ESL ESEA League S1 schedule out

10-6-2015 14:00

The first season of the ESEA ESL Pro League will come to a close at the offline finals in Cologne, Germany from July 2-5, and a schedule for the event is now available.

The ESL ESEA Pro League debuted earlier this year and promised a total of $1 million in prize money in 2015, spread out across two seasons. The first season, which is nearing the completion of its group stages, will dole out $500,000 and feature offline finals in Cologne, Germany on July 2-5.

Subsequent releases of information revealed that the prize money in each season is equally split between the online and offline portions of the league, meaning that the offline finals will have $250,000 at stake for attending teams.

European and North American teams alike will clash at the ESL ESEA Pro League finals

The top four teams from the European division and the top four teams from the North American division will spar at these offline finals. ESL have now released more information concerning the format, schedule and ticketing options for the event.

The event is split into two stages. The first stage will feature a double elimination, best-of-one group stage in which the top three teams in each group (meaning there will be two groups) advance to the second stage.

The first-placed team in each group automatically advances to the semifinals whereas the other teams advance to the quarter-finals. All matches from the quarter-finals upwards will be best-of-three, with a best-of-five format grand final.

ESL also promises to host "showmatches" at the event although the content of these matches has so far been unspecified.

The full schedule is as follows:

Thursday, July 2nd:

11:00 - Doors Open
11:45 - Show Start
- Group A Match 1
- Group A Match 2
- Group B Match 1
- Group B Match 2
- Group A Winner Match
- Group A Elimination Match
- Group B Winner Match
- Group B Elimination Match

Friday, July 3rd:

14:00 - Doors Open
14:45 - Show Start
- Showmatch
- Quarter-final #1
- Quarter-final #2

Saturday, July 4th:

14:00 - Doors Open
14:45 - Show Start
- Showmatch
- Semifinal #1
- Semifinal #2

Sunday, July 5th:

15:30 - Doors Open
16:15 - Show Start
- Showmatch
- Grand Final

Potential attendees can find all available tickets for attending the event at the bottom of this page.

Follow HLTV.org's stich on Twitter

2015-06-10 14:00

4 replies

nip will not win top 1 i can guarantee you that

2015-06-10 14:33

3 replies

they wont even qualify on LAN!!!

2015-06-10 15:16

1 reply

no all star game wtf.

2015-06-10 20:55

"nip will not win top 1 i can guarantee you that" englando very very great

2015-06-10 23:38

itsgg

2015-06-10 14:01

Where Quarter-final 3 and 4?

13 replies

there is none because in reality only 6 teams out of 8 advance. 2 automatically make it to the semis and the remaining 4/6 have to play 2 quarter-finals. it's ESL, they thrive off of being as red tape as possible.

2015-06-10 14:03

12 replies

what do you mean about "being red tape" ?

2015-06-10 14:18

8 replies

being exclusive

2015-06-10 14:48

like only the best can

2015-06-10 14:49

red tape means excessive bureaucracy to the point of impeding decision making, whenever organisations go the ultra-complex route in execution, it's a potential clue for the presence of red tape

2015-06-10 15:09

5 replies

nt polish

2015-06-10 15:22

all my kurwas weren't ready for this comeback

2015-06-10 15:24

2 replies

I wish this was 16 team with the same system as majors

2015-06-10 18:30

i mean, u explained the meaning of something in english, to someone who's not english, in the most advanced way possible. i dont believe poland :D

2015-06-11 13:10

ok thanks

2015-06-10 15:28

Thanks man :)

2015-06-10 14:35

so it's going to be something like 1st of each group directly to semis and second and third of each group get to play the quarters to decide who the first of each group will play?

2015-06-10 19:36

yes

2015-06-23 20:15

Ayy#5

Show matches? More info plz

Why Does NA have 4 spots? Should be 5 from EU and 3 teams from NA.

2015-06-10 14:05

Because it's ESEA + ESL, ESEA covering NA side while ESL is covering EU side. And I'm definitely looking forward to what NA teams are capable of doing in this tournament.

