Another ESL Pro League has passed by as the twentieth iteration of the tournament that has long since departed from its “league” format concluded recently. With a whopping 32 teams competing in the convoluted triple elimination format, one thing is certain and that is by the time the B05 grand final concludes, whether it’s the copium-riddled Redditors or cynically jaded writers like myself, there is always going to be plenty to talk about. If you’re someone who knows me, you know I don’t need a reason to moan about things but ESL Pro League always seems to leave me feeling some type of way every time it comes around and it’s about time I got some stuff off my chest.
The format is terrible
I don’t think anything winds me up more in competitive CS than a terrible format. Whether it is BLAST Groups, EPL, or the EU RMR qualifiers (because North America fucked up the slot distribution), “Last Chance” stages that give teams a million ways to stay alive are always going to be stupid in my opinion. Look at Astralis who were sent to the lower bracket by Fnatic and former captain Benjamin “blameF” Bremer who they booted only recently. Facing off against Complexity in what should be an intense match-up for elimination, all jeopardy went out the window as I was watching and copped that they had a THIRD chance at survival against bloody Rooster of all teams in the thrillingly titled “8th place decider”.
I would love to see EPL depart from its current format and become an actual league again giving us a much needed change from the triple elimination system. I understand the logic behind wanting to keep it at 32 teams, but honestly, I think it would be far better to reduce the team list to 24 or even 16 from a viewership perspective. I know, I know. The last time ESL took spots away in Pro League it debilitated and crippled the already struggling NA scene and I get that, but with the circuit opening up again and the likes of PGL and StarLadder coming back, there are going to be plenty of well-funded tournaments for less established organizations to compete at.
That way we all don’t have to waste our time watching two low-ranked teams fight it out for the honor of getting eliminated in the very next round by a proper contender who has found themselves in the lower bracket after an early slip-up. Look at poor old Sangal. Beating FaZe and Heroic in one of your first appearances at a tier-one event and what’s your reward? Meeting the same FaZe that you sent to the lower bracket on day one and being eliminated before even seeing the stage. Another example of the imbalance came from Complexity as the Americans had the nightmarish run of having to beat Astralis and MOUZ twice, as well as FaZe before being dumped out of the tournament by Liquid before even reaching the quarter-final phase.
I completely get it. I love having teams that don’t tend to get a chance to play in “tier-one” events compete against the best of the best. I love an underdog story as much as the next guy but it feels like Rooster’s sole purpose at EPL is to come in last place every season and I put a lot of that down to the format. I don’t know. Maybe there is something that can be done with ESL Challenger League. Incorporate the ECL as if it is something similar to the Europa League where teams can be demoted between leagues therefore exposing teams to different levels of competition and allowing for more flow between divisions. Partner leagues are a thing of the past, Valve has seen to that. Can we please start seeing the same level of innovation you have had with your desk and shoulder content pieces in your format and presentation of the competition?
Rooster have become the annual sacrifice at EPL – Photo Courtesy of ESL/Adela Sznadjer
When it comes to how you want to present a new league format, I believe a balance needs to be struck between the length of time that you want to spend on a tournament and how many games teams are willing to play in a set period of time. If you have three weeks for a tournament with twenty teams, I think there is a way to fit in two or three days where teams play two BO3s. This would also leave enough time for a standard quarterfinal bracket of eight teams, rather than the sixteen-team shitshow we got. Further inspiration from football could be the adopting of the new Champions League format albeit the jury is still out on that one.
My suggestion is far from fleshed out and perfect. Still, I think that the slimming down and streamlining of EPL would lead to a far better product from top to bottom for both the viewer and the optics of the tournament considering the fact it is a flagship tournament for ESL and a major part of the Intel Grand Slam race.
We have Epic Lan at home
EPL used to be one of the most exciting tournaments on the calendar. Cloud9 conquering hometown heroes SK in Season 4 in front of a hostile Sao Paulo crowd, Astralis being heralded as the “best of all fucking time” in Odense after claiming Season 8 as well as their Intel Grand Slam to thundering applause. Eternal Fire vs NAVI in the grand final could have gone down as one of the best B05 Grand Finals that Counter-Strike has ever produced but instead, it has been overshadowed by crowd cheating accusations as it was held in front of a crowd comparable to GamerFest Dublin (with fewer cosplayers walking around in the background).
Look I get it. ESL has a contract with Gaming Malta but my god a tournament with a prize pool of $750,000 being competed for in front of a crowd comparable to Dreamhack 2013 in the year of our lord and saviour 2024 is borderline criminal. I don’t know what is worse, the ESL Pro League Malta set up where it is a small venue with a small crowd claiming to be a big tournament, or BLAST World Finals that booked a venue in Abu Dhabi which is borderline inaccessible from a financial perspective and couldn’t even fill out close to a tenth of the arena.
I’m not suggesting that we recycle the typical European destinations such as Denmark, Sweden, and Germany by any means. Countries such as Australia, China, and Brazil have all produced crowds that meet the occasion and presentation expected from a tier-one event. As the kids say, ESL Pro League has lost all the “aura” that it had from years gone by and I don’t think it will be recaptured until these things change.
FaZe won their Intel Grand Slam in front of a Local LAN-esque level crowd – Courtesy of ESL/Helena Kristiansson
Personally, I would not be opposed to seeing EPL hitting the road and traveling to different cities much in the same way that BLAST has done in the past with its Spring Final series. This could present opportunities to tap into markets of raw passionate CS fans who don’t get the chance to see their favorite players play in person for a change. CS is a global game, I am sure the prestige of EPL can fill up an arena in the likes of Italy or Spain and EPL deserves just that. An Arena.
This piece actually started out as a “5 takeaways from Pro League” piece, but the more I started to think about the tournament itself the more frustrated I became. Back when I was in my first year of university in Dublin, I was sat in a medieval history lecture and I remember pricing tickets to Denmark and tickets for Pro League which would have been my first LAN ever had I not been a broke student who definitely couldn’t afford to go. As a fan, EPL was one of my favorite events, which is why I feel so strongly about the need for its restructuring. I hope I’m not the only one who feels this way, and I hope someone with some power at ESL holds the same sentiments that I do.
