How to watch ESL Pro League Season 11

Twenty-four of the best CS:GO teams in the world will play at ESL Pro League Season 11, which will start on Monday, March 16.

Stream

You can watch all of the ESL Pro League Season 11 action at ESL’s Twitch channel. There aren’t any simultaneous matches apart from March 24 and April 3, so you just have to know when your favorite teams are playing.

Format

Due to coronavirus concerns, ESL had to completely revamp the format for ESL Pro League Season 11. In order to limit the amount of traveling involved for teams as much as possible, the league has split into a European and North American division with three groups and one group, respectively.

In Europe, ESL will use a round-robin best-of-three group stage. The three group winners will directly qualify for a second group stage, while the group runners-up and third-placed teams will play decider matches for the other three slots.

The second group stage will also feature a round-robin best-of-three format. The winner qualifies directly to the best-of-five grand final, while the second and third-placed teams play a best-of-three decider.

The format is different for the North American tournament. The six teams will play at round-robin best-of-three group. The four best teams will advance to the playoffs, which will feature a double-elimination bracket. The first and second-placed team will play the upper-bracket grand final, while the third and fourth-placed will have to grind their way to meet the upper bracket winner at the best-of-five grand final.

The prize pool for both regions has not been announced by ESL.

EU Teams

Group A

Astralis: device, dupreeh, gla1ve, Xyp9x, and Magisk
Vitality: ZywOo, shox, apEX, RpK, and Kévin “misutaaa” Rabier
NiP: Jonas “Lekr0” Olofsson, Fredrik “REZ” Sterner, Simon “twist” Eliasson, Tim “nawwk” Jonasson, and Nicolas “Plopski” Zamora
ENCE: allu, sunNy, Jere “sergej” Jalo, Jani “Aerial” Jussila, and Sami “xseveN” Laasanen
GODSENT: Maikelele, STYKO, Kevin “kRYSTAL” Amend, Jesse “zehN” Linjala, and Pavle “Maden” Bošković
BOOM: felps, boltz, Marcelo “chelo” Cespedes, Gustavo “yeL” Knittel, and Bruno “shz” Martinelli

Group B

Na’Vi: s1mple, electronic, flamie, Boombl4, and Ilya “Perfecto” Zalutskiy
Fnatic: KRIMZ, JW, flusha, Golden, and Brollan
Complexity: k0nfig, poizon, RUSH, Benjamin “blameF” Bremer, and Owen “oBo” Schlatter
North: Kjaerbye, MSL, aizy, cajunb, and Nicklas Gade
BIG: tabseN, XANTARES, Florian “syrsoN” Rische, Nils “k1to” Gruhne, and Tizian Feldbusch
forZe: Dmitriy “facecrack” Alekseyev, Andrey “Jerry” Mekhryakov, Evgeniy “FL1T” Lebedev, Bogdan “xsepower” Chernikov, and Almaz “almazer” Asadullin

Group C

mousesports: karrigan, ropz, woxic, chrisJ, and frozen
G2: kennyS, huNter-, nexa, François “AmaNEk” Delaunay, and Audric “JaCKz” Jug
FaZe: coldzera, NiKo, rain, olofmeister, and Helvijs “broky” Saukants
OG: NBK-, Aleksib, valde, Issa “ISSAA” Murad, and Mateusz “mantuu” Wilczewski
Virtus Pro: Jame, AdreN, Alexey “qikert” Golubev, Timur “buster” Tulepov, and Sanjar “SANJI” Kuliev
TYLOO: HaoWen “somebody”, YuLun “Summer” Cai, YuanZhang “Attacker” Sheng, Cheung “Freeman” Wing Hei, and Son “xeta” Seon-ho

NA Teams

Group A

Team Liquid: EliGE, Stewie2k, Twistzz, NAF, and nitr0
Evil Geniuses: Ethan, Brehze, tarik, CeRq, and stanislaw
100 Thieves: jks, jkaem, AZR, Sean “Gratisfaction” Kaiwai, Jay “Liazz” Tregillgas
FURIA: KSCERATO, yuurih, HEN1, Andrei “arT” Piovezan, and Vinicius “VINI” Figueiredo
Swole Patrol: freakazoid, Edgar “MarkE” Maldonado, Victor “food” Wong, Jordan “Zellsis” Montemurro, and Austin “Cooper” Abadir
TBD

