Liquid v. Passion UA headlines opening ESL Pro League Season 23 Stage 1 matches

With only a few days before play begins, ESL has announced the opening matchups for Stage 1 of ESL Pro League Season 23. The matches were seeded after each Stage 1 team submitted a complete ranking of all other teams. The final rankings were quite different from how VRS seeding would've looked.

Liquid, NRG, and M80 were all seeded several slots lower on the team ranking than they would've been using VRS. M80's ranking stands out as particularly rough as they were placed at #14 out of #16, only above Gaimin Gladiators and SemperFi. This gave them FUT as opponents, who are in hot form after PGL Cluj-Napoca.

Passion UA will make their debut with Azbayar "Senzu" Munkhbold against fellow nominally-NA squad Liquid. That match will have a staggering eight countries represented across the ten players. The last of the NA teams participating is NRG, who will look to build on a decent performance at IEM Kraków. They are matched against Heroic.

The first matches of ESL Pro League Season 23 Stage 1 are:

• Heroic v. NRG

• PARIVISION v. SemperFi

• G2 v. Gaimin Gladiators

• Astralis v. Monte

• Ninjas in Pyjamas v. Legacy

• FUT v. M80

• Liquid v. Passion UA

• 3DMAX v. paiN