Falcons, Cloud9 among EPL S19 invites

11-1-2024 17:03

Five teams have been locked in for ESL's flagship event based on their ESL world ranking.

ESL have announced the five teams that have been invited to ESL Pro League Season 19 based on their ESL world ranking spot.

Cloud9, Falcons, BetBoom, GamerLegion and Eternal Fire are the squads who have received invites.

Falcons earned their invite because ESL's world ranking awards points to the participating players, not the team or organization, and so signing Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif along with the ex-ENCE core garnered them enough ranking points.

Teams like Virtus.pro and Monte are higher than the aforementioned squads in ESL's world ranking, but had already earned Pro League berths by winning ESL Challenger events in 2023.

There are still four spots left to be claimed for EPL S19, with three going to the winners of various open qualifiers and one to the winner of European Conference.

ESL Pro League Season 19 will take place April 23-May 12 and will pit 32 teams against each other across three weeks of play, with a $750,000 prizepool on offer.

The team list for ESL Pro League Season 19 now looks as follows:

EU Conference

Oceania Qualifier

South American Qualifier

falcons are so overrated

2024-01-11 17:03

28 replies

-1 godpayus

2024-01-11 17:22

4 replies

Falcons are overrated, but not sunpayus. + Godoayus good nickname tho

2024-01-11 19:50

3 replies

No lol

2024-01-12 16:07

2 replies

Ok 00001

2024-01-12 19:38

1 reply

Was referring to the nickname u suggested

2024-01-12 23:11

-SunPayus and I would agree

2024-01-11 17:42

why? they are basically ENCE improved, they could definetely be a top 5 team

2024-01-11 17:44

12 replies

hard to say that nertz -> magisk dycha -> boroz is an improvement also considering how long they played together

2024-01-11 21:05

11 replies

magisk >> dycha nertz = boros I think the biggest factor is Snappi, he will make the team work

2024-01-11 21:25

10 replies

snappi in cs2 skill decreased alot, THATS THE BIGGEST PROBLEM.

2024-01-11 22:44

Nertz and Boros being equal???

2024-01-12 01:44

Lul what, no way you just said that BOROS is equal to Nertz.

2024-01-12 04:38

5 replies

Eh, both relatively inconsistent but nertz is more experienced. We need to see more of BOROS on t1

2024-01-12 07:19

BOROS didn't do shit even at tier 2 with Falcons NertZ back then was whooping asses ad Endpoint and was a great substitute for Spinx in ENCE. Not to mention he's 14th best player of previous year.

2024-01-12 07:42

Ya boros hasn't done anywhere near what nertz has

2024-01-12 10:44

BOROS in Monte >>> Nertz in Endpoint Ofc Boros doesn’t have the experience, but I think he has more potential than Nertz had. The old Falcons line-up was a shitshow anyways

2024-01-12 11:38

So was Endpoint lineup, yet it didn't stop Nertz.

2024-01-12 11:53

meds

2024-01-12 07:32

ye u need some

2024-01-12 11:37

you know they have a new team? could still just call them ence

2024-01-11 17:45

How can they be overrated when we haven't even seen them play

2024-01-11 19:48

Maybe for the hype around it

2024-01-11 19:53

exactly

2024-01-11 20:32

boros is better than dycha and magisk is A LOT better than nertz , in what way are they overrated?

2024-01-11 20:42

2 top 20 players and top 3 IGL

2024-01-11 22:48

But apex is not in Falkons

2024-01-12 03:21

I said top 3 IGL

2024-01-12 09:36

0 games played and getting invited in every big tournament :D I guess they have got a lot of money :D

2024-01-12 11:18

EF gets invite by 0.02 points HAHAHAHHAHAHHHA

2024-01-11 17:05

they get invited by last epl result

2024-01-11 17:46

Pari party , esl jonkoping : i dont exist

2024-01-11 18:05

if only Spirit didn't decide to attend BetBoom Dacha. They would've made it to EPL through ECL instead of 3DMAX or FORZE.

they want to farm t2 online tournaments, good for donk stats

2024-01-11 17:09

They were farming money, not donk's stats. $180k is so much better than EPL slot financially

2024-01-11 19:05

sh1ro buried his career there

2024-01-11 17:10

But at least all donk fans can bring up that he has MVP now, so probably worth, since it is unlikely he would do so in EPL

2024-01-11 17:19

spirit made as much prize money as first place epl and they likely wouldnt have won epl, so for everyone except sh1ro it was a pretty great decision

2024-01-11 22:20

rip spirit

2024-01-11 17:12

GamerLegion hahahahahahahahahahaa

2024-01-11 17:18

gamerlegion is so unbelievably anmoying now

ef got invite with 0.2 point difference kkkkkkk

2024-01-11 17:27

Ez for Forze with 4 players

2024-01-11 17:28

Invite secured yess

2024-01-11 17:30

f spirit, f donk . Not in top 20

2024-01-11 17:31

theyre top 10

2024-01-11 22:21

How is it suddenly that Falcons are playing every T1 tournament??

2024-01-11 17:34

Having ENCE's core gave them the points.

2024-01-11 17:35

GAMERLEGION INVITED AGAIN WHYYYYYY

6 replies

14th in ESL World Rankings. Unless other lower teams can get pass them and push them down further, this is going to be how it is.

2024-01-11 17:36

How tf are GL above Spirit? GL has bombed out of every tourney

2024-01-11 17:37

point decay is slow for ESL rankings. And it doesn't help that the reason they're up so high is because of them reaching the grand finals of the Paris Major. (in no part due to siuhy and iM).

