M80 and HOTU secure ESL Pro League spots

15-7-2025 11:46

Only two spots remain to be decided after the North American and Asian closed qualifiers came to a close.

M80 and HOTU have secured their participation in ESL Pro League Season 22 after winning the North American and Asian closed qualifiers, respectively.

The two teams will start in Stage 1 of the $1 million competition, which will take place from September 27-October 12 in Stockholm, Sweden.

The North American-German side around Elias "⁠s1n⁠" Stein qualified after a labored run, in which they lost the upper bracket final to Getting Info before taking revenge on the same squad in the grand final to secure their spot.

As they are ineligible for a direct invite to Asian competitions as a team featuring on the European VRS, HOTU had to make the run through the open qualifier.

The Russian-Kazakh side then beat out The QUBE, SemperFi, Chinggis Warriors and IHC in two separate series to come out on top of the closed phase after losing just one map in five matches.

Only two more spots remain to be decided, via the European closed qualifier, which is down to the top eight after teams such as Liquid and ENCE were eliminated, and the South American closed qualifier, kicking off on Wednesday.

Liquid's woes continue with early elimination from Pro League qualifier at hands of Sashi

The ESL Pro League Season 22 team list looks as follows:

Stage 2

Stage 1

I would've creamed if alter ego made it

2025-07-15 11:48

6 replies

not happening without 0.93 rating GOAT awper aidKiT

2025-07-15 12:01

Are they still active?

2025-07-15 13:04

4 replies

they lost at stage 1 qual. that team core is so ahh except of bntet

2025-07-15 14:29

3 replies

They should get AZR/dexter

2025-07-15 14:30

1 reply

no just let bntet joins other team

2025-07-15 15:29

respect kaito the korean goat

2025-07-15 18:27

now watch frontales masterclass on LAN

2025-07-15 11:49

Wait Open qualifiers are not bound to the region?

HOTU haters bout to cry about themnot being asian team

2025-07-15 11:50

15 replies

they have european ranking when receiving invites tho? is it another vrs dumn rule or what

2025-07-15 11:57

11 replies

Yes, it is a "a whole Russia is EU for ranking, even if they are in Vladivostok". The same how that one team of mongolian students in US (Akimbo) is in the asian ranking for invites, so the only way to play in NA is through open qualifiers. Same thing happens for HOTU. And I get why, because for invites teams should be in one region ranking only to not have a situation where they can receive 2 invites or have a backup invite from weaker region. Not sure what the perfect solution would be, tbh, outside of exceptions for some of the already established teams in situations like that one where Valve manually applies them a region instead of making it automatic based on citizenships (I mean, they kinda did it for Sonic in roundabout way by making whole South Africa NA region).

2025-07-15 12:22

10 replies

weird situation, btw, isnt south africa considered asia? xd

2025-07-15 12:28

Not anymore. Whole MENA is now EU with South Africa being NA (or, to be more precise, count towards lower priority region of the team, so for Wildcard he's NA, for 2 EU, 2 Asia south african player would be asian, etc) hltv.org/news/42055/valve-introduces-men..

2025-07-15 12:39

2 replies

aight thanks

2025-07-15 12:38

I edited my answer a bit. Basically, South Africa is any region, but specifically the weakest among the regions other 4 players give to a team. In practice, it just means Sonic is NA.

2025-07-15 12:42

best case scenario imo would to just do a case-by-case basis for this sort of stuff. HOTU very clearly states that they're an org based in Sakha so they probably choose to represent players from that region. and KZ counting as EU to me is a little stupid (albeit understandable). i think honestly it might be best to even ask what place players identify with (given they have some form of citizenship via parents)

2025-07-15 14:09

5 replies

You can't really ask all the players that if you want to keep a somewhat open system. Because you will be forced to assing it manually to every player who made it to HLTV through open qualifiers once, some kind of automatization is clearly needed. But I imagine it can be done for established teams at least, or there should be some kind of way to write to Valve with proof of residency/place of birth on birth certificate for the most players in a team or something to change regions in cases such as this, obviously at least for the whole season of play so it's not just for one event.

2025-07-15 14:17

What they would have to do is make some kind of verification when signing up in a qualifier, then again the amount of hussle this would create wouldnt be too great

2025-07-15 15:58

Based in Sakha, but plays open qualifier against pros from Portugal. Totally real Asian team btw liquipedia.net/counterstrike/FASTCUP/CSG.. liquipedia.net/counterstrike/Fragster/Ch..

