ESL Pro League expands to 32 teams, introduces new format

21/12/2022 - 17:03

ESL Pro League's group stage will be transitioning from a single round-robin to a triple-elimination format with eight additional teams.

ESL has announced a series of changes to ESL Pro League, aiming to 'ensure a more global representation of teams in the core of the tournament while maximizing the importance of each match.' The changes to the event focus on an increased number of teams competing in the group stage, and will abolish the Conference Stage starting in season 18.

Starting with EPL Season 17 there will be a total of 32 teams participating in the group stage, eight more than the previous six seasons where there were 24 squads. All 32 teams will be split into four groups of eight — a double-elimination group plus a last chance bracket. Four teams from each group will then progress to a single-elimination playoff bracket, where they will battle it out for the ESL Pro League trophy.

Season 17 also marks the final time the Conference Stage will take place due to the ESL Pro League group stage's expansion. It will be held on the week of January 16 in an online setting and 11 teams will advance to the group stage in February.

Vitality are the current ESL Pro League champions going into Season 17

The team allocation starting in Season 18 will comprise the 15 partnered organizations; four teams qualified from the Europe region; three teams qualified through the ESL World Ranking; two each from the North America, South America, Asia, and Oceania regions; and finally two ESL Challenger champions.

ESL Pro League Season 17 will now run on February 22-March 26, one week shorter than what was previously announced, due to the Conference Stage being moved online a month prior. The upcoming event will also feature a particular allocation in contrast with any future seasons. Movistar Riders, Outsiders, and paiN qualified by winning ESL Challenger tournaments; Cloud9, OG and Spirit earned spots through their ESL World Ranking positions; and 11 teams will each book their place by making it through the Conference Stage.

Three teams will make it past the Conference Stage from Europe, while two spots each will be given to the North America, South America, Asia, and Oceania regions. More information such as the exact format and schedule for each regional competition will be released in the upcoming days.

The future ESL Pro League competitions to be held in 2024 are also expected to follow a similar format as the 2023 seasons, and will be announced at a later date.

The teams that will be competing at ESL Pro League Season 17 are:

ESL Conference

The teams playing the online Pro League Conference are:

Europe

North America

South America

Qualifier

Asia

Oceania

Qualifier

cool

2022-12-21 17:04

7 replies

Didn't read. Are groups now 2 months instead of 1?

2022-12-21 17:13

5 replies

Read

2022-12-21 17:18

Then just read ? lmao

2022-12-21 17:21

3 replies

I ain’t reading allat 😂💯

2022-12-21 17:27

2 replies

100% :d

2022-12-21 17:30

Bro learn skimming. You don't need to read everything to know something

2022-12-21 19:46

amazing

this is great

Nice

Triple elim? But why

2022-12-21 17:05

4 replies

To prevent tactical losses of round robin, and having teams playing when they are already eliminated. Its the best format.

2022-12-21 17:07

Probably also because it takes ages

2022-12-21 17:08

^^ actual reason

2022-12-21 17:15

1 reply

2022-12-21 18:41

new production. can't wait to see it

Dont have high expectations it’s ESL

2022-12-21 17:43

okaay :( thx for letting me know

2022-12-21 17:50

Like there wasn't enough bad teams already, let's just add more

22 replies

People are complaining about partner systems and now you are complaining about them having more spots for other teams?

2022-12-21 17:11

18 replies

Yes, lowering the quality of the League with so many low tier teams Ain't nobody wasting their time watching FaZe vs Partizan

2022-12-21 17:12

17 replies

2022-12-21 17:14

So what you are saying a closed circuit is better?

That's what you want to understand, I didn't say it at any moment, all I said is that they're lowering the quality of the league by adding these teams who don't belong nowhere near Pro League

What do you think about the world cup?

2022-12-21 23:06

Marokko who?

2022-12-22 00:58

So what are you trying to say then? Its either this new system or the one before. You are not happy with either of then...

