ESL add third-place deciders from EPL S22 onward

1-7-2025 16:26

The tournament organizer has announced a change to their circuit.

EPL S22 will feature a third-place decider

ESL has announced that all of their Tier 1 and Wildcard tournaments will now feature third-place decider matches, starting with ESL Pro League S22, set to begin on September 27 with Stage 1.

So far, the tournament organizer has announced that ESL Pro League Season 22, IEM Chengdu 2025, and IEM Krakow 2026 will feature the third-place decider and has therefore adjusted the prize pool, with the bronze-medal decider replacing the showmatch before the grand final on Sunday.

"With the continued evolution of the competitive landscape and teams vying for points counting towards their Valve Regional Standings, which now subsequently will fully decide their fate for the next Counter-Strike Major invites, we're today adding third-place decider matches to previously announced tournaments," ESL's statement reads.

The move puts ESL in line with PGL, who introduced third-place decider games at the start of 2025.

big news

2025-07-01 16:26

1 reply

PGL cultural impact

2025-07-01 17:49

Pog

perfect for falcons

2025-07-01 16:27

114

2025-07-01 16:30

Good decision

2025-07-01 16:28

boo!

2025-07-01 16:29

yes!! no more boring showmatch!!

2025-07-01 16:31

They will still be there tho, on saturday :)

2025-07-01 18:41

Big W move.Only Hope add it on Major

3 replies

And add Bo5 for final! Major is a joke.

2025-07-01 16:59

Fuck BO5

2025-07-01 17:16

No. 3rd place decider is nice for casual tournaments like these but not for major. Every match at the major should be played with atleast a technical possibility that you could win the whole thing. Teams playing 3rd place decider after they were already eliminated from the title run is meh. All we need for major is bo5 finals + bo1 removed.

2025-07-01 19:56

2025-07-01 16:32

PGL owns you

copying pgl while making teams dodge their events, losers

2025-07-01 16:41

Massive news for the unemployed

Not even unemployed, since the finals are on Sunday. It's people that can't even bother to do something else until the grand final and demand cs entertainment to keep their brains fried. Such a non issue that took big proportions.

2025-07-01 18:36

showmatch gone. good riddance

2025-07-01 16:43

finally

Will Finals still be Bo5's tho?

2025-07-01 16:49

Finally. Now we just need BO3s and 3rd place deciders for the major.

2025-07-01 16:52

we need BO5 for major finals too .. you want to be best team in CS2 in the most important competition you need to show you have at least 3 competitive maps in pool .

2025-07-01 17:03

2025-07-01 16:54

Irrelevant, honestly.

2025-07-01 17:04

no need for them

An improvement really, sadly valve can't realize this

Imagine a 3rd place match that goes 3 maps with several overtimes and after this you have to watch a bo5 grand final with maybe 5 maps and ot's xD 10 -12 hrs for 2 matches EDIT: it doesnt mean i think its a bad decission. i just mean its funny to think about :D

2025-07-01 17:17

2 replies

Sounds like even more great CS to watch

2025-07-01 17:41

Better for SA timezone when They host unwatchable matches in Asia and Oceanía

2025-07-01 17:54

Hell yeah great decision,I dont think I'm the only one that cant be asked to watch forced,cringe showmatches.Maybe they will get more interesting when we get less of them

2025-07-01 17:25

No Caches in Australia?

sHOWMATCH BETTER

2025-07-01 17:33

And it took 20 years of counter strike for this. Insane. Thanks pgl

2025-07-01 17:46

but showmatches </3

2025-07-01 18:24

nice

BASED

2025-07-01 18:46

W ESL move

2025-07-01 20:25

a nice W, the show matches are shit anyway

2025-07-01 20:46

Double match on final day

2025-07-01 22:08

The major needs to do this

2025-07-02 00:48

as long as more TOs follow with these developments (Blast), maybe Valve will realise the value in changes like these for the major; ie, removing BO1s, BO5 grand final and such

2025-07-03 04:07