ESL Pro League Season 19 groups announced

17-1-2024 12:40

Seeds have been announced three months before the $750,000 tournament's kick-off date.

The two best players of 2023, NiKo and ZywOo, are set to meet in Group B

The 28 invited teams to ESL Pro League Season 19 have been sorted into four groups using the ESL World Ranking, three months before the tournament kicks off on April 23.

Four spots are yet to be decided, as ESL await the results of open qualifiers in South America, Oceania, and the six-team National Championship qualifier for the champions of the last regional leagues operated by the TO.

ESL is closing National Championships: Why and what is next?

FaZe headline Group A as ESL's No. 1 team in the world, and will be joined by the new Astralis as well as Russian heavyweights Cloud9 and Virtus.pro.

Group B pits Vitality against Falcons, the organization that lured Danny "⁠zonic⁠" Sørensen and Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif away from the Major champions. G2 are also present, whose star player Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač rejected advances from Falcons himself.

The third group looks to be the most contested of the bunch, as MOUZ aim to retain their high ranking without David "⁠frozen⁠" Čerňanský and with Liquid and ENCE's new rosters providing dangerous low-seed opponents.

The curtain will close with Complexity and Natus Vincere in Group D; BIG, HEROIC, and Ninjas in Pyjamas will be nipping at their heels.

The full groups are:

Group A

Regional qualifier

Group B

Regional qualifier

Group C

Regional qualifier

Group D

Regional qualifier

lul

2024-01-17 12:40

LETS GO

wow group A is stacked

2024-01-17 12:43

death groupB

2024-01-17 12:45

2 replies

Mongolz are good for at least one upset

2024-01-17 14:11

Lol flag Group A is 10x harder

2024-01-17 17:39

Group A stacked; Group B balanced; Group C dark horses only, should be interesting; Group D most boring ever

2024-01-17 12:46

13 replies

2024-01-17 12:52

2024-01-17 14:22

Nah, B is definitely the boring one

2024-01-17 14:23

Looking forward to group C . Very much feels like every single announced team is capable of making it out of it. Should be fun.

2024-01-17 15:06

Except GamerLegion

2024-01-17 15:11

1 reply

Even them, actually, although it's more of a long shot. They had a poor run, yes, but they generally have been plenty competitive in the matches they dropped. With 4 teams qualifying, there is a way for them to make it.

2024-01-17 16:24

tbh liquid has no excuse to not easily top group C

2024-01-17 17:45

liquid? rofl, overrated a fuck

2024-01-17 19:39

bait used to be believable

2024-01-17 22:15

2024-01-17 19:15

Group C is the Death Group A and B are more top heavy, if you ranked all the teams, more of the Top 16 would likely come out of Group C even if it would be the lower half

2024-01-18 03:59

Agreed about group C and B. But A is the strongest by far, even the mid teams, like EF, Astralis, Fnatic and 3DMax are pretty decent

2024-01-18 14:33

"the strongest by far" lol what a joke

2024-01-18 22:38

Group D 😴😴😴😴

2024-01-17 12:47

Astralis is always in the toughest group, every tournament

2024-01-17 12:48

Traitors deserve this.

2024-01-17 14:06

stavn and jabbi absolutely do, but it was the same thing before them too

2024-01-17 15:36

Stacked groups Good Luck 2 All

2024-01-17 12:51

group d lul

groups c and d are a joke compared to group a

2024-01-17 12:54

5 replies

Group C can be either the weakest one or the strongest one. Lots of dark horses will make it interesting to follow. Group D is just straight up weak

2024-01-17 13:10

Grayhound might have a chance to make to playoff xd

2024-01-17 13:12

the only team i trust in group c is monte, but at least the group look very interesting and unpredictable

2024-01-17 13:14

There are couple of teams in C group that might make changes after major.

2024-01-17 13:11

i suppose that might apply for every group, but for group c the most

2024-01-17 13:16

Group B's gonna be a banger

2024-01-17 13:00

Isnt this event in like april?

2024-01-17 13:01

group c and d are a joke tbh compared to a and b

2024-01-17 13:04

B?? You know 4 qualify per group right?

