ESL Pro League Season 17 starts with the Group A upper bracket matches to be played today. The tournament, where 32 teams will compete in Malta for a total prize pool of $850,000 will end on March 26. ESL recently announced the groups and the schedule of the tournament on its official Twitter account.
To kick off the tournament, Outsiders will face IHC, and MIBR will go up against Fnatic, starting at 16:00 GMT+1.
The opening matches of all groups are as follows.
Group A
- Outsiders vs. IHC
- MIBR vs. fnatic
- Cloud9 vs. Evil Geniuses
- G2 vs. Eternal Fire
Group C
- FaZe vs. Rooster
- paiN vs. Ninjas in Pyjamas
- OG vs. 00NATION
- Vitality vs. Grayhound
Group B
- Heroic vs. Movistar Riders
- BIG vs. Complexity
- Imperial vs. FURIA
- SAW vs. MOUZ
Group D
- Liquid vs. Rare Atom
- ATK vs. ENCE
- Spirit vs. Astralis
- Natus Vincere vs. forZe
Teams that will compete in ESL Pro League Season 17 will play all matches in BO3 format. While 4 teams will qualify from each group, the remaining 4 teams will be eliminated from the tournament. In the new format where the number of teams is increased from 24 to 32, the losing teams will continue to compete in Lower Bracket, while the teams that fall from the Lower Bracket will try to qualify from groups at the Last Chance Stage. With this change, the participating teams will try to stay in the playoffs by playing in the triple-elimination format.