Schedule

Monday, March 16

8am CT: ENCE vs. BOOM
12pm CT: Vitality vs. GODSENT
4pm CT: Astralis vs. NiP

Tuesday, March 17

8am CT: Complexity vs. forZe
12pm CT: Na`Vi vs. North
4pm CT: Fnatic vs. BIG

Wednesday, March 18

8am CT: NiP vs. BOOM
12pm CT: Astralis vs. GODSENT
4pm CT: Vitality vs. ENCE

Thursday, March 19

8am CT: North vs. forZe
12pm CT: Na`Vi vs. BIG
4pm CT: Fnatic vs. Complexity

Friday, March 20

8am CT: NiP vs. GODSENT
12pm CT: Vitality vs. BOOM
4pm CT: Astralis vs. ENCE

Saturday, March 21

8am CT: BIG vs. Complexity
12pm CT: Na`Vi vs. forZe
4pm CT: Fnatic vs. North

Sunday, March 22

8am CT: ENCE vs. GODSENT
12pm CT: Astralis vs. BOOM
4pm CT: Vitality vs. NiP

Monday, March 23

8am CT: Fnatic vs. forZe
12pm CT: North vs. BIG
4pm CT: Na`Vi vs. Complexity

Tuesday, March 24

12pm CT: Na`Vi vs. Fnatic
12pm CT: BIG vs. forZe
12pm CT: Complexity vs. North
4pm CT: Astralis vs. Vitality
4pm CT: NiP vs. ENCE
4pm CT: BOOM vs. GODSENT

Thursday, March 26

8am CT: FaZe vs. TYLOO
12pm CT: 100 Thieves vs. Swole Patrol

Friday, March 27

8am CT: OG vs. TYLOO
12pm CT: Liquid vs. Swole Patrol
4pm CT: EG vs. 100 Thieves

Saturday, March 28

8am CT: G2 vs. TYLOO
12pm CT: mousesports vs. OG
4pm CT: Liquid vs. 100 Thieves

Sunday, March 29

7am CT: mousesports vs. OG
11pm CT: G2 vs. FaZe
3pm CT: Liquid vs. FURIA

Monday, March 30

7am CT: FaZe vs. Virtus Pro
11pm CT: EG vs. Swole Patrol
3pm CT: Liquid vs. FURIA

Tuesday, March 31

7am CT: G2 vs. OG
11am CT: mousesports vs. Virtus Pro

Wednesday, April 1

7am CT: mousesports vs. TYLOO
11pm CT: G2 vs. Virtus Pro
3pm CT: EG vs. FURIA

Thursday, April 2

7am CT: Virtus Pro vs. OG
11pm CT: FURIA vs. Swole Patrol

Friday, April 3

11am CT: FaZe vs. OG
11am CT: mousesports vs. G2
11am CT: Virtus Pro vs. TYLOO
3pm CT: Liquid vs. EG
3pm CT: 100 Thieves vs. FURIA

Key storylines

We can expect greater matches from the European side as it has way more teams and they’re unarguably the best in the world, apart from Liquid and Evil Geniuses, who won their share of championships last year.

At the moment, there are six favorite teams to win ESL Pro League Season 11 in Europe: Na’Vi, Astralis, mousesports, Fnatic, G2, and FaZe. Na’Vi surprisingly destroyed everyone at IEM Katowice. But will s1mple and crew keep up with that level of play or will they show inconsistency like in the past?

Astralis lost their number one spot at HLTV’s world rankings to Na’Vi this week and are looking a bit shaky in this season. Their tactical game isn’t as perfect as it was at the end of 2019, but the Danes can also win some games if someone like device or Magisk steps up. So, what version of Astralis we’ll see, the monster that won four Majors or the one that can’t close out matches?

Sadly, mousesports won’t properly defend their ESL Pro League trophy as they’re limited to the European bracket instead. Karrigan and crew had a bad run-in IEM Katowice, but they have won four out of their six last events. Also, mousesports are some of the most skilled rosters out there. If someone like ropz and woxic shine in the same match, it’s almost impossible to beat them.

Fnatic has consistently securing long-runs in the last tournaments, but they haven’t won anything after the lineup debut at DreamHack Masters Malmö in October 2019. If they keep reaching semifinals, they will win a tournament again soon. Can it be at ESL Pro League Season 11?

G2 looked absolutely phenomenal at IEM Katowice as everything was clicking for the French: the emotional part, the tactics, and the skill. KennyS had some vintage moments and would have won the MVP trophy if it wasn’t for s1mple and Na`Vi, who shockingly crushed G2 in the grand finals. Are this G2 here to stay or it was just a fluke?

Liquid and EG have been constantly battling to be the best North American team, but also to take over the world. Neither of them impressed at IEM Katowice; EG were early eliminated by 100 Thieves, and Liquid seemingly lost steam when the competition headed to the end. Any result other than reaching the grand finals of ESL Pro League North America will be a shame for these squads.

100 Thieves, on the other hand, lost on the opening round of IEM Katowice and showed resilience to stay alive in the competition as the Australians won three consecutive eliminatory best-of-threes, including matches against two giants—mousesports, and Evil Geniuses. It looks like that jks and crew still got a lot of pressure on their shoulders as they haven’t won a big tournament yet. ESL Pro League Season 11 is a great opportunity to do so, especially because they won’t compete with European teams this time.

FURIA aren’t the same team that let everybody impressed last year when they did great campaigns at DreamHack Masters Dallas, and ECS season seven finals. The top tier teams learned how to counter FURIA’s crazy gameplay and arT had to come up with some ideas, especially after HEN1 arrived last year. If FURIA finds out when they have to be aggressive and when to use the passive approach, they can do damage at ESL Pro League season 11.