Preview to watching Rooster, 5yclone and ORKS play three B03s each in a “Tier-1” tournament.
After the major, IEM Cologne, we have finally gotten to the pinnacle of the CS:GO calendar: ESL Pro League Season 18 (sigh). A chance to gain a notch at the Grand Slam in front of 17 people and the production crew on a day with high turnout, a format with so many memorable matches they’re difficult to remember after it’s all over, and most importantly, we may see Heroic and 9INE unlock their full potential in this high-pressure setting (definitely not because they get better when there’s less of a crowd). All in the epic battleground of Malta, the bed & breakfast resort, I mean, cultural hub of Counter-Strike where thousands are hoping to play one day.
I remember when EPL was an actual event. One of the best in the calendar if you go back a few years. It was the location of the first ever Intel Grand Slam ever awarded to a team in the Season 8 finals. It took place in Odense, and it was one of the events that solidified the Astralis team as the best ever. It’s impossible to forget the reaction of the crowd and gla1ve, who had to come back in that final, achieving the greatest calendar year for any team in CS:GO history. The atmosphere felt electric just watching on the screen. If you’ve not seen it, watch the VOD.
If you go further back, it had many incredible matches and finals to watch. One of them was the grand final of the Season 3 finals, that G2 played against the Brazilian Luminosity team before they hit their stride. There was a huge crowd and the game felt like it had stakes. It went five maps and shox won an amazing one versus four in a retake to keep his team alive in overtime on the fifth map, as the casters and crowd went absolutely crazy. Sounds like a long time ago when I think about this ESL Pro League format, which is becoming a budget version of CS Summit and is also somehow supposed to be a prestige tournament (they’re calling it “Camp Counter-Strike“. That name is more camp than the tournament.)
If ESL has already effectively sold out for the bag, it’s unfortunate that this is the best we get after Cologne and Katowice. This tournament seems like it has no stakes, and it’s one of the reasons Faze Clan’s Grand Slam felt like the most moot out of all of them. To add to that, it’s got one of the most forgiving formats for a single tournament I have ever seen in my 6 years watching Counter-Strike tournaments and 10 years following esports. It’s on par with inviting Virtus.Pro to every EPL final even when they didn’t qualify. Every team has 3 lives, in a tournament with 32 teams, many of which are unproven. Unsurprisingly, this makes for a grueling viewing experience to follow the storylines, when Heroic has to play Rooster for the second or third time in a group stage. As usual, the commentators and analysts have to bear that load of bullshit and present it as if it’s great CS. This tournament is a prime example of too many matches ruining the storylines, instead of too many Bo1s.
ESL needs to commit to making this tournament feel like a Cologne or a Katowice, or at least a decent Tier 1 tournament. Give it a crowd, a less forgiving format, put it in a central European city. Then it would be a lot more appealing. Christ, even Gamers8 had its format issues and was much more exciting to try to predict and preview. The alternative is to go the CS Summit route, and create fun content around the teams that is generally more light-hearted and audacious than the other tournaments. That could help balance the more serious tournaments with this cool and chilled out one. Then, you’d take away the Intel Grand Slam notch it gives to win it as a compromise, because it’s impossible to swallow that this tournament gives the same points as Katowice/Cologne in winning a grand slam.
The product that is “ESL Pro League” is suffering from an identity crisis right now, and feels like a lot of nothing in the calendar right now. It’s not a tournament people are really hyped for or a tournament that is fun to watch casually. And that is especially damaging for a year with no upcoming major. Still, we can still enjoy the good matches this tournament leaves us, even though it may feel like finding a needle in a haystack on my side.