ESL Pro League Season 19 teams, format, schedule, talent, prizes, fantasy

20-4-2024 14:33

The three-week tournament will pack plenty of matches with four groups, last-chance stages, and playoffs.

FaZe come into Pro League exhausted but happy after winning IEM Chengdu

ESL Pro League Season 19 is set to start on Tuesday, April 23, with $750,000 and a spot at IEM Cologne on the line for 32 teams to fight over. The tournament will return, as usual, to Saint Julian's, in Malta, where it will run until the grand final on May 12.

The majority of the world's top 20 teams will be in attendance, with the exceptions of Spirit, Cloud9, paiN, and Gaimin Gladiators. Fourteen of the teams have been invited as partners, a practice that will cease when Valve's new rules regarding tournament invitations go live in 2025, with the rest of teams coming from the ESL ranking, qualifiers, smaller tournaments, or regional leagues.

Participating teams and format

The 32 teams have been divided into four groups of eight, from which half of the teams will advance to the playoffs. Each group will have a double-elimination bracket and a last-chance stage, making for a total of 16 matches per group — all best-of-three.

The top team in each group advances directly to the playoff quarter-finals, the second-place teams proceed to the second round of playoffs, and the third-placed and last-chance stage winners (fourth place) in each group go to the first round of the playoffs.

The playoffs, notorious for being one of the only ones at an event of this stature to be played with barely any crowd outside of an arena setting, will be a single elimination best-of-three bracket with a best-of-five grand final.

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Most of the best teams in the world will be in attendance, including the IEM Chengdu champions, FaZe, in Group A. Virtus.pro will play their first event with Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov and are slated to open the tournament playing in the first round of the first day of play against fnatic. In that stacked group are also Astralis and Major playoff team Eternal Fire.

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Vitality and G2 are the favorites in Group B, a quiet group where the likes of Falcons and The MongolZ will be lurking to make the playoffs. The new-look FURIA will play in Group C, opening up against Liquid, although MOUZ will be the headliners and favorites to take the top seed.

Media: FURIA practicing with kye in place of arT

Group D will see Natus Vincere return to the server for the first time since they became Major champions, while struggling sides like BIG or Ninjas in Pyjamas will be fighting the more established Complexity and HEROIC for playoff spots, and FlyQuest will try to make some upsets happen in a bid to make a playoff appearance happen.

The team roster is:

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Opening Matches

Here are the opening matches for the four groups. To get a more in-depth look at what the full schedule will be, or what the possible crosses in the group stage and playoff brackets could look like, head over to the event page.

Group A

Date	Matches
ESL Pro League Season 19
23/04/2024	Virtus.pro 13:30 fnatic	Match
23/04/2024	3DMAX 13:30 SAW	Match
23/04/2024	Astralis 17:05 Eternal Fire	Match
23/04/2024	FaZe 19:30 Imperial	Match

Group B

Date	Matches
ESL Pro League Season 19
23/04/2024	Vitality 16:40 Sharks	Match
23/04/2024	M80 19:30 BetBoom	Match
24/04/2024	Falcons 13:30 The MongolZ	Match
24/04/2024	TYLOO 13:30 G2	Match

Group C

Date	Matches
ESL Pro League Season 19
30/04/2024	MOUZ 13:30 Bad News Kangaroos	Match
30/04/2024	ENCE 13:45 GamerLegion	Match
30/04/2024	FURIA 19:30 Liquid	Match
30/04/2024	FORZE 19:30 Monte	Match

Group D

Date	Matches
ESL Pro League Season 19
30/04/2024	Complexity 16:30 PERA	Match
30/04/2024	Ninjas in Pyjamas 16:30 HEROIC	Match
01/05/2024	BIG 13:30 BOSS	Match
01/05/2024	FlyQuest 13:30 Natus Vincere	Match

Talent

The heavy load of matches means that two streams will be necessary and a team of 15 will bring the action live to viewers. Hosted by Tres "⁠stunna⁠" Saranthus and Freya "⁠Freya⁠" Spiers, check out the full talent list below:

A stream

Tres "⁠stunna⁠" Saranthus - Host
Freya "⁠Freya⁠" Spiers - Host

Jason "⁠moses⁠" O'Toole
Janko "⁠YNk⁠" Paunović
Mathieu "⁠Maniac⁠" Quiquerez
Harry "⁠JustHarry⁠" Russell
Hugo "⁠Hugo⁠" Byron
Henry "⁠HenryG⁠" Greer
Chad "⁠SPUNJ⁠" Burchill
Alex "⁠Machine⁠" Richardson

B stream

Neo "Ne0kai" Caine
Harvey "Skriv" Rodgers
Lucy "LucyLuce" Eastwood
Brandon "BDog" Rawlings
Travis "Trav" Landaw Mott

Prize Pool

The prize distribution is:

1. $170,000 + IEM Cologne 2024
2. $80,000
3-4. $45,000
5-8. $32,000
9-12. $23,500
13-16. $17,500
17-20. $12,000
21-28. $7,000
29-32. $3,500

Fantasy

The first EPL fantasy game is now live, covering two groups at once, Group A and Group B, in a single game. You can create your teams on the Fantasy page here.