2024-01-11 17:39

I hate GL so much it's actually insane. youtube.com/watch?v=a3_PPdjD6mg&ab_chann..

2024-01-11 17:41

The consequences of iM and especially siuhy's breakouts.

2024-01-11 17:43

"based on their ESL world ranking."

Falcon looooool they really need to fix how they hand out invites, so shit like this dont happen again.

??? They have Ence core so they inherit points

2024-01-11 17:53

so happy eternal fire made it again

2024-01-11 18:19

Donk fans crying 😭 Stuck playing in tier 2

2024-01-11 18:20

try to invite iberian teams next time

2024-01-11 18:33

Stop giving GL invites to all these t1 tourneys, let them struggle and play some t2 competition to see if they can even hold their own or give some other teams a chance!

2024-01-11 18:38

How is GL STILL getting invites? 3 of their players went on a miracle run a year ago and they've done nothing since, but they're STILL getting invites to everything

2024-01-11 18:40

ESL World Rankings still has them at 14th. Unless other lower teams rapidly surge up and push GamerLegion down further, this is going to continue happening.

2024-01-11 18:41

I swear, theyre basically in the same loop as partnered teams. They get invites to events based off that result, and so even when they place almost last, they still get points, which gets them more invites. This team is the middest mid team ever and them constantly getting invites over teams like spirit and apeks is absurd

2024-01-11 18:52

Bring back hand-picked invites

2024-01-11 21:08

No KOI no party

2024-01-11 18:45

Why tf is there an oceania qualifier instead of china?

2024-01-11 19:22

7 replies

Investment

2024-01-11 19:33

I call them pity qualifiers, to give Oceania a chance of something despite the fact that the region's doomed for good to the point that even Asia is starting to rapidly improve and will leave Oceania far behind.

2024-01-11 19:51

Yeah imagine 3k teams in the china one, I know most of them obviously are trash But would those 3k have a better chance at beating the .. 20 teams in oceania? yeah definitely and they will grow way faster since oceania hasn't been progressing for the past what, at least 3 years?

2024-01-11 21:34

4 years. The last time they did anything meaningful was in 2019. Been a downhill spiral since then. Their 2-3 run at Paris gave people false hope or whatever. As soon as they nearly lost to a polish FACEIT mix that cheated their way to EPL, I already knew it was over.

2024-01-11 21:40

It originally started when ESL took away their Challenger League (premier at the time). To "compensate" they decided to keep giving the region 2 spots: hltv.org/news/32963/esl-announces-apac-c.. Not saying it was the right or wrong decision, but the region has certainly suffered at ESL's hands.

2024-01-11 23:13

even then, the region has completely stagnated since the Berlin Major. Which was literally almost 5 years ago now. Even post-COVID, AU CS has been on a downhill spiral which is getting worse. Meanwhile in Asia, despite the lack of support for the region for years, the region still made more progress than AU has in these past 5 fucking years. And is even rapidly improving these past few months to the point that Asia could effectively make chances for AU qualifications at Majors effectively extinct in just another year or so. There's also the fact that one single Asian team has been slowly and rapidly improving with just the small amount of international LAN experience they gained and have been capable of upsetting teams that should've been able to beat them easily, if they continue to improve and grow, they'll effectively be a contender team in no time flat. Then you have the lousiest leecher of a region called Oceania. You qualify for and get chances to attend these events but instead of improving, your appearances are just basically free vacation trips around the damn world. Like wtf are you guys even doing at this point.

2024-01-11 23:32

Any problem you can find in another region they have: - Lack of tournaments - Lack of upcoming talent - Lack of team org support - Lack of good teams to practice against - Lack of drive to improve - Ping issues None of those should be an excuse, but it all adds up to a region that is in hole that's hard to get out of. They do get international opportunities, but it's always the same 3 teams that qualify and always against competition way higher than them, so the improvements made are minimal. Asia teams have obviously proven that limited international opportunities can be overcome, but they have a much deeper talent pool, more orgs, and more events which all really, really helps.

2024-01-11 23:37

falcons... lol

2024-01-11 19:30

saudi backed team gets invited to a saudi owned TO with their saudi paid talent. can someone tell me what we call this type of situations without being banned by mods for writing the unrottable word?

2024-01-11 19:56

9 replies

falcons being invited because they acquired ENCE's core and get their points, that's all

2024-01-11 21:13

they acquired ENCE’s core, thats why they’re there.

Actually magisk has also contributed

2024-01-11 21:58

Still the conflict of interest exists. tho Falcons havent been clear who their ownership is, and if it wasnt PIF or PIF adjacent they wouldve just said so.

2024-01-12 00:32

they actually said so

2024-01-12 00:49

where? in the hltv confirmed ep it was just private investors.

2024-01-12 01:03

yes and they said it wasnt pif

2024-01-12 01:07

yes but who are the private investors then?

2024-01-12 01:08

they wont reveal their ownership structure to the public just like that.

2024-01-12 01:10

nice we can finally see falcons play

2024-01-11 20:59

how the hell does BetBoom have such a high rank?

2024-01-11 21:30

Their playoffs run in Sydney (where they beat Vitality), BetBoom Dacha, and winning CCT Series 8. That's why.

2024-01-11 21:43

Where the f is Apeks?? Money getting more and more important in CS, slowly starting to killing the diversity of teams, you got money = you get a invite. Joke…

2024-01-11 22:08