ESL Pro League S6 finals to feature new group pairing method

20-11-2017 23:06

ESL has announced that it will introduce a new system to determine the composition of the groups for the Pro League Season 6 finals.

Instead of using the regular season placings to determine the groups for the finals, ESL will give the competitors the opportunity to pick one team they want to avoid, who will be placed in the opposite group.

As the online winner of the region that won the Season 5 Finals, fnatic will be given the choice of the group in which they want to be placed. OpTic, who won the North American division, will come next.

Selection process will take place on Wednesday

For the time being, the groups will be called "yellow" and "red", with the first seed of the yellow group starting the selection process, which will take place as follows:

Y1 selects R2
R1 selects Y2
R2 selects Y3
Y2 selects R3
Y3 selects R4
R3 selects Y4
R4 selects Y5
Y4 selects R5
Y5 selects R6
The remaining team is Y6

The new group pairing method is the result of feedback from players during the Season 5 finals, which took place in May, in Dallas, and saw G2 take home the grand prize of $225,000.

The Season 6 finals will run from December 5-10 at the Sparekassen Fyn Arena, in Odense, Denmark. Twelve teams will be taking part in this competition, which will have $750,000 on the line.

Below you can find the full team list for the event:

Europe	North America
fnatic	OpTic
North	SK
FaZe	Liquid
Astralis	NRG
Ninjas in Pyjamas	Misfits
HellRaisers	Luminosity

ez for hellraisers

2017-11-20 23:07

3 replies

I'm so sorry for you - HellRaiser fan...

2017-11-20 23:37

2 replies

<3 byali, papa in nickname am i looking like hr fan?

2017-11-20 23:48

1 reply

and Poland flag lul

2017-11-21 01:03

d but big 1

2017-11-21 10:31

wow crazy

lol

EZ 4 SK

5 replies

+1 change your fan symbol holy shit that look really dumb ass not report me plz gimmi coin plz gimmi coin

2017-11-20 23:08

No VP at this tour

2017-11-20 23:20

2017-11-20 23:33

Yes . They defuse for Na'Vi

Sure lol

2017-11-21 12:24

lul

Lul

Interesting, will see how it works in practice.

weird af

funny concept, hope it will be balanced

Cool

Avoiding teams lmao, if you want to win you need to beat the best.

2017-11-20 23:09

Phrase number 193749201. Next please.

2017-11-20 23:18

Avoiding team, singular, that's all you get, and unless you are optic/fnatic you can't choose anything decent. One will choose faze, other will choose SK. Then one Astralis one Nip/north. Other than that can be placed randomly, doesn't even matter, hell nothing besides faze and sk really matters Not to mention it's bo1 so it matters even less.

2017-11-21 00:16

NiP and FaZe best teams

2017-11-21 12:45

if they avoid the best team in the groups, they will eventually have to face the teams they avoid in a bo3 playoff match (if they wanna win) rather than a bo1

2017-11-21 02:53

Yeah we haven't ever heard that before, have we. *yawn* Next!

2017-11-21 12:26

ez astralis

2017-11-20 23:10

eazy Hellraisers and Luminosity

Sucks that g2 didnt qualify, gl to every other team.

Avoid -> EU teams Pick -> NA teams

4 replies

xD True

2017-11-20 23:12

+1, except SK

2017-11-20 23:16

SK = SA

+1, pick HR

2017-11-20 23:26

Ez for G2

2017-11-20 23:14

reminds a bit of GSL. they used to pick the player you want to play against and not to avoid which was more exciting imo. obviously players could pick the "weakest" guy to play against but often players picked the hardest opposition on purpose as a statement and sometimes this created sort of rivalries (especially if someone intentionally picked an underdog and ended up losing). maybe they should try implement something similar because avoiding a particular team seems like a weak mentality.

2017-11-20 23:15

6 replies

TLDR

it's okay, i don't really care about dyslexics

2017-11-21 00:27

2017-11-21 01:06

I like that. Hope we could see that happening sometime in CS

2017-11-21 01:29

That's actually a good one, you could also try this: Y1 picks R2 R1 picks R3 R2 picks Y2 Y2 picks Y3 Y3 picks R4 R3 picks Y4 R4 picks R5 Y4 picks Y5 Y5 picks R6 The remaining team gets Y6

2017-11-21 02:58

This. It have it's ups and downs, I'm just glad to see them experiment a bit so we don't get the same shit over and over.

