and turns, making the CS2 esports scene incredibly engaging.

The MongolZ stumble and do not recover

The team consistently improved their results and performance until the end of EPL Season 22.

The MongolZ faced four underdogs in Stage 2 and lost to three of them. Seeing the Austin Major finalists and the CS2 EWC 2025 winners failing in matches against HOTU, Inner Circle, and Gentle Mates wasn’t on everyone’s bingo card! Thanks to a win over GamerLegion, The MongolZ made it to the final decider match. They faced NAVI and got eliminated.

The commentators on the broadcast believe this outcome is partly due to the absence of strong local rivals. We need to see The MongolZ compete more frequently in international tournaments to get a clearer picture.

Flawless Spirit and Falcons

While it’s too soon to say for sure, Spirit and Falcons both played exceptionally well in Stage 2 of ESL Pro League Season 22. This strong showing is encouraging after a recent period of inconsistency. Now, they’re looking ahead to the challenge of the Playoffs!

Team Spirit faced two underdogs and lost one map in those matches. Inner Circle managed to take Nuke with an interesting score, 13:4. HOTU could do nothing remarkable against Spirit. To advance to the Playoffs, Team Spirit defeated strong opponents, G2 Esports: and that was a 2:0 again.

Despite winning both IEM Cologne 2025 and BLAST Bounty Fall 2025, Spirit struggled at CS2 EWC 2025 and BLAST Open Fall 2025. They’ve since added a new player, Andrey “tN1R” Tatarinovich, and ESL Pro League S22 will be the first competition for this updated team lineup.

Falcons defeated Astralis in Round 1, which was a must-do win for them, considering the low downs of these opponents in Stage 1. Then, Team Falcons faced two of the tournament favorites: NAVI and MOUZ. After these two wins, we probably can hope that the legendary coach Danny “zonic” Sørensen has achieved team synergy from his star players.

Team Falcons had a challenging 2025. After consistently making it to championship matches in previous events, they struggled to qualify for the Playoffs at both the Austin Major and IEM Cologne. While finishing in the top 3 at the Esports World Cup and top 4 at FISSURE Playground #2 shows some improvement, it wasn’t the level of success expected from a team of their caliber.

The last big tournament for rain in FaZe?

ESL Pro League Season 22 began with a surprising announcement: FaZe Clan benched Håvard “rain” Nygaard after nearly a decade with the team.

Unfortunately, FaZe Clan’s participation was short-lived. They were unable to field a complete team and had to concede their first match against G2. However, rain returned to compete in Round 2 and beyond.

What exactly happened remains a mystery, and it’s uncertain what this iconic player will do next.

Stage 2 of EPL Season 22 wasn’t too smooth for FaZe. They lost to 3DMAX but then defeated Astralis and Inner Circle with 2:0s. In the decider match, FaZe played against Aurora, and they fell as low as losing 2:13 on Map 2, Train. Still, the team managed to win that series with a super close battle on Dust II.

So, FaZe came into this tournament with a pretty big shake-up. EliGE went back to Liquid, and this was actually the first time we’d seen FaZe play with Twistzz on the roster. It was a new look for them, for sure!

A big yawn from Vitality

I’m still hoping to see Team Vitality get back to winning tournaments, but honestly, they’ve been throwing some games I didn’t expect. They *did* bounce back with some really strong performances, crushing their opponents on certain maps, but that loss against a much weaker team still bothers me. It just doesn’t sit right.

Team Vitality joined EPL S2, and it looked like they couldn’t wake up for Round 1. Gentle Mates defeated this powerhouse of a roster with a 0:2. Fans probably hope such yawns will not happen in the Playoffs.

After a shaky beginning, Vitality quickly found their rhythm, winning convincingly against GL with scores of 13-3 and 13-1 on the maps Overpass and Dust II. They continued their success by defeating both HOTU and G2 Esports.

G2 was the only other strong contender against Vitality in the deciding match. While Vitality dominated the first map with a score of 13-2, they faced a tough challenge and had to fight back on the second map. To really gauge their strength heading into the Budapest Major, we need to see how they perform against other top-level teams.

We see you HOTU, Inner Circle, M8!

It’s always exciting to see smaller, less-known teams play well, and Stage 2 delivered some great surprises! While teams like Inner Circle, HOTU, and Gentle Mates didn’t make it to the Playoffs, their performance showed a lot of potential and suggests a bright future for CS2 Esports.

HOTU dominated Stage 1 and advanced with three wonderful wins. You wouldn’t expect that level of performance from a team most CS2 people have never heard of. In Round 1, it looked like this Cinderella story could continue, as HOTU defeated The MongolZ, one of the top teams in VRS. Three losses came after that: to Spirit, VItality, and NAVI.

Inner Circle also defeated The MongolZ, and they had decent rounds against other top teams: FURIA and FaZe. IC Esports even took one map over Team Spirit. It’s a great experience for the guys, and we can expect more surprises from them in other big CS2 esports tournaments.

Gentle Mates is a big esports organization, but its CS2 roster was formed only in August 2025 — they signed players from Spain. M8 performed nicely in Stage 1, and they defeated Vitality in Stage 2. Losses to MOUZ, Aurora, and The MongolZ did not let Gentle Mates move further.

A fail of G2 and other non-surprising results

In the second stage of ESL Pro League Season 22, FURIA, MOUZ, and NAVI had some inconsistent games, but still managed to succeed. 3DMAX once again reached the top 8, and it will be interesting to see how far they can go this time around.

G2 Esports has struggled again, and their victory at BLAST Open Fall 2025 now seems like a bit of a fluke. The team appears to be falling back into its previous inconsistency, likely due to losing two important players. The playoffs for the EPL begin on October 10th, with the championship match scheduled for Sunday, October 12th.

The next major tournament, the Thunderpick World Championship 2025, begins on October 15th. It will feature just four of the best teams.

November 2025 promises a busy month for Counter-Strike 2 esports, featuring tournaments like IEM Chengdu and the StarLadder Budapest Major.

2025-10-08 22:43