The favorites barely survive the opening stage. The underdogs march to Stage 2. A disastrous game happens on a historic level.
The Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) esports tournament ESL Pro League Season 22 delivered brilliantly even in its Stage 1! The five opening days featured Swiss System matches, and our expectations for competitive excitement were met and exceeded.
Here is a brief overview of the most wonderful, disastrous, and just interesting stories.
Inner Circle Esports and HOTU: The miracles of underdog success
Among all the Stage 1 participants at ESL Pro League S22, you hardly expected these specific teams to be the first to advance further.
- Inner Circle Esports had close matches against 3DMAX, GamerLegion, and Gentle Mates. Those were three wins, including a 22:20 map versus GL on Overpass.
- HOTU faced FURIA in Round 1, and they defeated these tournament favorites with a 2:0. After such a start, HOTU got two more wins: against B8 and ENCE.
Astralis, Nuke, and 0:13
Being an Astralis fan is a rollercoaster of emotions right now. You could expect difficulties from your team, but these guys go above and beyond with this.
- In the match versus GamerLegion, Astralis could not take even one round on their map pick, Nuke. Sure, there were other 0:13 losses at such big events. It still is a historic disaster.
Nuke for Astralis was a cursed map throughout Stage 1 at ESL Pro League Season 22. The team still managed to win on it, and that was a wonderful victory! On the decider map versus HEROIC, Astralis won 13:2, and it was Nuke.
People will remember 0:13, though.
G2 and FURIA play with the hearts of their fans
G2 Esports won BLAST Open Fall 2025. FURIA succeeded at a smaller but still meaningful event right before Stage 1 of ESL Pro League S22 — they won FISSURE Playground #2.
Well, these teams decided not to do it the easy way for themselves and for their communities. “Three wins in five rounds? Let’s go the full cycle!”
- FURIA lost to HOTU and Legacy, which is not reassuring for FalleN and his guys. They were really close to losing the decider match to another underdog team, B8, but recovered from a 0:1.
- G2 Esports had an expected tournament start, but then, they couldn’t defeat Gentle Mates and B8. G2 needed to survive two elimination matches to advance to Stage 2.
ENCE, Legacy, B8, and more young power at ESL Pro League S22 Stage 1
Having this extended tournament format gives a chance to smaller teams to shine with their power. ENCE, Legacy, and B8 were wonderful, even if they were eliminated. Three of them made it to Round 5 and really had chances for further success.
They even defeated the ESL Pro League Season 22 favorites.
- ENCE won over Astralis. The team shouldn’t even be here! ENCE became the last-minute substitute for Virtus.pro.
- B8 defeated G2 Esports.
- Legacy took down another Brazilian organization, FURIA.
One more underdog team worth mentioning is Gente Mates. M8 is also a substitute organization, instead of Lynn Vision Gaming, but these players won three matches, including one against G2 Esports. We’ll see them in Stage 2.
Overpass was picked quite a lot during this tournament, which feels somewhat fresh, as the map was returned to the Active Duty Pool only in July 2025. It’s interesting to see how this trend extends in Stage 2.
ESL Pro League Season 22 continues with five more days of Swiss System matches, starting from Oct. 4, but with the presence of the top teams this time. The Playoffs are from Oct. 10 to Oct. 12.
