ENCE and their no good, very bad, unforced errors - How one round changed an entire half.

 Yesterday at GamingWithoutBorders 2021 ENCE played FURIA in the semi-finals, where on Ancient they lost 16-9 largely on the back of several unforced errors and blunders on the T-side that FURIA took great advantage of. This was odd too, as this was ENCE’s map pick and thus clearly one they felt confident on enough to take the Brazilians down on. That’s not to say FURIA didn’t play well, far from it. aRT, KSCERATO and yuurih all showcased their prowess, with even honda finally popping off with a 1.01 rating, his first “over 1.00” rating since becoming a regular on the team. Whether it be from poor communication or over confidence, ENCE failed to play to their strengths and allowed too many blunders to lose them this crucial map.

dycha struggled most on Ancient, finishing with a 0.64 rating

The bulk of ENCE’s issues came on round 9. On the T-side, they had broken FURIA’s economy and forced them to make an incredibly weird buy, Nova and body armour for aRT and virtually nothing for everyone else. This must have been known by ENCE as they just won a round against a force buy, pushing mid to B and easily clearing out the weakly armed defenders. Perhaps it was this over confidence of that previous strategy working that led to the near comical series of errors.

The round starts with Snappi and Spinx make a push to take mid, where they are met with an incredibly aggressive shotgun on aRT and a cleverly positioned honda above a smoke. Both ENCE players are taken down by this clearly giving mid control to FURIA, which is where the first blunder comes in. dycha and hades, who are slowly making their way to A, decided to change course and attempt to retake mid. They are quickly met with aRT’s aggressive shotgun which takes down dycha making it a 2v5. Doto, who is holding the B flank decides to also peak into mid where he is met by KSCERATO and yuurih who pushed up below him. Doto gets one kill onto aRT before being very easily traded out. With hades being left all alone in a 1v4 clutch with just an AWP, the round is clearly over for ENCE and saving would be the most sensible option. Unfortunately for ENCE fans, the sensible option is not the one taken. hades pushes up from his hiding spot on A-site to peak mid (again), only to be met with several FURIA players just waiting for him. He gets no kills and turns a full-eco into a 4v0 routing with no saved weapons for ENCE to use in the following round.

ENCE push out to mid, only to be met by 3 up close FURIA defenders

After Snappi and Spinx fall, the rest of ENCE move into mid to retake it, while FURIA push up agressivly

The next three rounds go by with less errors but loses for ENCE nonetheless. On round 10, a decently good B-execute is lost primarily due to FURIA winning the crucial aimduels, though an error made by Snappi by pushing through a smoke into Cave surely didn’t help. Round 11 and 12 was a force buy for ENCE with no real blunder causing them to lose, just weaker weapons and better aim from the Brazilians. What was once a 5-3 game for ENCE has now become a 7-5 game for FURIA, due to only one round’s mistakes.

    The last gun round lost by ENCE, round 13, had several smaller errors too such as hades pushing out from A-Main and wasting lots of valuable utility on smoking and flashing out what he must have thought was aRT AWPing from CT spawn, when he was much closer to single-box instead. The round is ultimately lost again due to ENCE losing aimduels against skilled riflers like VINI and yuurih. Round 14 is another force buy meaning another easy win for FURIA, and round 15 is won by ENCE barely after dycha wins a tight 1v1 against aRT to make the first half 9-6.

All alone, hades continues to push to mid as 3 FURIA players hold the angle

    ENCE would go on to lose their CT-side 3-7 giving FURIA an easy win going into Vertigo, a favourite for FURIA. While it’s certainly possible that they would have lost the map anyways due to FURIA winning far more duels, these errors certainly didn’t help their economy going into rounds 10-12. Blowing a 5-3 lead and saving zero weapons due to a total misjudging of control over the map is something that ENCE will surly be talking about in their practices. Word of advice? Let the pistols come to you.