ESL has this week released updates on its premier Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament, the ESL CS:GO Pro League, whose season four Finals are set to take place in São Paulo, Brazil (October 26-30). The fourth season of the internationally acclaimed championship will once again feature a US$750,000 prize pool, but will this time implement a new tournament format and prize money distribution. As an official WESA-sanctioned event, these changes have been made in conjunction with the WESA Players Council.

Format

The ESL CS:GO Pro League Finals in Brazil will host competition between twelve teams: the top six from Europe and the top six from North America. This is an increase from previous seasons where a total of eight teams competed in the offline Finals. The offline Finals in São Paulo will begin with a best-of-one round robin group stage, consisting of two groups of six teams. The top three teams from each group will advance to the best-of-three single elimination playoffs bracket. The team that finishes top in their group will advance directly to the semi-finals, with second and third place finishers advancing to the quarterfinals.

“The initial plan for a LAN-final with 8 teams felt out-dated,” said Viktor ‘vuggo’ Jendeby, Players Council Chairman. “The scene is now more competitive than ever, and so it feels natural to extend a tournament of this calibre to enable more teams to attend the finals. We also suggested more guaranteed LAN-matches for the teams attending, and proposed a format with 2 groups of 6 – like it is used at IEM events. ESL listened and we, the WESA Player Council, are very happy with how the new format looks like, and I hope the community will appreciate it as well.”

Prize money

Changes to the prize money distribution were necessary to reflect changes to the now expanded divisions (as mentioned above: the ESL CS:GO Pro League Finals in Brazil will now feature twelve teams, not eight – and the online season includes fourteen teams, not twelve). Detailed below is the prize money distribution decided upon by the WESA Players Council.

Season finals

• 1st place: US$200,000
• 2nd place: US$90,000
• 3rd/4th place: US$45,000
• 5th/6th place: US$35,000
• 7th/8th place: US$30,000
• 9th/10th place: US$25,000
• 11th/12th place: US$20,000

Online season

• 1st to 6th place go to season finals
• 7th place: US$18,000
• 8th place: US$15,500
• 9th place: US$13,000
• 10th place: US$10,500
• 11th place: US$8,000
• 12th place: US$5,500
• 13th place: US$3,000
• 14th place: US$1,500

Schedule

The schedule for the ESL CS:GO Pro League season four Finals in Brazil has been released. Please see below. All times are in BRST (UTC-2) and are estimates as matches are played back to back.

ESL Studios (closed to the public)

Wednesday, 26th of October

• 10:30 to 17:00 – Group A matches #1 to #5
• 17:00 to 21:30 – Group B matches #1 to #4

Thursday, 27th of October

• 10:30 to 15:45 – Group A matches #6 to #9
• 15:45 to 21:30 – Group B matches #5 to #9

Stadium (open to the public)

Friday, 28th of October

• 10:30 to 17:00 – Group A matches #10 to #15
• 17:00 to 22:30 – Group B matches #10 to #15

Saturday, 29th of October

• 10:30 to 15:00 – TBA, best of three match
• 15:00 to 18:30 – Quarterfinal one
• 18:30 to 22:00 – Quarterfinal two

Sunday, 30th of October

• 10:30 to 15:00 – Semifinal one
• 15:00 to 18:30 – Semifinal two
• 18:30 to 22:00 – Grand Final

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