Team Liquid rallied for a 2-1 win over FURIA Esports in their opening Group C match of the ESL Pro League Season 19 on Tuesday in Saint Julian’s, Malta.
FURIA opened with a 13-9 result on Inferno before Liquid countered with a 13-7 win on Mirage. The final map was Nuke, where Liquid eked out a 13-9 win to complete the comeback. Latvia’s Mareks “YEKINDAR” Galinskis led Liquid with 50 kills on a plus-7 kills-to-deaths differential, while Canada’s Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken added 49 kills on a plus-9.
The $750,000 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive event began with 32 teams broken up into four groups of eight. Group-stage winners advance to the quarterfinals; runners-up advance to the Round of 12 as the high seeds; third-place teams advance to the Round of 16 as the high seeds; and fourth-place teams advance to the Round of 16 as the low seeds.
The group stage is triple-elimination with upper, middle and lower brackets. All matches are best-of-three until the grand final, which is best-of-five.
The tournament runs through May 12. The winner earns $170,000 and qualifies for the IEM Cologne 2024 event.
As Group C and D began play Tuesday, the other five matches ended in 2-0 sweeps.
In Group C, MOUZ swept Bad News Kangaroos 13-3 on Vertigo and 13-8 on Mirage. Jimi “Jimpphat” Salo of Finland guided MOUZ with 38 kills on a plus-21 K-D.
GamerLegion beat ENCE 13-6 on both Ancient and Overpass. Henrich ‘sl3nd’ Hevesi of Hungary led GamerLegion with 33 kills on a plus-20.
Monte defeated FORZE 13-11 before outlasting them 19-17 in overtime on Mirage. Lithuanian Gytis “ryu” Glusauskas had a team-leading 49 kills for Monte, while Volodymyr “Woro2k” Veletniuk of Ukraine posted 46 kills on a match-best plus-12.
In Group D, Complexity topped Pera Esports 13-11 on Anubis and 13-9 on Vertigo, thanks to 37 kills apiece from Ricky “floppy” Kemery (plus-11) and Michael “Grim” Wince (plus-7).
Finally, HEROIC beat Ninjas in Pyjamas, starting with a 19-16 overtime victory on Vertigo and then a 13-8 triumph on Nuke. Rene “TeSeS” Madsen of Denmark was HEROIC’s standout, with 47 kills on a plus-14 K-D.
Group play continues Wednesday with six matches:
–MOUZ vs. GamerLegion (Group C upper-bracket semifinals)
–Team Liquid vs. Monte (Group C upper-bracket semifinals)
–Bad News Kangaroos vs. ENCE (Group C mid-bracket Round 1)
–FURIA Esports vs. FORZE Esports (Group C mid-bracket Round 1)
–BIG vs. BOSS (Group D upper-bracket quarterfinals)
–FlyQuest vs. Natus Vincere (Group D upper-bracket quarterfinals)
ESL Pro League Season 19 prize pool
1. $170,000, 2,000 BLAST Premier points — TBD
2. $80,000, 1,400 points — TBD
3-4. $45,000, 750 points — TBD
5-8. $32,000, 275 points — TBD
9-12. $23,500 — TBD
13-16. $17,500 — TBD
17-20. $12,000 — SAW, M80, two teams TBD
21-28. $7,000 — Fnatic, Eternal Fire, Team Falcons, TYLOO, four teams TBD
29-32. $3,500 — Imperial Esports, Sharks Esports, two teams TBD
–Field Level Media