2015-06-10 15:03

Both organisations are covering both sides.

2015-06-10 16:33

2015-06-10 14:06

8 spots for $1,000,000?

2015-06-10 14:07

8 spots for $250k. The $1m was initially split up in to two seasons. The $500k per season is split up aswell where $250k is on the line for the online league only, where every team gets some cash. The other $250k is being played for in Cologne where 8 teams attend :p

2015-06-10 14:37

thats dumb

2015-06-10 14:41

Yup, kinda ^^

2015-06-10 14:43

250k online tournaments in the age of ddos.... brilliant

2015-06-10 22:54

this is the cologne major or what?

2015-06-10 14:08

Cologne major is in August and has 16 teams, this is season 1 of the esl esea pro league.

2015-06-10 14:10

RiP NiP or NaVi or VP or EnvyUs Welcome tier 3 murica teams Nihilum or Luminosity or eLevate or fucking Liquid and CLG

or it or will or be or easy or for or fnatic or?

2015-06-10 14:14

dolbaeb?

2015-06-10 14:16

If you don't like it put up 500k and partner with ESL so you can put your home teams in a tournament like this.

2015-06-10 22:55

2015-06-10 14:09

ez for uk

2015-06-10 14:11

ESL Studio CAPACITY?

2015-06-10 14:13

With all due respect, this format is pure BS. Having 4 slots for US when their best team is not even close to the EU top 8, let alone top 5, means we are gonna see a shitty tournament where the top4 is already known, and with really one sided matches with the exception of very specific scenarios and maps for KeyD or C9 where they can compete. Teams like Navi, NiP, Titan won't make it to the LANs, while any of them can rekt any US team at any time on any map. And they are teams which have shown several times that despite of being in a very low form online, they can actually compete for the top1 spot on any LAN

9 replies

live is hard for NiP fanfucks

Sorry but I'm a CS fanfuck. I want to see the best possible CS in the best possible events

2015-06-10 14:17

I want to see every nation grow as a cs community, the best way for that is to allow several partisipants from several countries join. The NA scene needs this.

2015-06-10 15:17

I agree, but that's not the way. Representation (in those big big events, at least) should be proportional to the overall weight of each region. Also the cs community is pretty grown. It has always been big since the 1.6 and earlier days. The problem is every other US pro player thinking themselves being the best and being unwilling to be part of a team and take roles in that team that are not the superstar one. That's why every US team has completely failed in the last year to acomplish nothing outside the US. There's teams in other regions with minuscule communities (Oceania or Brazil) compared to the US one which are far better than most if all of the US teams (keyD/vox) so, TL;DR: growing community? yes. Giving lesser teams chances to grow and compete? yes. At the price of leaving way better teams out? no.

2015-06-10 17:43

You say you want every nation to grow as a cs community, and I agree with you, but USA is not every nation...

2015-06-10 23:33

Cuz NA=Illuminati

Life goes on

This, +1

2015-06-10 15:46

NA put up half the money So they get half the slots feel free to host your own million dollar league and invite the teams you want

2015-06-10 22:56

how can 4 tier 2-3 teams from Na can compete with EU giants ? :O Its very unfair if Luminosity or Elevate,Liquid... will get in to Lan Finals instead of Navi,nV,VP,TSM,NiP,Titan,Fnatic :(

i am fanboy ..

yay gonna be boring tho, just 4 top european teams in a small studio, no party :(

doors wont close at this even ? :O

2015-06-10 14:19

Ha ESEA ESL making so atleast one NA team from each group advances to quarter finals so dumb :( Should be 1 Oceania 2 NA and 5 EU

2015-06-10 14:20

I doubt Vox would move to Europe or the US. They all have jobs/lives.