2022-12-22 14:00

I like to see this change as an oportunity for t2-3 teams to prove themselves against t1 and in the meantime you let the pro circuit become more dynamic. besides this is how hidden gems are discovered (and this is how you keep the game alive)

2022-12-23 09:22

2022-12-21 17:16

I will waste ? I will rather watching something new than same and same all the time.

if Partizan make it, they really deserved it realistically there are 3 spots for EU which means it will likely be forze, sprout and saw (EF or HEET possible as well)

2022-12-21 17:35

EF no way

2022-12-22 01:38

FaZe vs Partizan (or any other lesser known team) is more interesting than FaZe vs any other top team for the 10th time, I would definitely prefer to watch this. Majors are so exciting because there are always breakthrough stories like Copenhagen Flames, Sprout or Bad News Eagles. If EPL will have more of that element, it would be great.

2022-12-21 19:00

Go Rooster!

2022-12-21 19:25

Partizan would shit on Faze fr

2022-12-21 20:12

2022-12-22 06:08

2022-12-29 21:34

also it lets new teams in region that are not eu be better because all t1 events are focused in eu so NA oce and asia just left there to die so this insure teams both have motivation and able to get into pro league garenteed so orgs can have a reason to invest into a tier 2 teams since it possible they can get unto the highest stage

2022-12-21 21:05

Who are those bad teams? Last Pro League the worst teams were FTW (ok, maybe a weak team), MIBR (won a map against FaZe), Movistar (top-10 ranked team at that time who lost their star), HEAT (beat Astralis) and Endpoint (beat NaVi). I'm totally fine with more teams like that. If you want to watch boring 8-12 teams events without enough chances for new teams to qualify and overthrow current stars, BLAST has more than enough content for you.

2022-12-21 18:45

ftw played with a different lineup from the one that qualified to epl. If they had played with the former lineup they would have been more competitive

2022-12-21 19:10

Yeah, I mean, even if couple of qualified teams are doing bad because of roster changes, sudden slump or whatever, it doesn't make the tournament significantly worse. Partnered teams are not guaranteed to not be weak for an extended period of time either (EG, Astralis to a lesser extent). What actually making the tournament worse is when a solid team can't qualify because there are way too few slots for non-partnered teams.

2022-12-21 19:29

"triple elimination" wow...

Glad to seemore spots available tbh

ESL learned from past year so flukes like Vitality #1 dont happen again

2022-12-21 17:06

nice Vitality picture

Bro wtf Genk is Belgian 😡

how is that with one single Belgian player and that's who lost me several games in prem getting 1 kd in con

2022-12-21 17:10

says they have 3 Dutch players though

depends how you look at Belgium :')

ESL W

0/8

So proud of ESL for listening to the community and fixing the format. So hyped for this season for the first time in many years!!!

Surely can't be worse than the current format

HUH

2022-12-21 17:09

only 3 spots for EU+CIS but 2 spots for OCE, asia and NA bots... idiotic

Lol they were giving 2 spots to oce in previous conference stages. Now they give directly to GROUP STAGE

Supporting smaller scenes who would ever!

Last conference, 3 teams from AU went (in total) 0-5 in bo3s and 0-10 in maps against non-AU teams... This a complete joke that AU teams who would play ESEA Main/Advanced in EU are getting Pro League spots. Not to mention removing a global Conference LAN removes the chance for a lot of these Asia/Oceania to play a LAN closer to their real level instead of getting a free Pro League spot just to average 6 rounds per map against tier 1 teams

2022-12-21 18:20

I remember old FTW 16-1'ng ORDER in their map pick lool

I think the weirdest thing for me is that the other 4 conferences have 3 teams and 2 pro league slots, yet Europe which is definitely the most competitive region of the lot, has just 3 slots for 13 teams. And I'd argue that, even as an AUCS lover, Genk could easily beat Rooster

2022-12-21 17:54

The numbers aren't official yet... I doubt it ends up being 13 teams for EU (because it's such a weird number, it'll probably be something like 16) and only 2 teams for the other regions

2022-12-21 17:56

Double elimination (and the bonus of the last chance) is the most reasonable format No complaining about teams "throwing" to eliminate strong opponents or to save strats No BS of teams playing when they are already eliminated Every match will have a reason to play well.

