Season 17 has an increased number of teams and a different format as well.
ESL Pro League Season 17 will see a small change in 2023. While previous editions of the premier CS: GO league saw 24 teams in attendance, Season 17 will have 32 teams competing in the month-long event. While the number of ESL-partnered teams remains the same, there are more non-member teams competing in EPL 17.
ESL has 15 Louvre agreement partnered teams and joining these 15 teams will be 17 non-partnered teams. ForZe became the last team to qualify for the tournament after securing their run through the lower bracket of the European Conference division.
Which teams will compete in the ESL Pro League Season 17 ?
Here are all ESL Pro League Season 17 teams:
ESL Pro League Season 17 partnered teams
ESL has 15 partnered teams who compete in the marquee ESL CS: GO events throughout the year.
- Astralis
- BIG
- Complexity
- ENCE
- Evil Geniuses
- FaZe Clan
- Fnatic
- FURIA
- G2
- Heroic
- MOUZ
- Natus Vincere
- Ninjas in Pyjamas
- Team Liquid
- Vitality
ESL World Ranking
These three teams received invited based on ESL’s world rankings.
- Cloud9
- Team Spirit
- OG
Challenger Teams
- Movistar Riders
- paiN Gaming
- Outsiders
ESL Conference events
ESL organized conference events across the various regions – North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania – to fill up the additional spots. Teams from these regions now have an opportunity to compete against the best CS: GO teams in the world at this $550,000 event.
- Eternal Fire (European Conference)
- SAW (European Conference)
- forZe (European Conference)
- ATK (North American Conference)
- MIBR (North American Conference)
- Imperial Esports (North American Conference)
- 00 Nation (South American Conference)
- Rare Atom (Asian Conference)
- IHC esports (Asian Conference)
- Grayhound Gaming (Oceanic Conference)
- Rooster (Oceanic Conference)
ESL Pro League Season 17 kicks off on February 22 and will continue for over a month. The tournament comes to an end on March 26 with a best-of-five Grand finals on the final day. The tournament will employ a triple-elimination format where a team needs to lose three matches in order to exit the tournament in the group stage. There are four groups of eight teams each. Interestingly, all group stage matches are best-of-three series with the playoffs (starting with the Ro16) being single-elimination matches.
Stay tuned to esports for the latest CS: GO news and updates.