2015-06-10 14:34

im sure if they are offered proper contracts + living arrangements they'd have no issues with it.

gsl bo1 gg bb

2015-06-10 14:31

Finals should be in Sweden or Poland. Germany dont have crowd :(

2015-06-10 14:38

Its a studio event.. there will never be a crowd

2015-06-10 19:06

Esl is a German Organization, that's why it's in Germany.

2015-06-10 23:36

Group 1 Fnatic NiP Keyd Luminosity/Liquid Group 2 TSM Envyous Cloud9 Nihilum Keyd vs Envyous Cloud9 vs NiP Fnatic vs Envyous NiP vs TSM another grand final Fnatic vs TSM

8x BO3 in one day? Good luck with that.

2015-06-10 14:47

Those games will probably be simultaneous.

2015-06-10 14:53

Read the text better Group Match is B1 1/8 is B3 1/4 is B5 Finals is B5

ah, so shite tournament

2015-06-10 16:19

absolutely disgusting that esl ruins the best formatted tournament in the game, double elim bo3's, to make room for bo1 group stages, show matches, and single elimination playoffs. a 4 day $250,000 lan and there are 3 entire days where we will see a max of 5-6 maps played. absolutely idiotic

2015-06-10 15:00

makes the maps intense IMO, better this way.

2015-06-10 16:20

i have final exam july 7-8. fuckkkk

2015-06-10 15:04

Fuck ESL & ESEA go fck urself, gl to teams though

2015-06-10 16:25

boooooooooooooooo that format! round robin bo2 (or even bo3) is the way to go, not this shit.

2015-06-10 17:06

bo1 sucks, but better than nothing we'll see...

2015-06-10 17:19

B01 = no fun

2015-06-10 17:36

They just wanted to give free money to NA teams. They are far from competing with EU teams. It's a very bad choice to give 4 spots for both regions imo and it will be a shame seeing some of the best teams in the world out of this.

2015-06-10 17:48

Ya more free money for NA wooooooo Take that world!!! Cry yourself to sleep.

2015-06-10 18:15

7 replies

I don't think i'm gonna cry after seeing NA teams getting rekt ;)

2015-06-10 19:25

Doesnt matter mate, we still get free money its what you said, nothing else matters.

2015-06-10 19:48

everybody is happy then, good

2015-06-10 19:56

NA put up half the money so its kinda appropriate

2015-06-10 22:57

Ya its just my response those kinds of comments im honestly sick and tired of them.

2015-06-10 23:04

Same. I understand in terms of competition its sub-optimal but organizing tournaments is also a business, and the americans who subbed esea all these years and basically funded half this tournament want american cs to grow. I'm sure NA also represents a large chunk of the viewership and they are more likely to watch a t2 NA team than a T2 EU team, even though the EU team is better.

2015-06-10 23:13

Same i dont watch EU matches in the pro league i have only been watching NA matches. Doesnt mean i wont watch eu tournies, fragbite was amazing.

2015-06-10 23:19

not this cancerous league format agian

2015-06-10 18:39

I wonder how much $ ESEA paid just to have their name apart of this. Let's be real, besides using ESEA servers (which suck), ESEA is contributing basically nothing.

2015-06-10 19:51

You know this how? You have some insider knowledge that no one but you has access to?

2015-06-10 20:54

They put up 500k are you retarded?

2015-06-10 22:58

ESEA put up $500,000. Not to mention half the production costs, and provided servers for 24 teams to play on during 8 weeks of league play..

2015-06-23 20:22

no NA'VI :(((

ez for fnatic

2015-06-23 16:07

ez for keyd you were looking for a Kappa ?! Kappa

2015-06-23 20:09

2015-06-23 20:10

Ugh! Wish it started Friday instead. Yeah, can't wait until the flood of EU people posting "NA sucks! None even got out of groups!". I'll have to make sure I don't open HLTV for a few days. Pointless beating my head against a wall explaining it's not reasonable to expect any to. I'm not a masochist. Best just to stay away from HLTV for a few days until some of the EU glee at NA failure subsides a bit.

2015-06-23 20:24