2017-11-21 12:27

ez for fnatic

Ez for hellraisers

I dont understand

Plz help me

2017-11-20 23:23

Fnatic are group 1 and optic group 2. Fnatic picks someone to go into group 2 that they want to avoid in a bo1, then optic pick someone to go into fnatics group (they will be sk and faze). Then these teams (sk and faze) pick a team for the other group each eg nip and astralis. Then the next two teams pick a team to go into the other group until all sorted. Essentially the teams decide the group seedings by choosing who they dont want to play. It should help to avoid a randomly stacked group

2017-11-21 10:36

2017-11-21 10:58

ty!!

2017-11-21 17:25

UNEXPECTED!

2017-11-20 23:21

Ure mam gei

2017-11-20 23:34

giv mi moeny

2017-11-20 23:36

GIMMI COIN

2017-11-20 23:38

english lol

2017-11-20 23:43

interestink))

optic north america

2017-11-20 23:25

pussy stuff

2017-11-20 23:28

So what if everyone wants to avoid FaZe?

You're picking teams to go into other group so you may want to avoid them, however could mean playing them in playoffs. So first picks will probably be SK and Faze.

2017-11-20 23:40

ahahah fnatic doesn't

2017-11-21 06:31

Really interesting, nice of them to come up with something new

1- Fnatic selects Faze 2-Optic selects SK 3-Faze selects NIP (they scared lol) 4-Sk selects Astralis 5-NIP selects North 6- Astralis selects Liquid 7-North selects HellRaisers 8-Liquid selects Misfits 9- Hellraisers selects Luminosity 10-NRG Groups; Y: Fnatic SK NIP Liquid HellRaisers NRG R: Optic Faze Astralis North Misfits Luminosity Seems like a good format and will promote balanced groups and make sure no one can complain

+1 Nt manoel

2017-11-20 23:51

+1 At least one person understood the article and didn't write bullshit as the rest.

2017-11-21 01:53

Nah,fnatic would rather select SK than FaZe,FaZe is an ok match up for them, FaZe wont quite select NIP and NIP would rather select astralis than North

2017-11-21 09:06

This sounds like fun, a bit like IEM Gamescom 2015

2017-11-20 23:49

2017-11-21 12:28

Hunter exam intensifies

2017-11-20 23:55

#FaZeUP

2017-11-21 00:01

we'll see what happens

2017-11-21 00:02

so dumb that we have to get nrg/lum/hr instead of g2 and c9 fucking annoying

2017-11-21 00:13

Well C9 should have played better I suppose. To be honest any NA team is a waste of spot. Would be interesting to see how many could even somewhat compete in EU qualifiers.

2017-11-21 01:43

I think c9 would do decent seeing as they can beat any1 except faze

2017-11-21 01:58

If "Y" group is EU: Y1 Fnatic selects R2 Faze R1 OpTic selects Y2 SK Gaming R2 Faze selects Y3 Astralis Y2 SK Gaming selects R3 North Y3 Astralis selects R4 NiP R3 North selects Y4 Liquid R4 NiP selects Y5 HellRaisers Y4 Liquid selects R5 Misfits Y5 HellRaisers selects R6 NRG Y6 Luminosity Remains Y Group: Fnatic, SK, Astralis, Liquid, HellRaisers, and Luminosity R Group: OpTic, Faze, North, NiP,Misfits, NRG If NA is "y" group just switch Fnatic and OpTic

2017-11-21 00:17

bro thats not even the right order lol north placed ahead of FaZe hhahhaa...

2017-11-21 00:53

LOL bro if you look at the format, the teams get selected and ranked as they're selected, its not based at all on the end of season rankings. only the first place teams matter because they become the "captains" of the draft then its who they pick becomes #2,#3,#4 in their group...

2017-11-21 03:01

oh my bad it went r1, r2, r3 so i assumed.

2017-11-22 02:45

This is good. Very good.

2017-11-21 00:20

LG LuL

2017-11-21 00:31

If Y1 (fnatic?) is smart, they gonna choose an opponent who they really have trouble with despite SK/FaZe, which would be a wasted pick. They gonna face 1 if them anyway cuz they get picked next surely. Use your pick for astralis/NiP/North if any of those is your nemesis in EPL matches or scrims.

2017-11-21 00:33

If Y1 doesn't pick one of them then R1 and R2 will most likely pick both

2017-11-21 02:46

That was exactly my point.

2017-11-21 14:24

Wheres Navi ?Oh no they dont qualify lmaoo

2017-11-21 00:41

7 replies

really smart comment coming from a G2 fan hahaha....