2025-07-15 19:07

Yes, in autumn of 2024 they had bootcamp in EU part of Russia for like 2-3 months, so what? Why do you guys always bring up that period, but never watch that they played asian qualifiers in like spring of that same 2024? Because those are not on HLTV, I imagine? Should we assign all asian teams that had bootcamp in EU to EU region?

2025-07-16 18:37

Also, wait, where have you found portugese flag in these tournaments? In earlier stages that are not on Liquipedia or something? That green-red one is belorussian flag, not portugese.

2025-07-16 21:33

Just to end the topic, we will claim all of them here in South America and live in peace.

2025-07-15 18:37

'HOTU haters' or people who have eyes and see the European flag next to their team lmao

2025-07-16 21:01

You might have eyes,but 0 brain cells

2025-07-16 21:09

Ez for HOTU

2025-07-15 11:55

HOTU should be considered an asian team WTF just because russia owns some shithole frozen mud in east siberia doesnt mean region in europe

2025-07-15 12:09

9 replies

this hole is more developed than turkey, wake up. EF fan xaxaxa

2025-07-15 13:06

7 replies

Guess who has a toilet and a washing machine? yup. not you

2025-07-15 13:11

Those who really believe this propaganda are the Turks with IQ like Nenderthals)

2025-07-15 13:12

mate look at the state of your country's gdp per capita then speak, you have villages that may as well be recorded as a part of life during the invasion of napoleon and everyone would believe that shit

2025-07-15 13:16

are you serious right now? oh god, please believe more of your government's propaganda! we live here better than you do in your rural poland, come and see for yourself, i've been to poland personally. it's funny when people from countries like poland and turkey write something about us)

2025-07-15 13:19

youtube.com/watch?v=dLCc60VDArM forgot my country recorded propaganda

2025-07-15 13:25

Why are you a fan of the Polish team?

2025-07-15 13:15

always lose = easy money

Hotu has 10 times better conditions than the Mongols, I won't even mention the Turkish teams... and at the same time the stupid Turk will shit something

2025-07-15 13:23

1 Eu spot, such a joke

2025-07-15 12:12

HOTU lost an average of 4.81 rounds per map in their qualifier run (open and closed quals). Absurd quite frankly

2025-07-15 12:55

Instead of discussing round tactics, these mongolian teams were probably crying about how HOTU shouldn’t have been in the qualifiers. Guess that’s why HOTU dominated them so hard.

2025-07-15 13:43

mongolians are such annoying crybabies. People just blindly believe they’re cool and worth cheering for, just because they’ve got a surprisingly massive fanbase from such a little obscure country. Obviously, not all of them are like that, but i keep seeing this pattern of whining again and again, especially when it comes to HOTU

2025-07-15 14:16

HOTU still getting away with robbing Asian slots, how can they not get regulated by TO's? This shit is getting out of hand. They pick and choose which region they want to play as EU oneday, Asia on another day shameless

2025-07-15 13:00

20 replies

happens in every region, dont hate the players, hate the game. same with liquid, furia, wildcard and same for RA when they played with Phzy earlier

2025-07-15 13:24

Liquid always competed in NA, Furia in SA, Wildcard in NA. They all had integrity to play in their region this comparison is irrelevant. I don't like what HOTU is doing here and i say that with full conviction

2025-07-15 13:32

Wildcard had integrity when subbing stewie 2 months ago?

2025-07-15 13:45

If it would have been possible, they would have just chose asia as their VRS region and that's it. But Valve decided that Yakutia (Sakha) and places like Vladivostok (the place more eastern than whole Mongolia, btw, it it's EU - Mongolia and China (at least northern China for sure) are EU) is still EU VRS because it's Russia, so when they receive invites it's for EU tournaments since they are not in asian VRS, they just can't be invited to asian ones except fighting their way through open qualifiers. And then Kazakhstan is also EU for some unexplainable reason. It's the same how Akimbo is in Asia VRS, despite being a group of mongolian students in the US and playing there. They can't be invited to NA tournaments, they can only play open qualifiers. The difference is Hotu having at least some backing to play when they are invited to EU tournaments, while Akimbo just can't play across the Pacific ocean in asian tournaments and qualifiers even if they are to be invited.

2025-07-15 13:55

14 replies

Did Valve also force them to play open qualifier online EU tournaments that no other Asian team was able to participate in as well? liquipedia.net/counterstrike/FASTCUP/CSG.. liquipedia.net/counterstrike/Fragster/Ch..

