Our biggest news in April is that Cologne is now operating under the Intel Extreme Masters brand. On top of that, EPL S13 & ESEA Premier S36 have completed and we are halfway through DreamHack Masters Spring where the majority of teams will solidify their participation for IEM Cologne.
Continuing reading to discover the latest from within the ESL Pro Tour for CS:GO.
Team | Rank (New) | Move | Rank (Old) |
|---|---|---|---|
Gambit Esports | 1 | ±0 | 1 |
Heroic | 2 | +13 | 15 |
Natus Vincere | 3 | +1 | 4 |
Virtus.pro | 4 | +1 | 5 |
Astralis | 5 | -3 | 2 |
FURIA Esports | 6 | +3 | 9 |
Ninjas in Pyjamas | 7 | +15 | 22 |
Team Liquid | 8 | -2 | 6 |
G2 ESports | 9 | +1 | 10 |
Team Spirit | 10 | -3 | 7 |
Complexity | 11 | +8 | 19 |
BIG | 12 | -4 | 8 |
Team Vitality | 13 | -10 | 3 |
FaZe Clan | 14 | -3 | 11 |
Bad News Bears | 15 | -1 | 14 |
Evil Geniuses | 16 | ±0 | 16 |
All data above from May 3rd, 2021
On April 28th, we announced that Cologne will now become an IEM competition. This change was initiated following the news that ESL & Intel extended their 20year-long commitment to building esports.
Also important is that we’ve taken the opportunity to simplify our ESL Pro Tour story by consolidating all EPT Masters & Championship tournaments under one brand. Moving forward, there will be Intel Extreme Masters and ESL Pro League.
Another commitment we’ve made in April is to prioritize our planning in hope to bring back LAN for our EPT Championship; IEM Cologne. If things go well, this will be the first CS:GO LAN since early 2020.
EPT Standings | ESL World Rankings | EPT Connections | |
|---|---|---|---|
Group Stage | 8 | 0 | 0 |
Play-In | 8 | 6 | 2 |
Total Invitations | 16 | 6 | 2 |
To understand where teams are within the EPT standings visit here.
With DHM Spring in progress and near completion, we are very close to confirming all teams who will be receiving invitations to compete for the $1,000,000 prize pool.
This past week the DHM Spring group stage unfolded, going from a total of 16 teams down to just 6 remaining for the playoffs.
In Group A the IEM Katowice champions Gambit Esports claimed top spot and advanced to the semi-finals after pulling out victorious in the CIS-derby with a 2-1 win over NAVI. Second place in the group put NAVI through to the quarter-finals, while G2 Esports followed in third to also advance to the quarter-finals.
For Group B it was Heroic coming out on top, not dropping a single map and beating Astralis 2-0 in a Danish-derby to reach the semi-final. Advancing to the quarter-finals together with Astralis was FURIA Esports, following a win over Vitality.
This sets the bracket for the playoffs this coming weekend:
Friday May 7th
16:45 CEST - Astralis vs. G2 Esports
20:00 CEST - NAVI vs. FURIA
Saturday May 8th
16:45 CEST - Semi Final 1 - Gambit vs. Astralis/G2 Esports
20:00 CEST - Semi Final 2 - Heroic vs. NAVI/FURIA
Sunday May 9th
16:00 CEST - Grand Final
With the results of the group stage in mind, the Road to Cologne standings is near completion and teams have been locked in for the IEM Cologne Main Event and Play-In slots, based on the points standings.
Group Stages | Play-in |
|---|---|
Gambit Esports
| G2 Esports / Team Spirit
|
Heroic
| Complexity |
Virtus.pro | Ninjas in Pyjamas |
Astralis | Evil Geniuses |
Natus Vincere | Team One |
FURIA | Vici Gaming |
Team Liquid | MIBR |
G2 Esports / Team Spirit
| Renegades |
The only matter left to lock things fully into place is going to be pending the result of the G2 Esports vs Astralis match:
The Play-In at IEM Cologne will furthermore see a total of 6 teams invited based on the ESL World Rankings, which will happen at the cutoff May 31st. Additionally 1 team will make it through the ESL Meisterschaft, as well as 1 team from the ESL NC Global Playoffs.
