Stretching all the way back to July 2015, throughout its eight seasons the ESL Pro League has established itself as one of the biggest CS:GO events in the competitive calendar. The importance, glamour, and prestige of these tournaments are topped by but a few, perhaps only the Majors, come to think of it. With rapidly increasing quality amongst competing teams, LAN regular season in two most prominent regions, and a whole bunch of money to write home about, it’s no surprise to see ESL Pro League at the top of the CS:GO competitive scene. That said, I welcome you to our comprehensive ESL Pro League Season 9 NA Preview!

Here, we’ll be focusing on the Americas region that’s fuming with great teams all across the board. The likes of Team Liquid, NRG, Cloud0, and MIBR are all here, ready to make their mark on the competition and qualify for the grandest of stages – ESL Pro League Season 9 Finals.

But, before we dwell deeper into recent matches, form, track record, and rumors regarding these teams, let’s focus on the actual tournament. More precisely, let’s focus on some of the most interesting facts surrounding this tournament. Facts such as its most important dates, casters, prize pools and more.

ESL Pro League Season 9 NA Preview | Interesting Facts

• The ninth ESL Pro League NA season starts on Friday, 12 of April with the first round of group A matches. The regular season ends on 23rd May after the final matches of the second group stage have been done and dealt with.
• Desk hosts and commentators have already been announced. Stunna and moses will cover the action behind the desk while emode and Topical will guide us through the live action. Lastly, moses will be the go-to analyst, bringing forth his knowledge and expertise about the ins and outs of the CS:GO competitive scene.
• If you want to tune in to the live CS:GO action, ESL will be hosting streams on everyone’s favorite services. We’re talking Twitch, Facebook, and YouTube, the big esports streaming trio.
• ESL Pro League Season 9 Finals are a part of the second Intel Grand Slam Season, further upping their importance in the grand scheme of things. Need I remind you, IGS is a special CS:GO competition with $1,000,000 in store for the team that wins four IGS-eligible tournaments across ten matches.

Regular Season LAN Switch

The biggest news regarding the ESL Pro League Season 9 NA preview is the play switch on the two biggest regions, Americas and EU. Thus far, the regular season was played online across all fronts. Even though online play these days is much more reliable than before, it still holds potential risks to the game’s integrity. That’s why, starting from the ninth season, EU and Americas will feature LAN matches, held in ESL Studios located in the UK and the USA.

Not only will this result in a much higher quality of matches but will also be less time-consuming for the players. Group stage rounds will now be played across two days, slightly alleviating the notoriously cramped CS:GO competitive schedule.

Prize Pool Distribution

Unfortunately, there is no official information regarding the official prize pool of this competition. Once we get all the necessary information, we’ll be sure to update this ESL Pro League Season 9 NA Preview.

Tournament Format

Continuing with our ESL Pro League Season 9 NA Preview, let’s take a look at the tournament format. In fact, let’s focus solely on the Americas here! The regular season kicks off on Friday and will feature two rounds, both of which are based on a group stage type competition. The first-round features four groups with four teams in each. Three groups are reserved for North American with the remainder saved for South American teams. First-place teams in all four groups go straight to the finals. Fourth-place teams are eliminated while second and third-place teams advance through to the second round.

The second round features two groups with four teams in each. Group winners proceed to the finals with all other teams being eliminated. All matches are set for Bo3 contests, ensuring top-level competition and lessening the upset potential.

ESL Pro League Season 9 NA Team Overviews

And now, the main part of this ESL Pro League Season 9 Preview – team overviews!

As stated above, there’s a pretty good level of competitiveness on the new continent. Even though European teams are still ruling over the CS:GO scene, their Americas counterparts are not backing down without a fight. There is a number of high-profile teams to talk about here. The likes of Team Liquid, Renegades, and NRG, all of whom had decent performances at the IEM Katowice Major.

Additionally, there are also teams such as Cloud9 and MIBr, coming into this competition with different stories but identical desire – to qualify for the Finals and try to pose a threat to the European giants such as Astralis and Natus Vincere.

Team Liquid

Team Liquid is a traditionally exceptional team. Realistically speaking, they were the second-best team across the entirety of 2018. However, they weren’t satisfied with the second-best title. They wanted more! They wanted to end Astralis’ dominance and reach new heights as the best NA team of all time.

These goals resulted in the signing of Stewie2K, something which didn’t go well with many of their fans. Many of them predicted Team Liquid’s aspirations will crumble under the pressure… but it’s safe to say Team Liquid is still up there with the best of them. True, they still aren’t at the level of Astralis and their IEM Katowice Major performance wasn’t perfect, but we have to admit their current roster has a pretty high skill ceiling. That’s something they’re bound to demonstrate sooner rather than later.

NRG

NRG went into the Katowice Major as one of the top NA sides. After doing a marvelous job on the Minor and going 3-0 on the Challengers Stage, many expected great things from this NRG team. And, indeed, they had it all. Great fraggers, solid IGL, dynamic playstyle, and good all-around map pool. However, their Legends Stage performance was something NRG players will want to forget ASAP.