2024-01-17 14:26

12 replies

group a has faze/c9/vp/astralis group b has vitality/g2/falcons/betboom group c has mouz/monte and that's all group d has col/navi and thats all

2024-01-17 14:40

11 replies

Furia, GL, Liquid could easily beat mouz and monte and all of them are better than BetBoom, with the exception of maybe GL, that is on the same level

2024-01-17 14:47

liquid struggles vs tier 4 na and lost vs m80 gl ( i dont have to say anything about them) furia (besides elisa they didnt look any decent)

2024-01-17 15:23

Name a single team other than Vitality and maybe Faze that have been consistently good and put up results in CS2, what Falcons have done to be put on such high place? If anything they are just in the same place as liquid, a promising team in terms of players but haven't really shown anything yet in terms of results, g2 also, super inconsistent, looking like they could loose against tier 3 teams on a bad day and I don't think I need to talk about BetBoom

2024-01-17 17:07

big and heroic are better than monte/betboom. u smoking if u think group d is the worst

2024-01-17 18:46

4 replies

heroic still new team and didnt impress at all in recent quals i know flag checks out , but maybe be at least less bias , before saying they are better than monte or betboom big are onliners so i dont expect them to be better than monte on lan

2024-01-17 18:48

3 replies

big were playing great imo at the end of'23 from that i saw, heroic just breezed through the 2nd quali, made quick work, nicoodoz was great. I'm sure they'll impress in the future too

2024-01-17 18:58

still heroic didnt play enough to be already ''better than monte''. Monte so far impressed a lot especially on lan putting heroic above them after few games especially when a team such as them failed vs tier 3/4 team big is a big question especially on lan. Sure they looked great online, but let them first play on lan to peform like online

2024-01-17 19:00

Ye, of course all of thats true. Still dont understand how people think group D is a snoozefest, when imo is arguably 2nd or 3rd best group there with a lot of banger matches potential

2024-01-17 19:09

>astralis Lol keep dreaming awake

2024-01-18 22:40

f l a g

2024-01-18 23:07

youtu.be/c2tV5IOznWw?si=nol-HtSP35z9SWvu Tutorial on how to finish off a team of snakes 😴😴

2024-01-18 23:55

LOL 0 solid teams vs Mouz Love to see it

EPL is after major so there might be changes to rosters. ENCE is one of those teams. Also C group has basically 7 teams that can beat each other, so it's going to be interesting to see how C gtoup looks after the group stage is played.

2024-01-17 13:15

Full of dark horses. A solid top20 team often struggles against dark horses because they cannot prepare for them. Especially with bo1 matches...

2024-01-17 14:12

Monte and Furia can beat mouz if they life game Rest cant do nun

2024-01-17 14:19

Group D is a fcking joke - Col is decent - navi is not much without bit overperforming - big are chronic onliners - heroic has a new roster without real promise - nip doesnt even have to be mentioned - boss is NA - Greyhound cant win if its not a major match vs an asian team

col decent lmao

2024-01-17 17:14

they are fine. compared to the rest of the group they might even be considered as the ones to beat.

2024-01-17 17:37

group c and d only bots

2024-01-17 13:38

no easy groups for furia, ggs

2024-01-17 13:40

Group C is The 2nd easiest, only D is worse

no spirit?

2024-01-17 13:45

not high enough on ESL World Rankings. They literally missed out because they chose to attend BetBoom Dacha.

2024-01-17 14:03

no team spirit i sleep

2024-01-17 13:49

ofc EF in hardest group xaxaxaxaxa

2024-01-17 14:17

where is Spirit we need sh1ro in EPL they are 10 teams who are trash and there isnt Spirit lol

2024-01-17 14:29

C9 again kekw

2024-01-17 14:39

Weird seeing polish flag nxt to Ence's name…

Group D lacks a title contender. This group is away easier than the others

2024-01-17 15:27

No spirit?

2024-01-17 15:30

Group a - group of death if MIBR qualify Groub b - seems like a tough group too at first glance, but there are 5 bot teams in teams in there, no competition for g2, vitality and falcons Group c - t2 fiesta, but free for Liquid Group d - ResidentSleeper

2024-01-17 15:49

Mongolz and Tyloo in same group is both nice and sad

2024-01-17 16:18

Both Asian teams in same group? and group D lul, 2 tier 1 teams there atm

2024-01-17 16:47

I think this is my favourite group stage so far. Even Group D will be fun despite little to no good teams in that group. Also keep in mind its only 3 weeks now, so you don't necessarily have to watch Group D

2024-01-17 21:01