2025-07-15 19:01

13 replies

Answered you in different comment branch. Yes, they had bootcamp in EU part of Russia in like August-October of 2024. Since when it's illegal to bootcamp in other regions? Pretty sure Mongolz had those as well, same for Tyloo or Rare Atom. I'm pretty sure for one of the chinese teams (edit: ended up with the whole big 3) I can find them playing EU CCT from before VRS kicked in (edit: not CCT, but EU online tournament with RA in it hltv.org/events/8146/hellcase-cup-11 , and here's CCT, there's at least 2 more seasons of it beside that one, btw hltv.org/events/7816/cct-season-2-europe.. , here's Tyloo at CCT North Europe in 2022 hltv.org/events/6826/cct-north-europe-se.. , here's Lynn Vision at CCT as well hltv.org/events/8074/cct-season-2-europe.. ) are they now supposed to be counted as EU too? They played a whole bunch of different asian qualifiers their whole existence, most of those are not on HLTV because you know how HLTV covers Asia, especially in 2024 and earlier (basically doesn't, outside of Australia and some playoffs).

2025-07-16 18:53

12 replies

Oh, and then there's Mongolz that played online stage of Thunderpick in EU, the tournament that skyrocketed them in top 5 in VRS because of prize money.

2025-07-16 19:25

So why have regional open qualifiers if you can just bootcamp there lol. Just have the entire world bootcamp in novosibirsk oblast and play open qualifier from there lol no need regions. I'm talking open qualifiers u tard all the tournaments I linked were open qualifiers of course TOs can pick and choose which teams they want to invite Also thunderpick isn't an EU tournament because theres brazilians and Americans in that tournament and it also literally says it in the name World Championship

2025-07-18 17:39

It's the other way around for HOTU. They bootcamped in EU part of Russia for some time, but their "base", if you will, is in Siberia. Way eastern of Novosibirsk oblast', btw (I would know, I am in Novosibirsk oblast'). I get that you want Asia qualifiers to be for the teams that will fall into Asian VRS, and I get why. But the reality is that it's Valve that's messed up here, not HOTU. Even if the team will be based in Vladivostok, in VRS it will be in EU VRS. Are we really gonna "Just move 9k kilometers (distance between Moscow and Vladivostok by road, 6.4k if by direct flight) to the west if you wanna play tournaments, bro"? Because that what will happen if we close asian open qualifiers for them. I think something like #43 could work, but that would require Valve to work manually, so I'm not sure it will happen any time soon if ever.

2025-07-18 19:01

idk why you're talking as if traveling to EU is a problem for them when I've already shown you the two EU open qualifier that they've attended and they just bootcamped in Hongkong and flew back to Moscow for an EU tournament. Its not a problem for them and it was never a problem.

2025-07-19 14:48

8 replies

It is a problem for prolonged periods. Hotu is not a big org. The big bootcamp in autumn of 2024, the tournaments from which you have linked, was a big commitment for them for players to practice with EU teams (because let's face it, Asia does not have a lot of good practice, especially when you don't want to give away stuff to the opponents you will face). Like, there's a difference between a short couple of weeks bootcamp and outright move your whole team and some of the staff thousands of kilometers full time. As for current tournament they travel to Moscow for, I assume you mean Whale Cup. Of course, they have no choice, they are invited by VRS, because EU tournaments is the only ones they can get invited to, because they are in EU VRS because of Valve's decision to make all of Russia in EU VRS. That's the position they are in, they are in based in Asia, but can't be invited to asian tournaments, instead they can be invited for EU tournaments, but if they don't travel for it, even if it's online, they will be forced to play it with 120 ping. Again, this is an easy problem to solve: move them from EU VRS to Asia VRS, they will be invited to asian closed qualifiers (I assume at this point they have enough points) and won't be taking spots from open qualifiers then. And they won't be forced to travel to EU to the only tournaments they can be invited to (unless they hit top of global VRS, and let's face it, that's not gonna happen)

2025-07-19 15:13

lol what? Vladivostok ping to Singapore is 120 as well, thats why they bootcamp in hongkong. They play EU faceit all day and they go open qualifier in EU tournaments and they have zero problems. Also why are you saying as if bootcamp to hongkong is like a daily walk for them? thats like thousands of kilometers as well. And if they dont like traveling why didn't they just go through the EU open qualifer? They were gonna play in Whale Cup anyway so they were inevitably going to EU, why did they intentionally bootcamp in Hongkong and then fly to Moscow when they could just travel to Moscow one time and then go back once the tournaments were over?