Losing against NiP, AVANGAR, and compLexity (of all teams) and finishing their IEM Katowice journey with a 0-3 score must’ve taken a toll on daps, brehze and the rest of the team. However, they came back strong, winning the second ECS S7 Week alongside a solid run in Shanghai at StarSeries Season 7.

Overall, NRG’s lineup is looking ready for the start of the ESL Pro League. Brehze is enjoying himself out there with almost +150 k/d difference on LAN matches during the last three months. Ethan isn’t half bad either, with +115 on the scoresheet. Overall, NRG is probably the second-best NA team at the moment. Especially considering the recent bad spell of performances coming from MIBR.

Cloud9

After somewhat of a decent Major performance, Cloud9 was struck by a wind of change. Flusha, the Swedish genius, was the first one to leave the bunch. He was quickly followed by Zellsis who didn’t pass his trial run. Their coach, valens, was the next in line. He went on to become C9’s head of data science and was soon replaced by former compLexity coach, Rambo. KioShiMa, the French CS:GO legend, was the last starting player to leave the team, dealing the final blow to the boys in blue.

Autimatic, RUSH, Golden, vice (on trial), and cajunb are In the current starting roster of Cloud9. In my opinion, this is a potent mixture of US and Scandinavian players with plenty of potential in the upcoming competition. ESL Pro League and BLAST Pro Series Miami kick off in just a few days, finally giving us the opportunity to see this brand-new Cloud9 roster in action.

Renegades

As you all know, Renegades are packed with Australian talent in combination with some good old Norweigan expertise in the form of jkaem. Aleksandar “kassad” Trifunovic still has the coaching stick, ready to help his team advance to the ESL Pro League Season 9 Finals.

And judging by the things we’ve seen from this team during the Major, they have a good chance of qualifying. Jks and jkaem are on a roll. When these guys play as they should, there are but a few teams that can outplay them on their best maps. Liazz has been struggling recently, but I reckon he’ll come to his senses once he enters the first-round matches against eUnited and INTZ. They’ll have to go up against NRG in the first round so I doubt they’ll go straight through without playing in the second. However, if other group stages finish without too many surprises, I reckon we’ll see more of Renegades on the Finals.

MIBR

Made in Brazil is, as the name suggests, a Brazilian CS:GO team that competes in the NA region. Even though, in the past, they had a mixed roster, with the addition of TACO and zews (coach) to their team they went full-Brazilian again.

After a heartbreaking BLAST Pro Series Sao Paulo performance combined with yet another disheartening show in Shanghai, MIBR roster found themselves in a world of trouble. There were even rumors that fer might leave the team but he quickly changed his mind. That said, coming into ESL Pro League Season 9 NA, I expect MIBR players to go back to their usual selves. The likes of FalleN, coldzera, fer, TACO, and felps are all world-class players. Plus, their group consists of Cloud9, Envy and a to-be-announced fourth team, so they really shouldn’t have too many issues with qualifying for the Finals.

ESL Pro League Season 9 NA Schedule (PDT)

And finally, we’ve arrived at the end of this ESL Pro League Season 9 Preview. But wait, there’s more! We’ll be taking a closer look at the schedule for the first group stage round. That said, make sure you take note of these dates as they’re bound to sport an abundance of thrilling contests.

Once again, Rogue’s slot is still to be decided so I just marked it with TBD. All other teams are known so let’s check out the first-round matchups!

Group A Matches

Friday, April 12th

NRG vs INTZ – 5.20 p.m. Renegades vs eUnited – 9 p.m.

Saturday, April 13th

NRG vs eUnited – 5.20 p.m. Renegades vs INTZ – 9 p.m.

Sunday, April 14th

NRG vs Renegades – 5.20 p.m. eUnited vs INTZ – 9 p.m.

Group B Matches

Tuesday, 16th April

• Liquid vs Lazarus – 5.20 p.m.

• Ghost vs compLexity – 9 p.m.

Wednesday, 17th April

• Liquid vs compLexity – 5.20 p.m.

• Ghost vs Lazarus – 9 p.m.

Thursday, 18th April

• Liquid vs Ghost – 5.20 p.m.

• compLexity vs Lazarus – 9 p.m.

Group C Matches

Friday, 19th April

• MIBR vs TBD – 5.20 p.m.

• Cloud9 vs Envy 9 p.m.

Saturday, 20th April

• MIBR vs Envy – 5.20 p.m.

• Cloud9 vs TBD – 9 p.m.

Sunday, 21st April

• MIBR vs Cloud9 – 5.20 p.m.

• Envy vs TBD – 9 p.m.

Group D Matches

Tuesday, 23rd April

• Isurus vs Denial – 5.20 p.m.
• Full Send vs Detona – 9 p.m.

Wednesday, 24th April

• Isurus vs Detona – 5.20 p.m.
• Full Send vs Denial – 9 p.m.

Thursday, 25th April

• Isurus vs Full Send – 5.20 p.m.

• Detona vs Denial – 9 p.m.