Interesting

Previous format was really strange when teams didn't play for three weeks during tournament.

isnt it still the same? or now does 2 games happen each day inlcluding a team from each group? example : groupA teamX vs groupB teamX groupC teamX vs groupD teamX Edit : nvm i am dumb. just checked the esl website.

Im too lazy to check, what did it say?

2022-12-21 18:11

This is huge!

Current EPL format is dog so this is good. Why MIBR is allowed to compete in NA when there is a SA division is a mystery however.

6 replies

MIBR, Teamone, Pain idk Maybe its because of some ESL rules like if teams lives and practice in NA they can compete from that region, However still think this is wrong, not fair to NA teams ive seen so many times them just being more pro because of better investment and shit just ez passing NA team who literally are just a handfull of theyre left with limited funding and exposure to pro scene imo the NA scene is cold, also the most horrible thing is that none of these teams will have any actual fighting chance if they try to qualify from their own region, they just like farm NA teams whole year to steal their spot

2022-12-21 17:34

Cause your region is literally dog shit without sa teams

2022-12-21 18:03

Hahaha I totally agree… but still why are they allowed to compete in NA?

2022-12-21 18:14

because there are literally no SA tournaments held by ESL apart from a shitty ESEA open which is like 500 euros cash prize. The entirety of SA has one spot for EPL/Conference (until now) while NA has 3 just from ECL NA by itself. This is why the best brazilian teams have always played in NA. Since ESL wants to give SA 2 guaranteed spots for EPL they might want to make an ECL brazil/SA

2022-12-21 22:06

Really? I've been hearing this for years but what SA teams are we talking about? The reality is these tier 2 SA teams get blown out of group stages just the same as NA teams do. In tier 1 land there's less good SA players then NA players. So again why are they in the NA qualifier. For that matter why are they in the EU qualifier.

dust2.us/news/32858/esl-executive-mibr-w..

2022-12-21 21:06

LETS FUCKING GO NA SUPPORT BABY

BRRRO are they fucking kidding me or there is actually NOUNS there in the confrence i wanted them to qualify but they couldn't im so happy if they are actually in confrence!! do you know any thing about that?

i think its: pain got in automatically, so they retroactively redid the spots from ECL NA, so now ATK get it from season 41, nouns get the spot for 2nd in season 42, and mibr for season 43

2022-12-21 17:29

could make this crazier for ESL Conference Qualifiers by doing 4 from EU, 3 from NA & SA combined, 3 from Asia & Oceania combined and a play-in tournament for the final slot.

2022-12-21 17:17

Still shite cuz Malta no stage

Feels more like a legit sporting league with this format. Love to see it, but hope this isn't too much and doesn't water down EPL too much.

Brasil playing in 3 regions in conference maybe they ll have at least 3 teams in the main event

2022-12-21 17:19

5 or 6 BR teams will attend damn... neat

2022-12-21 17:24

Rare W

No CPH falmes?

2022-12-21 17:25

I mistook south america for africa for a sec, i was so hype

Dead crowd in Malta let's go

2022-12-21 17:26

HUGE W FOR OG

2022-12-21 17:28

Nooo I loved the Round Robin games. It was fair that every team played each other, this is just to get rid of the upsets.

U left out the mental gymnastics + math degree u needed just to know who gets through

2022-12-21 18:31

Yea that was the fun part. Now Stryker is without a job because of this..

2022-12-21 20:25

its ok his job now is jinxing teams with articles

2022-12-21 20:39

Finally shit format is changing.

Old good world cup

Wtf

Pog

2022-12-21 17:33

bad news for asia scene, 1 less lan spot and now theyre getting thrown in at the deep end with the worlds best teams

but why ?

2022-12-21 17:45

If youre saying past conference is the LAN spot then no way they getting through to epl lol. This format is actually better because we have 2 fixed spots straight through epl instead of (highly likely) zero through conventional conference.

