ESL Pro League Season 8 (shortened as EPL Season 8) is a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament run by ESL. It is the eighth season of the ESL Pro League. Teams from five continents, North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and South America, will compete in six leagues to attempt to qualify for the Finals. The EPL finals returned to Odense, Denmark. The regular season started on September 26, 2018, and will end on November 14, 2018. China's season started with ViCi Gaming upsetting TyLoo in a best of three series. Southeast Asia's season started with B.O.O.T-dream[S]cape taking down Recca Esports, which included a 16–0 map. Europe's season started with Space Soldiers defeating Ninjas in Pyjamas and ended with HellRaisers defeating G2 Esports. North America's season kicked off with Renegades dominating and ended with defeating Luminosity Gaming.
The finals started on December 4, 2018, and ended on December 9, 2018. In the finals Astralis defeated Team Liquid in four maps in a five-game series to take home a second straight EPL title.
This tournament is the ninth tournament of the first season of the Intel Grand Slam, which is a list of premier tournaments run by ESL and DreamHack. The first team to win four titles would earn an extra $1,000,000. Astralis claimed this title after winning DreamHack Masters Marseille 2018, ESL Pro League Season 7, Intel Extreme Masters Season XIII – Chicago, and this event.
Format The eighth season saw used the same format as the seventh season. ESL announced on February 20, 2018, that the EPL Finals would be expanded to 16 teams. On March 5, 2018, EPL announced the creation of the Asia-Pacific (APAC) division, which would divide teams up into three regions and then feature eight teams in an APAC regional. The eighth season would split up this region into three leagues, which includes China (effectively East Asia), Southeast Asia, and Oceania. EPL later announced on March 15, 2018, that a South American division, called the LA LEAGUE, would be created and would feature eight teams from a sixteen team closed qualifier.
North America and Europe featured the top 9 and 11 teams, respectively from last season's ESL Pro League Season 6, one team from the ESEA Season 27: Premier Finals and two teams from the Season 7 Relegation, which featured the bottom two teams from each league from Season 7 and the two runner-ups from the ESEA Season 27: Premier Finals. The China, Southeast Asia, and India regions were grouped into the Asia group; China and Southeast Asia had 8 teams each and India had twelve teams. The Oceania region featured eight teams. Seven teams from Europe, six teams from North America, one team from Asia, one team from Oceania, and one team from South America will make up the sixteen teams in the Finals.
During the regular season for North America and Europe, each team will play every team in its league in two best-of-ones. The winner of each game will receive three points and the loser of each game will receive zero points. If a game ends to overtime, the winner will receive two points and the loser will receive one point. The top six teams in North America and the top seven teams in Europe by the end of the season from each region will head to the Finals. Teams that placed seventh through ninth in North America and eighth through eleventh in Europe will not head to the playoffs but will secure a spot in next season's EPL. Teams that came in last will automatically be demoted to the Premier Division. The next two bottom teams will go through a relegation phase, in which those teams will be placed in a four team double elimination bracket, along with teams that placed second and third in the ESEA Season 27: Premier Division of their region. The top two teams move on to EPL Season 8. The winner of ESEA Season 27: Premier Division will automatically be invited to EPL Season 8. It would later be announced the Europe's league would feature sixteen teams next season, so Ninjas in Pyjamas and Fnatic would be safe from relegation and be invited next season.
There were also periods in which no matches were played. After week 1, no matches were played for one week due to StarSeries & i-League CS:GO Season 6 in Ukraine featuring six EPL teams. After a hefty week 2, no matches were played with EPICENTER 2018 featuring four EPL teams. After week 3, no matches were played twelve days due to BLAST Pro Series: Copenhagen 2018 from November 2 to 3 featuring six EPL teams, cs_summit 3 from November 1 to 4 featuring six EPL teams, and Intel Extreme Masters Season XIII – Chicago from November 6 to 11 featuring fourteen EPL teams.
The Finals will feature sixteen teams. Teams will be split into two groups and placed in an eight team, double elimination bracket. The top three teams from each group will move on to the playoffs. The winners of the groups will earn a bye to the semifinals and the other four teams will play in the quarterfinals. Teams play until a winner is decided.
Qualifiers Season 7 relegation Before each season, three spots need to be filled up in each league. The team that came in last place in each league is automatically relegated to the Premier division for the following season, season 27. Meanwhile, the winner of the Premier division's season 26 is automatically promoted to the professional division. For the last two spots, the two runner ups of season 27 of the Premier division will be placed in a four team, best of three, double elimination bracket against the teams that placed twelfth and thirteenth in EPL Season 6. The final two teams are promoted to EPL Season 8 and the other two teams are demoted to ESEA Premier Division Season 28.
