ESL announce Pro League Season 9 groups
The new-look ESL Pro League is set to commence Season 9 in two weeks time, and league organizers ESL have announced the full group breakdown for the offline league event.
The groups were seeded based on each team's position in the ESL World Rankings on January 9th, before results from the IEM Katowice Major, with ESL choosing that date so that they could "give teams enough time before the season start to plan around any other events they'd want to attend." This has meant that NRG, Liquid and MIBR positioned themselves as the top seeds for their groups.
The format will see the top team from each group qualify directly to the ESL Pro League finals in Montpellier, France, with the second and third placing teams heading to a second group stage. The top finishing teams in the second group stage will also secure qualification to the finals, seeing six teams from the Americas qualifying in total.
All groups are set to be played out in order, with the first set of groups all taking place in April. Group A is set to take place on April 12th-14th, Group B between 16th-18th, Group C between 19th-21st and Latin America between 23rd-25th. The second group stage is set to take place in May, with Group A taking place between May 14th-16th and Group B on May 21st-23rd.
Curiously, Rogue have also been announced for the upcoming season, residing in Group C. While it would look like this would confirm the team's attendance at the event, the team listings on the website (at time of publication) does not have Rogue listed. It is currently unclear if Spencer "Hiko" Martin, the final remaining former Rogue player, will be forming a mix for the event, if ESL will grant another team the spot, or if the league will commence with only eleven NA teams.
ESL Pro League Season 9 Americas groups are as follows:
| NA Group A | NA Group B |
 eUnited |
 compLexity |
 INTZ |
Ghost |
| NRG |
Liquid |
 Renegades |
Swole Patrol |
| NA Group C | Latin America |
| Cloud9 |
DETONA |
| Envy |
 FULL SEND |
| MIBR |
 Isurus |
| Rogue |
 Jaguar |
ESL Pro League Season 9 is set to begin on April 12th at a to be announced venue in the United States. The full format for the groups, relegation process, and map pool the league will use, are still to be confirmed. The finals are set to take place in Montpellier, France, between June 18th-23rd.