2022-12-21 17:53

wonder how much Astralis paid for this

2022-12-21 17:36

2022-12-21 18:34

jeez why esl are so shit ? it was literally lan tournament at malta now its online bruh

2022-12-21 18:59

doesnt it say conference is online and group stage is LAN

2022-12-21 20:43

bNE ?

2022-12-21 17:57

Who?

2022-12-21 18:00

not sure how this will work but can't be worse than old format.

2022-12-21 17:58

Ez4nip

2022-12-21 17:59

Yaaay so its EVEN MORE!!! GREAT

Can't wait to see an anti-strat based tier 6 team on Conference. What a nice spot! And what a joke ESL, 3 slots for Europe and 4 slots for Oceania/Asia. Lool

Ez for who ?

The wasted spots gonna steal your eu teams spots away hahahaha

2022-12-21 18:18

actually ez for imperial (better than 90% EU)

2022-12-21 18:38

I get u, 9INE and Permitta wouldn't qualify anyways, even with more slots

2022-12-21 18:54

RA, plz

2022-12-21 18:02

So unfair, in Europe you have to win a whole bracket and in North America, Asia and Oceania you have to win a game to qualify for a big event. ARE U JOKING ESL!!!! WE want a competitive scene, not undeserved spots to random tier 4 teams!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2022-12-21 18:04

europe has already many spots

2022-12-21 18:28

Ye cause they have way more good teams.

sorry but those tier2-4 eu teams has no chance against lv, ra and ihc. All good eu teams already in main epl.

2022-12-21 20:16

If they played against saw, it would be 16-0 16-0 for saw

2022-12-21 20:28

Lets go farm more money!!! Thanks ESL, from garbage to garbage.

2022-12-21 18:06

Astralis made it happen xD

2022-12-21 18:15

Good changes except regional spots

2022-12-21 18:16

Last chance stage is ass, i wanted this format to be a bit shorter since it's still a league, 20 days instead of a month for a whole tourney would be nice.

nice one

2022-12-21 18:19

this is cool

2022-12-21 18:27

Looks like good changes

2022-12-21 18:29

4 groups of 8 wtf, too much teams in one group

nice they scrapping ESL Conference League but this new format ofc is longer?

2022-12-21 18:42

ESL Pro League Season 17 will now run on February 22-March 26 Literally the same duration

2022-12-21 18:53

so same duration and now more matches crammed together lol

2022-12-21 18:56

8 matches longer, maybe they will reduce pauses between groups? With new format 16 matches per gorup will be played, used to be 15 considering there were 6 teams in groups + added round of 16 in playoffs with 4 more matches.

2022-12-21 20:32

this event should be a 8 group stage, with 4 teams each, and having the first 2 advancing to playoffs, but ESL is too dumb, as always, to make a nice and functional format...

2022-12-21 18:51

Remake conference stage, more spots to Europe

wtf

2022-12-21 18:57

mibr in the NA qualifier, fucking hooray! smfhhhhh

2022-12-21 19:02

Hated It, online stage bruh

2022-12-21 19:03

I think it's only for this season since the conference is a thing next season might just be ecl winners no conference needed

2022-12-22 11:57

they have more teams qualifying from America than from Europe+CIS. What a joke

2022-12-21 19:13

This is so stupid... 2 spots for Ásia and 2 spots for aceania???? Are you joking? Those teams would never qualify through conference...

2022-12-21 19:16

2022-12-21 20:14

Bait? looking at european conferecne i can see only 3 teams that i am sure wont be able to beat asian teams. Teams like Forze, Heet, EF, endpoint, sprout, falcons would smash them

2022-12-21 20:37

Thats good for Oceania and asian scene

2022-12-21 21:20

thats the point if they cant get into pro league orgs would never sign a team because they are not scene and player would just quit or spent less time playing cs since they don't get paid from it so cant spend 8 hrs practicing they are more region than eu where the tier 2 scene is closer because literally all tier 2 teams is there to scrim everyday

2022-12-21 21:26

Ez for Heroic

2022-12-21 19:17

With this format, it's not a "league".