2017-11-21 00:52

Nt peru

what?

2017-11-21 00:54

it has to be a bait, he can't be that stupid.

2017-11-21 01:07

???? It's like trashtalking a team that fail at a major qualifier as a Nip fan

2017-11-21 09:09

Who are current champions of this tournament?so Stfu

2017-11-21 12:16

Lybian bitch can't even understand a simple sentence,nice brain

2017-11-21 17:47

KHE?

2017-11-21 00:48

how Cloud9 and Renegades choke so hard tho??

ez faze

weird

2017-11-21 01:20

Place your bets on who's winning. Mine are on either Misfits or NRG with both in the finals. XD

2017-11-21 02:09

Let's try to predict this: Fnatic picks yellow Optic gets red Fnatic pics SK Optic pics FaZe SK picks Astralis FaZe picks North Astralis picks NiP North picks Liquid NiP picks HellRaisers Liquid picks NRG HellRaisers picks Luminosity Misfits is left for Y6 Yellow: Fnatic, FaZe, Astralis, Liquid, HellRaisers, Misfits Red: Optic, SK, North, NiP, NRG, Luminosity

2017-11-21 02:44

Ez 4 SK

2017-11-21 04:21

Liquid will highly likely pick Misfits out of the 3. Theyre the best team out of the 3 and theyve struggled with them before.

2017-11-21 08:31

Yeah, I'm not really following Liquid's matches so I kinda made a blind guess

2017-11-21 21:01

I can't help with online cs when irrelevant teams like Misfits NRG and LG manage qualify over C9

2017-11-21 03:09

Misfits are less irrelevant than one may think they are known to surprise. However C9 really should have been here over NRG and LG but to those team's credit, they did grind out more games.

2017-11-21 03:14

nah LG is better than Misfits despite losing on minor to them they have bo5 and bo3 over shazam boys

2017-11-21 03:18

LG havent showed anything on LAN unlike Misfits who have at least had some results. LG are definitely not better than Misfits

2017-11-21 08:33

good point but i still think LG has better ceiling in long term

2017-11-21 19:20

this might be interesting actually

2017-11-21 03:24

EPIC fail by G2 and c9. I hope LG can at least do better than their previous lineup did In April vs HR and Heroic: hltv.org/matches/2310104/hellraisers-vs-.. hltv.org/matches/2310110/luminosity-vs-h..

2017-11-21 03:27

Instructions not clear. I missed my cancer treatment because of this scheduling.

2017-11-21 03:41

ez for vp

2017-11-21 04:05

2017-11-21 05:07

nip in semi-finals fosho but not in grand this time

2017-11-21 06:55

Lol this is the lamest way to pair them "who scares you so we can help you avoid them bullying you"

2017-11-21 08:30

Its the best way to avoid stacked groups. If groups are done randomly we always tend to see a group of death. Teams will essentially just block who they see as the best there. So that ends up with the best teams alternating between groups rather than one group having like 4 of the top 6. And besides it puts them on the other side of the bracket so it means they will have to vs them in a bo3 once they make it through rather than shitty finals because a good team got knocked out because of lucky bo1 encounters

2017-11-21 10:45

Should give more spots to EU teams, 8 EU 4 NA would be more fitting. Even 9 -3 would be good.

2017-11-21 09:08

That's bullshit.

2017-11-21 09:15

I would pick luminosity :Dd

2017-11-21 09:34

ez for onliners

2017-11-21 10:20

ez 4 w0xic

2017-11-21 10:22

these HR guys are pure onliners

2017-11-21 11:10

Can you face someone from the same group when the bo3s start ? If not then you should let the other team put faze and sk to your group since you have better chances in a bo1

2017-11-21 12:13

Ez fnatic

2017-11-21 12:29

Starting as Y isnt better than R actually if fnatic pick Y fnatic pick SK Optic and SK pick Astralis and FaZe Astralis and FaZe pick North and NiP North and NiP pick Liquid and HR Liquid and HR pick Misfits and Lumi then its Y= fnatic,FaZe,Astralis,Liquid,HR,NRG R= Optic,SK,NiP,North,Misfits,Lumi if fnatic pick R Optic pick SK fnatic and SK pick Astralis and FaZe Astralis and FaZe pick North and NiP North and NiP pick Liquid and HR Liquid and HR pick Misfits and Lumi then its Y= Optic,FaZe,Astralis,Liquid,HR,NRG R= fnatic,SK,NiP,North,Misfits,Lumi I dont really know which group is better for fnatic

2017-11-21 15:50