The MongolZ starts EPL S23 campaign with a win over paiN

The MongolZ have kicked off their ESL Pro League Season 23 campaign with a win over paiN in their Stage 2 opening round encounter. The Asian powerhouses kept it clean to start with a 2-0 win and move into the 1-0 bracket.

Also read: ESL Pro League S23 Stage 2: Preview

The Brazilian team's pick of Nuke was the series opener and it was a scrappy and messy affair from both teams to get the game going. Clutches, low buy wins, turning around man disadvantages meant that neither team could manage to gain momentum on a map that saw paiN force overtime due to The MongolZ's sloppiness on their T side. 910's AWP was the deciding factor as a 33 kill performance from the Mongolian AWPer saw The MongolZ pick up a 19-17 win in second overtime.

Moving to the familiar Mirage, The MongolZ struggled to put up a convincing T side but an incredible CT half saw them go from being 5-8 down to cleaning up paiN at 13-9 win to close the series 2-0. Young mzinho was the star on Mirage with the rifler coming in with big impactful multi-kill and clutch rounds. The win puts The MongolZ into the 1-0 bracket where they join the likes of G2, Astralis, Spirit and Natus Vincere (NAVI) amongst other teams.

https://x.com/ESLCS/status/2030001309227844043

https://x.com/ESLCS/status/2030018321844928807

ESL Pro League Season 23 Stage 2

Bo3

The MongolZ

2 - 0

paiN

All maps

The MongolZ	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating 3.0
Ayush 'mzinho' Batbold	45 - 41	+4	88.9	74.1%	1.19
Usukhbayar '910' Banzragch	45 - 38	+7	77.6	75.9%	1.15
Sodbayar 'Techno' Munkhbold	38 - 41	-3	70.1	77.6%	1.15
Anarbileg 'cobrazera' Uuganbayar	40 - 40	+0	75.0	74.1%	1.07
Garidmagnai 'bLitz' Byambasuren	42 - 42	+0	72.7	65.5%	1.03

paiN	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating 3.0
Lucas 'nqz' Soares	43 - 43	+0	74.3	74.1%	1.12
Vinicius 'vsm' Moreira	41 - 38	+3	72.1	77.6%	1.07
Rodrigo 'biguzera' Bittencourt	41 - 45	-4	81.0	70.7%	1.07
Guilherme 'piriajr' Barbosa	39 - 43	-4	83.2	72.4%	1.00
João 'snow' Vinicius	37 - 42	-5	64.1	69.0%	0.86