ESL Pro League Season 17 Conference Europe

SAW, Eternal Fire qualify for ESL Pro League Season 17

18/1/2023 - 21:00

One more spot in the Pro League group stage is still for the taking from the European Conference tournament.

The first two teams to qualify for the ESL Pro League Season 17 group stage from the online Conference in Europe are SAW and Eternal Fire, who did so undefeated through the upper bracket, while the rest of the field will continue to battle it out in the lower bracket for the remaining spot in the next phase of ESL's flagship league.

This qualification is a huge step forward for SAW, who have achieved their highest success since bringing on João "⁠story⁠" Vieira and Michel "⁠ewjerkz⁠" Pinto in July 2022 with veteran Spaniard Omar "⁠arki⁠" Chakkor assuming the coach role. The two newcomers will now be vindicated as they missed out on the previous Pro League, which they helped FTW qualify for, right after the swap between the two Portuguese sides occurred last summer.

XANTARES and MAJ3R will compete at the Pro League event in Malta

Making it to ESL Pro League is also a massive boost of confidence for Eternal Fire, a team that struggled to find roster stability in 2022 culminating in star AWPer Özgür "⁠woxic⁠" Eker and Ahmet "⁠paz⁠" Karahoca departing the squad while in-game leader Engin "⁠MAJ3R⁠" Küpeli returned. The Turkish side did so in style, too, and took a big scalp in their final bout by beating top 20 side Sprout.

MAJ3R returns to Eternal Fire

ESL Pro League Conference 17 also has tournaments in North America, South America, Asia, and Oceania, with two spots at each for grabs, although this will be the last time the Conference system will be used amid a restructuring of ESL Pro League with an expanded roster of 32 teams aiming to "ensure a more global representation of teams in the core of the tournament while maximizing the importance of each match."

ESL Pro League Season 17 itself will run on February 22-March 26 in Malta and will be one week shorter than what was originally announced due to the Conference Stage being played online well before the offline event gets underway.

The two teams that lost the upper bracket semi-finals, FORZE and Sprout, will continue their journey to qualification among the likes of 9INE, Endpoint and Falcons, all up against the ropes with one loss to their name in the double-elimination bracket. Already out of the running are Babos and SINNERS, both having suffered back-to-back losses, while HEET pulled out before the tournament even began amid a restructuring.

The ESL Pro League Season 17 teams so far are:

ESL Conference

TİER 1 ETERNAL FİRE İS COMİNG....

2023-01-18 21:01

2 replies

tier 1.99

2023-01-18 21:07

1 reply

Batteries not included

2023-01-19 21:44

2ND

2023-01-18 21:02

ef is finally tier 1

11 replies

If they finish top 16, yes. I don't consider teams below 20 in HLTV rankings to be T1.

9 replies

Don't be salty EF is tier 1 team from now accept the defeat

3 replies

Defeat from whom? When? Why?

2023-01-18 21:08

assuming you are sprout fanboy

2023-01-18 21:12

I've lost you.

2023-01-19 23:20

Imagine looking for hltv rankings to say teams tier rank. I dont say ef is tier 1 but its soo stupid

2023-01-18 21:15

4 replies

What defines ef rank better than the HLTV one then? None…

2023-01-18 21:34

his mind apparently

2023-01-18 21:46

2023-01-18 22:09

Exactly but HLTV "experts" have their own ideas.

tier 2 at best

2023-01-19 01:19

LETS GO BOYS

Vamos sAwww

2023-01-18 21:04

XANTARES TOP 20 2023

vamos SAW

2023-01-18 21:05

VAMOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSS

LETS GO SAAAAAAAAAAAAAW

2023-01-18 21:06

wp EF wp SAW

Vamos EF, Haydi SAW

2023-01-18 21:41

ez4saw Bostil🤝Bostugal

2023-01-18 21:09

2023-01-18 22:30

GG sAw

2023-01-18 21:10

Poggers

2023-01-18 21:11

VAMOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS EF

congrats to saw , huge step up with story+ewjerkz.. story don't deserve such hate from pt community , rtp arena chat is just embarrassing

2023-01-18 21:14

8 replies

Pt community in general is toxic. If SAW are playing bad, everyone starts insulting the players and the player they insult the most is story. The kid is good he just needs confidence

2023-01-18 21:25

That reminds me Turkish cs community..

2023-01-19 17:07

i think the problem with story is that he is very inconsistent he can go from carrying saw in 1 map to be almost invisible in the other map and since the pt community likes to talk trash everyone that doesnt get 30 kills per map story ends up getting a lot of hate

2023-01-18 21:33

yeah he is really good and sometimes he has super good maps like nuke vs forze, but sometimes he goes into "decoy mode" there are days where i feel that he would play better with a rifle

2023-01-18 22:44

Nowadays valid criticism is mistaken as hate and I don't know why. He is not a good enough awper for saw. He was brilliant in the last map but 90% of the maps he is mediocre at best, and he plays the awp. In the long run it is not sustainable to have such a low impact awper.

2023-01-18 23:06

Story brings a lot of mid game calling and is playing support most of the time, saw doesn't play around him so his stats will never be consistently great. But the fact is that they play a lot better with him on the team

2023-01-19 09:19

Sunpayus also did a lot of mid calling and was a passive awper and carried deathzz and dav1g to a semi final in Cologne. Those are just excuses, and not even good ones.

2023-01-19 12:27

Stadodo had better stats than Story and Saw plays better with Story. That's just facts. In Portugal and Spain we don't have a better awper that fits Saw (besides Sunpayus who is on another level and wouldn't join Saw now). So Saw has the best awper that they can have in the Iberian scene

2023-01-19 14:56

LETS GOOOOOO

2023-01-18 21:16

VAMOOOOOS ULAANNNN

2023-01-18 21:20

LETS GO EF

2023-01-18 21:21

Xantares god

2023-01-18 21:23

2 back to back ESL Pro League. Lets go EF!

2023-01-18 21:26

xantares top20 and major mvp in 2023.. if outsider can do it EF can do it too