ESL Pro League Season 19; Teams and format

Season 19 for the ESL Pro League is set to kick off in a week and all participating teams are now fixed for their appearance. The hype for the tournament is very high after the Intel Extreme Masters in Chengdu. Several teams displayed some unexpected improvements and fans hope they manage to keep up and perform even better in the upcoming matches.

For season 19, we have a total of 32 teams who will be fighting for the $750,000 prize pool and a spot at IEMCologne over three weeks. One of the teams had to drop out due to roster changes and have been replaced by another. Here are all the participating teams -

Permanent Partner Teams

Astralis
BIG
Complexity Gaming
ENCE
FaZe Clan
Fnatic
FURIA Esports
G2 Esports
HEROIC
MOUZ
Natus Vincere
Ninjas in Pyjamas
Team Liquid
Team Vitality

ESL Challenger

Monte
Virtus.pro

ESL World Rankings

Team Falcons
GamerLegion
BetBoom Team
Eternal Fire
SAW (Replacement for Cloud9)

ECL

3DMAX
FORZE Esports
M80
BOSS
The MongolZ
TYLOO

Qualifiers

Sharks Esports
Imperial Esports
Pera Esports
FlyQuest
Bad News Kangaroos

Format

The Pro League will give every team plenty of chance to make it into playoffs as the group stages will start in a triple elimination brackets with the teams divided into four groups of eight. Each group will feature four teams moving on to the playoffs. Although, the better position a team finishes in group stages, the better spot they secure in the playoffs.

Top four teams from each group will qualify directly to the quarterfinals while the second place teams will start from the Round of 12 in as the High Seeds. Third and fourth spot teams from group stages will start from the beginning through Round of 16.

The playoffs will also feature every match as best of three except the grand finals, which will be best of Five. In case the winning team already have a spot in the IEM Cologne, the spot will be transferred to the second place.