Complexity & BOSS in Group D; Americas scattered in ESL Pro League S19 groups
ESL has revealed, one month before its start, the groups for the 19th season of Pro League, which will feature four teams with North American players. Divided into four groups of eight, only two NA squads will meet during the group stage, as Complexity and BOSS have been drawn in Group D.
With the groups being drawn one month prior to the start of the event, there are teams benefitting from the early seeding, such as NIP, who is seeded as #20 without having a full roster, while Imperial, for example, is seeded as the worst team at #32.
Group A doesn't feature any NA team, and only one South American squad. Imperial is joining FaZe, Cloud9, Virtus.pro, Eternal Fire, Astralis, fnatic, and 3DMAX, in what some are calling the group of death. M80 have been drawn in Group B alongside Vitality, G2, Falcons, BetBoom, TheMongolz, TYLOO, and Sharks.
Group C is where Liquid is, with the likes of MOUZ, Monte, FURIA, GamerLegion, ENCE, FORZE, and Bad News Kangaroos (former VERTEX). Finally, Group D features Complexity, BOSS, NAVI, BIG, Heroic, NIP, Jeeves (former Grayhound), and PERA.
For M80 and BOSS, ESL Pro League Season 19 is the return to LAN events after both attended the PGL Copenhagen Major Americas RMR, with Michael "Swisher" Schmid and company making their debut with Elias "s1n" Stein as their new IGL. Complexity will be hoping to show improvements after a tough exit to the PGL Copenhagen Major Elimination Stage, while Liquid will be returning from China, as the squad will be competing in IEM Chengdu, looking to bounce back from a lackluster Americas RMR.
ESL Pro League Season 19 will start with Groups A and B playing from April 23rd to April 28th. Groups C and D will join the servers from April 30th until May 5th. The playoffs will run from May 7th to May 12th. The Group Stage features a double-elimination bracket with all series being BO3 series, but there will also be a Last Chance bracket for the bottom five teams of each group. The winners of each Last Chance bracket will advance to the Round of 16 where they will meet the 3rd place teams from each group, with the winners advancing to the Round of 12 against the 2nd place teams. The 1st place teams from each group join in the quarterfinals facing off against the Ro12 winners.
