Let’s learn more about the ESL Pro League Season 18 and everything you need to know about this tournament.
The ESL Pro League Season 18 is an event that will attract almost all of the big CSGO teams. The tournament will take palace between August 30 and October 1, which means we have plenty of time to watch the best in the world. Interestingly, the will be another CSGO event during that time called the Hussar Cup 2023, but it will have a lot fewer teams than this one.
Like all ESL Pro Leagues before that, Season 18 will be really important for a lot of reasons. Besides competing for a large amount of money, CSGO’s leading teams will also fight for 2 slots. The winner of this event will receive a slot for the BLAST World Final 2023 and IEM Katowice 2024, two of the hottest upcoming events. If everything goes okay, the latter will take place on Counter-Strike 2, so we can’t wait to see what’s going to happen.
There is still time until Counter-Strike 2 becomes available, so let’s learn more about the ESL Pro League Season 18.
Overview and Format
In this ESL Pro League Season 18 overview, we’ll start by saying that there will be a total of 32 teams fighting for the big prize. The event itself will take place in Malta and will have a specific format. In terms of the reward, the total prize pool is $850,000, and the winner will take home $200K. Furthermore, the team that wins his competition will get 3000 Blast Premier points, as well as a slot for IEM Katowice 2023 and BLAST World Final 2023.
In terms of the format of ESL Pro League Season 19, there will be a Group Stage and Playoffs. There will be 4 triple-elimination groups where we’ll have 8 teams in each one. The squads will play in a best-of-three format so they can determine which 4 will advance to the next stage.
The squad that wins the group will go to the Quarterfinals, the runner-ups go goes to the Round of 12, the 3rd team goes to the Round of 16 in the High Seeds, and the 4th squad goes to the Round of 16 of the Low Seeds.
When it’s time to watch the Playoffs, we’ll have access to a single-elimination bracket with Bo3 matches. Of course, the Big Final will be a best-of-three, so we can expect to have an amazing series.
Participants
We’re yet to learn more about the event’s broadcast talent, so it’s time to focus on the participants. Considering there are 32 CSGO teams to choose from, it’s no surprise that some of them are in a better position to win than others. There are a few interesting options to choose from.
Speaking of teams, 15 of them are the so-called “permanent partners”, meaning they’re present all the time. However, this is not true for the rest because they had to compete in different tournaments to earn their spot here. Some of them have done that by winning smaller competitions, whereas others played in qualifiers. With that said, here is a list of all 32 teams at the ESL Pro League Season 18, starting with the Permanent Partners:
- Astralis
- BIG
- ENCE
- Complexity Gaming
- Evil Geniuses
- Fnatic
- FURIA Esports
- G2 Esports
- FaZe Clan
- Heroic
- Natus Vincere
- Ninjas in Pyjamas
- Team Vitality
- MOUZ
- Team Liquid
These are the teams that made it into the ESL Pro League Season 18 in CSGO:
- 9INE
- GamerLegion
- Could9
- Virtus.Pro
- Movistar Riders
- Monte
- MiBR
- Lynn Vision Gaming
- M80
- Apeks
- Grayhound Gaming
- ORKS
- Eternal Fire
- Imperial Esports
- 5yclone
- Rooster
- 9z Team
There is no question that we have a lot of interesting names that CSGO fans will keep an eye on during ESL Pro League Season 18. However, some teams are in a much better sport than others, so let’s go through some potential favorites.
Team Vitality
Judging by all teams’ previous results, there is no arguing that Team Vitality is the big favorite to win the ESL Pro League Season 18. ZyWoo and the rest are on a hot streak right now after the team ripped through its opponents during Gamers8 2023 in Riyadh a few days ago. After the impressive results against MiBR, Na’Vi, G2 Esports, and ENCE, the team lifted the trophy and won a lot of money. Moreover, ZyWoo became the tournament’s MVP.
Even though this event had half of the participants as here, it was extremely competitive, so the fact that Team Vitality won means the team is in good form and will try to repeat its success.
ENCE
Despite not winning Gamers8 a few days ago, ENCE surprised its CSGO fans with impressive results. The international team defeated a lot of the big names in the tournament and made it into the final. What’s even more amazing is that ENCE defeated Vitality on Anubis and even secured themselves the lead in the tournament. However, this was not enough for the team because it lost the other two maps.
Nevertheless, ENCE dealt with the likes of Heroic, which is a clear sign that the team can be strong when needed. We’re yet to see if it will be able to repeat its impressive results and win ESL Pro League Season 18.
Heroic
While talking about Heroic, we also need to put the squad on the list of potential favorites to win this tournament. While it’s true that the team failed to reach the final of Gamers8, it achieved pretty good results in 2023 so far. The team won the Blast Premier: Spring Final 2023 and Fall Groups 2023 and reached the finals of IEM Rio and IEM Katowice, which means it knows how to play against the big names. With that said, we’re yet to see what will happen at ESL Pro League Season 18 because the team has a lot of big names it needs to compete with.
