Thirty Teams now know who their first opponent for the March 2024 event.
ESL has announced the groups for ESL Pro League Season 19. The event kicks off in April 2023 and features 32 of the best Coutner-Strike teams in attendance.
ESL Pro League Season 19 Groups
The ESL Pro League Season 19 has 32 Counter-Strike teams. They form four groups of eight teams each. The tournament organizer usually decides the groups based on the teams’ rankings and their performance. This ensures a stable group stage where one group would not dominate the others.
Here are the group stage distribution for ESL Pro League Season 19:
Group A
- FaZe Clan
- Cloud9
- Virtus Pro
- Eternal Fire
- Astralis
- Fnatic
- 3DMax
- TBD
With FaZe Clan, Astralis, Virtus.Pro and Cloud9 in one group, this group presents the most
Group B
- Team Vitality
- G2 esports
- Team Falcons
- BetBoom
- M80
- The MongolZ
- TYLOO
- TBD
The second group - Group B features Team Vitality and G2 Esports as the favorites. However, this group also has a strong Asian team presence, which might just cause a series of upsets.
Group C
- MOUZ
- Monte
- FURIA Esports
- GamerLegion
- ENCE
- Team Liquid
- FORZE Esports
- TBD
Group D
- Complexity
- NAVI
- BIG
- Heroic
- NIP
- BOSS
- Grayhound Gaming
- TBD
The team selection depends on their ESL World Rankings as well as their performance through the qualifiers. There are four team announcements remaining, one for each group, which will complete the participating team list.
ESL Pro League Season 19 runs from April 23 to May 5, 2024. The tournament has a prize pool of $750,000 with the winner also receiving a direct invite to IEM Cologne 2024. The teams also earn BLAST Premier Points depending on their placement during the event.
The Group stage of the ESL Pro League Season 19 features a triple elimination format. All matches in the group stage are best of three series.
The top four teams from each group advance to the playoffs. The winners of each group go to the quarterfinals. The other three teams also move to varying positions in the playoffs as follows:
- The runners-up advance to the Round of 12 as High Seeds
- Third-place teams move to the Round of 16 as High Seeds
- The 4th place teams advance to the Round of 16 as Low Seeds
The ESL Pro League Season 19 is still some time away and there are apprehensions within the community, the announcement might be a bit too early. With almost three months from the announcement date till the actual event, teams might see significant changes in their performance. This could lead to lopsided groups. On the other hand, announcing the groups early helps teams prepare for their opponents as well as ensures there is clarity on the schedule.
Stay tuned to esports.gg for the latest Counter-Strike news and updates.