Team | Invite/Qualification |
|---|---|
Team Vitality
| ESL Partner Team Invitation
|
Complexity
| ESL Partner Team Invitation
|
Evil Geniuses | ESL Partner Team Invitation
|
Ninjas in Pyjamas
| ESL Partner Team Invitation
|
fnatic
| ESL Partner Team Invitation
|
Astralis | ESL Partner Team Invitation |
Gambit Esports | ESL World Ranking |
Team Spirit | ESL World Ranking |
Virtus.pro | ESL World Ranking |
Heroic | ESL World Ranking |
Extra Salt | DH Open 44 NA
|
Imperial e-Sports
| DH Open 44 SA
|
EU Qualifier | European Qualifier |
EU Qualifier | European Qualifier |
EU Qualifier | European Qualifier |
TBD May 30th | EPT Connection - NC GP |
As announced here, this tournament will not contribute EPT points to the upcoming EPT Championship; IEM Cologne. This decision was taken to prevent a ranking shuffle 2 weeks ahead of the Championship in order to significantly increase the likelihood of our return to LAN. This tournament will contribute fully to IEM Katowice 2022 and also IEM Cologne 2022.
We are currently in the final stages of preparation (promotional assets, understanding the specific tournament narrative, making sure all teams have support needed to compete remotely).
The tournament dates for both:
*The known date clash between IEM Fall and the CS:GO Major will be resolved soon.
DreamHack Open competitions are currently on break and will resume late June.
Tournament | Dates | Regions |
|---|---|---|
DreamHack Open 45 | Jun 30 - Jul 4
| NA & AS |
DreamHack Open 46
| Sep 8 - 12 | NA & SA
|
DreamHack Open 47
| Oct 13 - 17
| EU & OCE |
DreamHack Open 48
| Nov 12 - 14 | Global Tournament |
DreamHack Open 49
| Nov 26 - 27 | Global Tournament |
First off, congratulations to Ex-Winstrike, Bad News Bears, and ORDER on winning ESEA Premier Season 36 in Europe, North America, and Australia/New Zealand respectively. Ex-Winstrike and Bad News Bears will be joining the likes of legends in ESL Pro League Season 14 and if ORDER can take home Season 37, they will be joining the action as well! If not, they have to play a decisive match against the S37 ANZ winner to achieve advancement to EPL.
Season 36 marked the first season since it’s addition to the ESL Pro Tour and also introduced a number of changes. Through player feedback, the best three changes to the division have been:
1: Guaranteed ESL Pro League position.
2: 4 Seasons a year guaranteeing more prize money and a faster track to the top.
3: Adjusted format from best of ones to best of threes.
However with change, there are growing pains as well. Many things could have been done better and we are working to address the issues and improve going forward!
One of those changes is that moving forward we will be adding two additional international streams for Tuesday and Wednesday matches on our global twitch channels ESL_CSGO and ESL_CSGOB with regular ESL voices! These streams will operate in parallel with our well known and passionate ESEA streamers.
It is already time to play Season 37 and find out the final EPL S14 teams. Starting May 4th, this week kicks off the first set of matches! You can check out all of the schedules and broadcast information on the ESEA Premier website.
The first set of National Championships for 2021 are almost completed with the first regional Champions being crowned.
As mentioned there are so many competitions left to complete inside the next few weeks ahead of the National Championship Global Playoff.
In previous updates, we shared our vision for this tournament which contains two important ESL Pro Tour connections; IEM Cologne 2021 Play-in and IEM Summer Group Stages.
Due to the ongoing pandemic we made the decision together with our regional ESL teams to limit the first tournament to only European teams. We are committed to bringing Australian, Brazilian and Vietnamese Champions to the next edition of this product, planned to take place in November 2021.
The inaugural NC: Global Playoff
Taking place from Thursday 27th May, through to the bo5 Grand Final on Sunday 30th May. We believe in National Competitions and their place within our ESL Pro Tour CS:GO ecosystem, all matches will be covered by our well known international ESL talents on twitch.tv/esl_csgo
(exclusive)