2022-12-21 19:26

worst possible system and qualifier sports are a joke again

2022-12-21 19:44

How is winning a tier 2 league to enter the tier 1 is a joke winning dreamhack only made u play a qualifier event ecl was like winning bundesliga 2 making making you go into playoffs not even from your own region but with other teams around the world to get a spot in bungesliga so say like lesser leagues their just shut out of pro league even though they worked hard on winning ecl and dreamhack doesn't mean shit since it's just a qualifier to a qualifier you forget outsiders and spirit plays in that tournament

2022-12-22 12:14

Good change!

2022-12-21 20:35

this is a esl W

+1 good

2022-12-21 21:44

europe ppl mad while esl do a based thing to get asia more spot

2022-12-21 21:48

+1 would rather get two asian and oceanian teams to develop those regions than have some matchfixing CIS or bulgarian team again

2022-12-21 21:52

very good change from ESL, hope that the "four teams qualified from Europe" come from ECL so at least that tournament has some meaning

2022-12-21 21:51

"All 32 teams will be split into four groups of eight — a double-elimination group plus a last chance bracket. Four teams from each group will then progress to a single-elimination playoff bracket, where they will battle it out for the ESL Pro League trophy." Looks like cologne/kato groups mixed with the old pro league group system

2022-12-21 23:41

Three teams playing for two spots. What if they beat each other?

2022-12-22 00:09

Only 3 spots for Europe wtf

2022-12-22 01:10

True

2022-12-22 01:47

hi dougback!

2022-12-22 01:50

Why is everyone so obsessed with him? Who is he?

2022-12-22 01:51

1st post hunter

2022-12-22 01:52

A lot of teams qualified without winning their respective tournaments: - Spirit - qualified due to their ranking, lost the conference final against SAW; - Sprout - lost the German tournament against BiG Academy, but since they're not eligible, Sprout qualifies; - forZe - ended up on 4th position!! on the conference tournament but since everyone above them were already qualified, they win the spot; - Case - lost the Spanish final against SAW, but since SAW were already qualified after winning the Portuguese tournament, they win the spot. SAW won 3 tournaments eligible to participate. Ty for reading

2022-12-22 02:13

well, yeah? what were they supposed to do? SAW was already qualified? were they supposed to qualify SAW twice or thrice or something? its always been precedent that if 1st place of an event also gets qualification for something, but theyre already qualified, it goes to the 2nd place team.

2022-12-22 10:05

I'm not saying they shouldn't qualify, I'm just saying how it is. And it can be unfair, for example, they accepted SAW qualification spot from the portuguese tournament, if they had accepted them from one of the other two tournaments, FTW could've qualify as well from their second place. So in the end, Case and forZe were lucky that SAW were already qualified.

2022-12-22 21:51

Not Spirit's fault that they are a top 15 team in the world rankings, also SAW became good like in the past 2 months

2022-12-24 03:21

Europe: 13 teams, 3 slots NA: 3 teams, 2 slots SA: 3 teams, 2 slots Asia: 3 teams, 2 slots Oceania: 3 teams, 2 slots Are you drunk? Just play extra quals for best teams of each region to determine the teams that should play in EPL

2022-12-22 03:43

Ye incredibly stupid.... Imagine if Champions league did the same.

2022-12-22 10:28

i like the expansion to 32, but i dont quite understand this whole "3 stages" kind of thing? im thinking of BLASTs TERRIBLE 3 stage format where the first stage is completely pointless and you only need to win 2 matches in the end to reach finals. i sure hope its not a TRASH format like that

2022-12-22 10:07

its like a double elimination bracket but you have 3 chances instead of 2

2022-12-25 14:37

meh

2022-12-22 11:40

less european teams, wrong decision

2022-12-22 19:34

Why is havu not in the play in or is it because esl not like them

2022-12-22 19:45

BC Havu didnt win anything so they are not on conference

2022-12-24 13:19

Guys why do you complain about europe's slots they already have like 15 teams qualified without counting Conference stages

2022-12-24 03:27