2025-07-19 16:15

Once again, they are not from Vladivostok, that's just an extreme example of how stupid the current Valve ruling is, they are based in Yakutsk. As for Hong Kong, answer me this: how long was this bootcamp? Do you know the meaning of the word "prolonged" that I used several times at this point? Like, it's one thing to play a tournament for a week or two and fuck off from a hotel, or whereever you were staying, probably some apartment to bring in/rent a gaming setup, and staying there for 5 months paying rent and living expenses even when you don't play anything and just sit there and practice. Again, I see what you wanna do: ban teams from other VRS region from playing open qualifiers for another region. And that makes sense, I agree with that, but only when cases such as Hotu and Akimbo (now completely american mix since like yesterday, but you know which version of that team I am talking about) are figured out that the regions where they are based in and playing and VRS region are the same. As for Singapore, I thought the standard practice for online tournaments and qualifiers was pick/ban of servers as well to find some middle ground? Like, you ban your worst and their best ping server locations and play somewhere you are both more or less comfortable. Is it not the case for asian qualifiers? The 120 ping is minimum they gonna have on any european server, not matter that pick/ban, just no option where it's better for them. I can also tell you a bit about how internet backbone cables in Russia are constructed, basically Yakutia and to the east of Russia is connected to asian underwater cables, while up to like Krasnoyarsk (from major cities) are connected to european cables (don't really remember where Irkutsk goes, would be better to use that, but I don't wanna misinform). So their connection goes through Korea or Japan to european servers. Less than ideal to say the least. 120 is actually pretty optimistic estimate on my part here.

2025-07-19 16:58

I did not say that they should buy apartment and live there for 5 months. Just bootcamp in moscow like they do in hong kong. What I want to do is put a team that plays EU tournaments and EU faceit on the EU open qualifier. No there are no Asian tournaments which makes HOTU stealing the slot worse because actual asian teams have to wait 3 more months for the next Asian qualifier while HOTU has already played 5 tier 2 EU tournaments The only asian server faceit has is singapore I dont care about russian internet cables.

2025-07-19 17:41

The point is they are geographycally from Asia, their internet goes through Asia, Valve are the ones who are saying they are EU and per rules are invited to that region. Just because you don't like that players with this flag are all in EU VRS and get invites to tournaments there per Valve rules does not change the fact they are from Asia. The same way how Akimbo could have used some NA invites to closed qualifiers or something, but they just can't. This is an unfortunate edge cases of trying to make everything automatic. So far they addressed MENA and South Africa, you already won't have another Drillas or some EU ex-third rate pros that moved to Dubai playing in Asia with some israelis, maybe they will address this next. As for tournaments, well, it's not like you guys don't have TOs to make asian tournaments. It's just that they are mostly lazy bums who don't do shit unless publisher pays for everything and they reap the benefits. And the ones that try to do something in CS on their own make something like once a year at max, because there's just not enough players, people in the region are more interested in playing MLBB and publishers of that are ready to off TOs, or whatever is popular mobile moba now, I don't follow that at all.

2025-07-19 18:09

I have already shown you the two EU open qualifier tournaments that they participated, in case you forget again, open qualifier do not need VRS to participate and Valve did not force them to join these tournaments. They play on EU they are EU, simple as that. Geography doesn't matter, Australia is in the Asian region despite being its own continent.

2025-07-19 18:20

OK, and I have shown you chinese teams playing in EU tournaments when they were bootcamping there. Those tournaments specifically even have subregions in the names. Yet for some reason they were invited there as some kind of guest of honor or whatever as the reasoning. Nothing stops asian teams from going to EU for bootcamp and playing open qualifiers there. Hell, last season they could have tried their luck at Fragadelphia or Lund, those were open LAN tournaments, a lot of VRS points on the line, look at NiP, TNL and old Bluejays roster. The fact that they don't do it either shows they don't want to or are simply afraid of EU and NA teams (for Fragadelphia specifically) even of that level or that they are broke, at which point if they have orgs I would question why that org even exists, to pay them minimal wage in hopes better org picks them up? Or third option, Atox option to be specific. Because otherwise lower tier asian teams that don't get invited are just playing like 2 PGL qualifiers per season, ECL and asian MRQ.

2025-07-19 18:42

Bro thats different, its asia qualifier not open region qualifier, thats why hotu player change country to hongkong

2025-07-22 14:35

vladivlostok is next to north korea & also further east than mongolia, what's the problem here?

They are from Kazakhstan (definitely Asia) and Yakutia, which is a bit more to the west than Vladivostok, but mostly right above Mongolia on the map and definitely to the east of Ural mountains, which is a border between Europe and Asia, unless they teach them something different in Mongolia about that. Unless his definition of Asia includes Mongolia as being the most northern point of it and cuts off Kazakhstan, Middle East, Caucasus and so on - his argument is kinda bullshit.

2025-07-15 14:03