Listing which new leagues are getting the top CSGO teams

Jan 28, 2020

Reading time: 3 min

When ESL relegated half of the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive teams from Pro League last week, teams that were ready to compete in the ESL Pro League are now faced with a tough decision.

When ESL announced the 24 invited teams for Pro League, they failed to notify those teams that weren’t included ahead of time. Those teams that ESL moved down to the Mountain Dew League have two options. The first is staying with ESL and play in MDL, while the second is to try their luck in B Site’s open qualifiers.

When ESL released its invite list for EPL Season 11 prior to telling 24 teams that they wouldn’t be participating, the community felt like the tournament organizer had made a serious error. That failure emboldened B Site, North America’s new circuit partially owned by teams like Cloud9 and Immortals Gaming Club. B Site then announced that they had added money to the B Site prize pool in an effort to lure in teams upset with ESL to participate in B Site.

Below is a list of all teams affected by the Pro League changes, as well as the teams invited to Season 11 of EPL, B Site, and this week’s BLAST Premier.

The teams listed under BLAST Premier can participate in more than one league, unlike teams confirmed to B Site or those who choose to accept EPL invitations. Since BLAST’s dates won’t overlap with B Site or EPL in March, BLAST has avoided this latest controversy.

Those under B Site or EPL, however, can only be in one of those two leagues. The tournament organizers have made sure of that through soft exclusivity in which teams aren’t explicitly prohibited from playing in the opposing league, but cannot due to the tournament dates.

CSGO teams relegated from EPL that could choose B site

The Asian regions were hit hardest by ESL’s decision, but all regions were affected. Known teams like Swole Patrol, BIG, and Vici Gaming all lost their ESL Pro League spots due to the changes.

ESL announced yesterday that there are ways for teams left behind by the Pro League changes to make their way back to EPL, but did not detail what those ways were.

BIG
Aristocracy
Windigo Gaming
Sprout
HellRaisers
eUnited
Swole Patrol
Team Envy
Team Singularity
Chiefs Esports
ORDER
Avant Gaming
Paradox Gaming
Ground Zero Gaming
Really Weird
Catman
Lucid Dream
ALPHA Red
B.O.O.T.-dream[S]cape
Big Time Regal Gaming
Vici Gaming
MVP PK
Invictus Gaming

ESL’s 24 invited teams for Pro League Season 11

ESL extended invitations to the teams listed below to attend Season 11 of ESL Pro League. As of now, none of these teams have confirmed they will participate in the league.

Astralis
Complexity
ENCE
Evil Geniuses
FaZe Clan
Fnatic
forZe
FURIA
G2 Esports
GODSENT
Heroic
INTZ
mousesports
Natus Vincere
Ninjas in Pyjamas
North
OG
Renegades
Sharks Esports
100 Thieves
Team Liquid
TYLOO
Team Vitality
Virtus.pro

B Site’s Confirmed teams for the 2020 season

B Site has either ten or twelve slots, depending on which reported number is correct. Either way, several teams have paid the league’s $2M buy-in and are marked as “confirmed” below. The rest of the slots will be filled through the league’s open qualifiers.

Cloud9, confirmed
MIBR, confirmed
Dignitas, confirmed
Gen.G, confirmed
MAD Lions, confirmed
c0ntact Gaming, confirmed

BLAST Premier debuts this weekend with Astralis, Team Liquid

While BLAST won’t conflict with ESL Pro League or B Site, seeing the teams that are attending shows what either of those leagues could have looked like if not for the feud between the two tournament organizers. BLAST has avoided any conflicts for its spring season, but the latter half of the year could see BLAST overlap with its competitors and create another controversy in the process.

MIBR
Natus Vincere
Astralis
Team Liquid
FaZe Clan
Team Vitality
Ninjas in Pyjamas
100 Thieves
OG
G2 Esports
Evil Geniuses
Complexity

BLAST Premier starts on Friday, January 31 with a match between FaZe Clan and Ninjas in Pyjamas at 10:30 a.m. EST, followed by Team Liquid versus MIBR 1:30 p.m.