ESL Pro League Season 21 teams, format, schedule, prizes, fantasy, talent
Another all-BO3 Swiss stage is coming at us fast.

Format
The event has moved from Malta to ESL's studios in Stockholm, and will not have a crowd present for playoffs.
The format is also new; ESL has switched the Pro League to two Swiss-style group stages, preceding an eight-team playoff.
All matches will be best of three, until the best of five grand final. There is no third-place decider.
Teams are seeded by their peers, using the same system that ESL used for the IEM Katowice 2019 Major. You can see where teams placed each other here, with paiN benefitting the most from the system in Stage 1 by jumping up three places.
Teams
FaZe are the notable absentees, having declined an invite to the Swedish studio event. Complexity, BIG, and Astralis were the teams that just missed out on an invite via Valve's January 6 Regional Standings.
But after they skipped PGL Cluj-Napoca, the big dogs of Spirit, Vitality, G2, Natus Vincere and Liquid are all back in action.

12 spots were handed out using Valve's ranking (eight to stage 2, four to stage 1), with the other 12 on offer in last year's ESL Challenger Leagues.
HEROIC qualify after acquiring the Sangal core that won ECL48 in Europe, while we'll get to see Aussie sides Housebets and Mindfreak have a stab at tier one.
Schedule
The event will run two streams for the group stage, with four best of threes per day starting at 10:30 .
The play-in will run from March 1-5, with eight Stage 2 spots on offer. Then, 16 teams will do battle in the event proper from March 7-16.
These matches will kick off day one:
| Date | Matches | |
|---|---|---|
| ESL Pro League Season 21 Stage 1 | ||
| 01/03/2025 |
10:30
|
Match |
| 01/03/2025 |
10:30
|
Match |
| 01/03/2025 |
13:00
|
Match |
| 01/03/2025 |
13:00
|
Match |
| 01/03/2025 |
15:30
|
Match |
| 01/03/2025 |
16:10
|
Match |
| 01/03/2025 |
18:15
|
Match |
| 01/03/2025 |
18:45
|
Match |
Prizes
The event has a $1,000,000 prize pool, with $400k going to players and $600k going to clubs —- a key factor for teams' attendance that PGL did not offer.
The pot will be distributed as follows:
1st. $100,000 (+$150,000 club share)
2nd. $50,000 (+$75,000 club share)
3-4th. $25,000 (+$55,000 club share)
5-8th. $18,000 (+$40,000 club share)
9-11th. $13,500 (+$25,000 club share)
12-14th. $10,500 (+$10,000 club share)
15-16th. $8,500
17-19th. $6,500
20-22nd. $4,500
23-24th. $3,000
Fantasy
The partner game for the Play-In is live now, with the following prizes on offer courtesy of Chicken.gg:
1. Hydra Gloves | Rattler (Field-Tested)
2. M4A1-S | Hyper Beast (Field-Tested)
3. AWP | Hyper Beast (Field-Tested)
Talent
Chad "SPUNJ" Burchill
Alex "Machine" Richardson
Tres "stunna" Saranthus
Harry "JustHarry" Russell
Hugo "Hugo" Byron
Henry "HenryG" Greer
Janko "YNk" Paunović
Freya "Freya" Spiers
Jason "moses" O'Toole
Joshua "steel" Nissan
Edona "dona" Muliu (playoffs)
Neo "Ne0kai" Caine
Mike "DarfMike" Winnick
Harvey "Skriv" Rodgers
Cole "xner" McHenry
ESL Pro League Season 21


























Robin 'ropz' Kool
Shahar 'flameZ' Shushan
Aliaksandr '1eeR' Nahorny
Beksultan 'khaN' Ospan
Rasmus 'kreaz' Johansson
Raul 'Blytz' Gligor
Bartosz 'bnox' Niebisz
David 'dav1deuS' Tapia Maldonado
Nemanja 'huNter-' Kovač
Mario 'malbsMd' Samayoa

Myroslav 'zont1x' Plakhotia



Álvaro 'SunPayus' García
Eetu 'sAw' Saha
Alexander 'kakafu' Szymanczyk
Håvard 'rain' Nygaard
David 'frozen' Čerňanský
Helvijs 'broky' Saukants
Damjan 'kyxsan' Stoilkovski
Johnny 'JT' Theodosiou

Justinas 'jL' Lekavicius
Henrich 'sl3nd' Hevesi
Oldřich 'PR' Nový






Pipa27
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aLight
kokander
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geek3D
FinesseKawalCS

