Firstly, here is the February ESL World Ranking (all teams, all competitions) & EPT Standings update (performance strictly inside the EPT & CS:GO Majors).
ESL World Ranking
Team | Rank (New) | Move | Rank (Old) |
|---|---|---|---|
Astralis | 1 | ±0 | 1 |
Gambit Esports | 2 | +9 | 11 |
Team Vitality | 3 | -1 | 2 |
Natus Vincere | 4 | -1 | 3 |
Virtus.pro | 5 | +4 | 9 |
Team Liquid | 6 | +2 | 8 |
BIG | 7 | -3 | 4 |
Team Spirit | 8 | +10 | 18 |
G2 Esports | 9 | -2 | 7 |
FURIA Esports
| 10 | -4 | 6 |
FaZe Clan | 11 | +5 | 16 |
mousesports | 12 | -2 | 10 |
Heroic | 13 | -8 | 5 |
Complexity | 14 | -2 | 12 |
OG | 15 | -2 | 13 |
Evil Geniuses | 16 | +2 | 18 |
ESL Pro Tour Standing
Team | Rank (New) | Move | Rank (Old) |
|---|---|---|---|
Gambit Esports | 1 | +22 | 23 |
Virtus.pro | 2 | +15 | 17 |
Astralis | 3 | -2 | 1 |
Team Spirit | 4 | +5 | 9 |
Natus Vincere | 5 | ±0 | 5 |
Team Liquid | 6 | +20 | 26 |
FURIA Esports | 7 | -3 | 4 |
G2 Esports | 8 | +13 | 21 |
Team Vitality | 9 | -7 | 2 |
FaZe Clan | 10 | +3 | 13 |
Heroic | 11 | -8 | 3 |
Evil Geniuses | 12 | -1 | 11 |
BIG | 13 | -7 | 6 |
mousesports | 14 | ±0 | 14 |
Complexity | 15 | -7 | 8 |
Renegades | 16 | -9 | 7 |
All data above from March 1st, 2021
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- IEM Katowice 2021 completion
- DHO43, Snow Sweet Snot & Redragon Summer Finals completion
- ESEA Cash Cups added.
Intel Extreme Masters: Katowice
The rise of the CIS region.
Gambit Esports took the Championship title after battling through 5 different elimination matches and now shoot to #1 in the EPT Standing and #2 in our ESL World Ranking. This puts them in a prime position for invitations for our upcoming competitions as well solidifying themselves to compete at ESL One Cologne in the Summer.
A few areas we want to touch upon:
- Content content content. We focused a lot on content across two core pillars.
- Entertainment: Surf Maps & CS:GO Hub Challenges were a big focus for when matches were one sided and we had time to fill.
- Narratives: In 2021 we want to put more emphasis on the bigger picture, more on the stories of players and teams to give them the spotlight within our circuit.
- B/C streams
- We did not meet expectations. This was difficult to fix when live but changes are in place already for EPL & our other premium competitions.
- Despite the above, we are super happy with the casters we worked with. EternalJay, Dweg, DarfMike and Dean took on a huge task in casting teams throughout the tournament, their commitment to the game and the product narrative throughout was second to none.
- New tournament schedule & format
- This was the first time we’ve run the ‘Play-in Stage’ which we feel really elevated our product. It felt grand and reminiscent of the Minors ahead of the CS:GO Majors.
- This was also the first time we split our ‘Group Stages’ away from the ‘Playoffs’. We understand there is a learning curve with this change of viewing habit but are excited for how this can improve our product. We are currently going through an evaluation to understand how to refine this more and will touch more upon this at a later time.
- ESL Pro Tour Manager Manager Update
- Prior to IEM Katowice starting, our Tournament Manager team released an update to how in the online world we are looking to improve our abilities to ensure competitive integrity as well as provide an update to our rules. The full article can be found here, and includes the following;
- Competitive integrity
- Rules
- Valve Coach Ruling
- Prior to IEM Katowice starting, our Tournament Manager team released an update to how in the online world we are looking to improve our abilities to ensure competitive integrity as well as provide an update to our rules. The full article can be found here, and includes the following;
ESL Pro League: Season 13
The biggest CS:GO League returns March 8.
24 teams from around the world are in Europe and will be going head to head in a 4x Round Robin Groups of 6.
- We’ve spent the month of Feb evaluating if and how we can execute the Playoffs on LAN. The COVID-19 trend in Europe is challenging and we’ll make a separate post to talk about this soon.
- With IEM Katowice complete, our team has fully adjusted their focus to publish all remaining tournament specifics.
- We’ve been applying fixes and learnings from IEM Katowice into EPL (HUD improvements, B/C stream quality improvements etc.)
All tournament details are HERE.
DreamHack Masters Spring
ESL One Cologne
No updates. We are still evaluating the possibilities for how to run this tournament, we’ll revisit next month.
IEM Summer, Fall & Winter
We are currently working on creating websites to host all relevant tournament information. With these competitions taking place starting from the 2nd half of the year, this hasn’t been prioritized yet.
Additionally, the IEM Fall clash with the CS:GO Major is being worked on. We’ll likely have this resolved in March.
DreamHack Open
Publicly, the month of February has been a quiet one however we’re in full swing behind the scenes preparing the next edition of DreamHack Open taking place Mar 10 - 14. It’ll feature some of the best teams in North and South America.
- NA: You will be seeing Team Liquid, paiN Gaming, and Triumph amongst others.
Full team list can be found here. - SA: 9z, Havan Liberty, Imperial Esports, and Sharks Esports are fighting for the crown.
- NA: You will be seeing Team Liquid, paiN Gaming, and Triumph amongst others.
DHO43 EU winners Team Spirit surpassed expectations at IEM Katowice 2021 and we hope that DHO44 competitors will do similar in future competitions! Winners of DHO44 will be invited to compete at IEM Summer taking place across June 3-13.
ESEA Premier
What a month, we are in the middle of our first season and are already making refinements to the product. We began the year with wanting to have ESEA Premier broadcast every Tuesday on twitch.tv/esl_csgo and after community feedback we’ve decided to add a second broadcast day each Wednesday on twitch.tv/esl_csgob.
We are also continuing to work on the ESEA Premier website HERE. It’s not where it needs to be but we are working to improve and implement new features. Few key touch points on features:
- Easier to navigate platform
- Direct connection to the ESEA platform
- Enhanced schedule overview
- Match recaps, highlights & more etc.
Our final point is that we are working on creating a platform to improve our team relations at this level to allow teams and players an easier voice into ESL.
National Championships
We are pretty hyped for the first season of the year. We are focusing on aligning our tournament calendar to avoid as much overlap between products as possible. We’ve focused on having Monday as the official “National Championship Match Day” which compliments our ESEA Premier Tues/Weds approach leaving the extended weekend for our other products.
- Our entire NC competition portfolio can be found HERE under the ‘The official CS:GO 2021 Calendar’ and under ‘EPT Challenger’.
We are currently in the middle of defining our recently announced National Championship Global Play Off (details in our January update here if you missed it). We are working on the final format, deadlines for participation with the final product look & feel together to make this truly feel global.
Be ready for more details and information next month.
As mentioned in January, we’ll remain committed to publish these updates to provide more insight into the work being done behind the scenes. If you have any feedback or questions, always feel free to reach out to us on social media under @eslcs.