North America relegation Season 7 Relegation compLexity Gaming (Season 7 #10) ex-Splyce (Season 7 #11) Swole Patrol (ESEA Season 27 #2) Torqued (ESEA Season 27 #3)
Europe relegation Season 7 Relegation Team EnVyUs (Season 7 #12) AGO Esports (Season 7 #13) Windigo Gaming (ESEA Season 27 #2) Team Spirit (ESEA Season 27 #3)
Teams North America
Team Liquid (Season 7 #1) NRG eSports (Season 7 #2) Cloud9 (Season 7 #4) Renegades (Season 7 #5) Rogue (Season 7 #7) Luminosity Gaming (Season 7 #8) Ghost Gaming (Season 7 #9) MIBR INTZ eSports (ESEA Premier Season 27) compLexity Gaming (Season 7 Relegation) Team EnVyUs (Season 7 Relegation) Europe
mousesports (Season 7 #1) Ninjas in Pyjamas (Season 7 #2) Natus Vincere (Season 7 #3) FaZe Clan (Season 7 #4) ex-Space Soldiers (Season 7 #5) Astralis (Season 7 #6) HellRaisers (Season 7 #7) Heroic (Season 7 #8) North (Season 7 #9) G2 Esports (Season 7 #10) Fnatic (Season 7 #11) BIG (ESEA Premier Season 27) AGO Esports (Season 7 Relegation) Windigo Gaming (Season 7 Relegation) Asia
2ez Gaming Beyond Esports B.O.O.T-dream[S]cape CyberZen EHOME EXECUTIONERS Flash Gaming FrostFire GOSU Lucid Dream MVP PK OpTic India Recca Esports SCARZ Absolute Signature Gaming Slaughter Rage Army Team Brutality TNC Pro Team TyLoo ViCi Gaming
Oceania
Chiefs eSports Club Grayhound Gaming Ground Zero Gaming Legacy Esports madlikewizards ORDER Paradox Gaming Tainted Minds
Latin America
Bragantino e-Sports Imperial e-Sports Isurus Gaming No2B e-Sports Clube Santos e-Sports Sharks Esports Team Wild W7M Gaming
Notes
North America Broadcast talent Host James Banks Commentators Tim "brainstorm" Dunne Conner "Scrawny" Girvan Mohan "launders" Govindasamy Jordan "Elfishguy" Mays Mitch "Pili" Pilipowski Iain "SnypeR" Turner Kevin "KaRath" Zhu Analyst Joona "natu" Leppänen Observers Heather "sapphiRe" Garozzo DJ "Prius" Kuntz
Standings The North American standings are shown below. Each team's in-game leader is shown first. Rosters reflect what they look like by the end of the regular season. For instance, Brandon "-Ace" Winn of was benched in favor of Pujan "FNS" Mehta. Therefore, FNS's name is shown in the roster below rather than -Ace's.
MIBR was the first team to qualify for the Finals in just the second week of play after the team defeated NRG Esports in two maps; after losing to , MIBR went on an 8–0 run to clinch a spot. Ghost Gaming clinched its spot a day after MIBR clinched when the Canadian team defeated INTZ eSports. Although on an off week, Renegades and Team Liquid clinched their spots on Odense after went 1–1 in maps against Team EnVyUs and INTZ eSports. NRG eSports clinched in week 4 after winning against the Renegades via forfeit.
Going into the final day, just one spot was open to a flight to Odense. INTZ eSports was the frontrunner with 29 points, but Cloud9 and had 26 points, and had an outside chance with 24 points. Cloud9 faced off against a revitalized NRG eSports, compLexity had to face off against the team that was running away with North America's top spot in MIBR, INTZ went against a Rogue team that was unproven after the FACEIT Major, and against an experienced but inconsistent Luminosity Gaming. It came down to the wire by the end of the day. Cloud9 suffered a loss to NRG while and INTZ defeated their respective opponents, effectively eliminating Cloud9 from Finals contention. was demolished by MIBR shortly after Cloud9 lost, which would not only eliminate compLexity, but give MIBR the top seed in the league. did its job by defeating Luminosity, but INTZ fell to Rogue, which would place both teams at 32 points. However, because INTZ won the head-to-head, four points to two, INTZ won the last spot over . At the bottom of the standings, Rogue was unable to catch up to and was one point shy after splitting the series against INTZ. Meanwhile, Team EnVyUs had the fortune of playing against a Renegades team that was playing out of the country, meaning EnVyUs had a much easier time taking two maps while Luminosity dropped both maps to . This means EnVyUs had a second chance at staying in Pro League after starting the season 1–13 by playing in the relegation phase with Rogue while Luminosity would automatically be demoted to the Premier Division. Standings Place Prize Money TeamW–LOTW–LRDPts Roster Coach 1st TBD MIBR 17–3 2–0 +122 55 FalleN, coldzera, fer, Stewie2K, tarik YNk 2nd TBD Ghost Gaming 14–6 2–0 +72 46 steel, Subroza, Wardell, koosta, neptune JamezIRL 3rd TBD Team Liquid 13–8 0–1 +39 40 nitr0, EliGE, NAF, Twistzz, TACO zews 4th TBD NRG Esports 12–8 2–0 +60 40 daps, Brehze, FugLy, nahtE, CeRq ImAPet 5th TBD Renegades 11–7 1–3 +33 38 AZR, Gratisfaction, jks, liazz, jkaem 6th TBD 10–10 0–2 −5 32 horvy, chelo, , kNgV-, xand Apoka 7th 27,000 10–11 1–0 −13 32 FNS, dapr, dazzLe, -Relyks, moose 8th 23,000 Cloud9 9–12 1–0 −26 29 Golden, flusha, kioShiMa, , RUSH 9th 19,000 compLexity Gaming 7–13 1–1 −24 24 stanislaw, ANDROIDx23, ShahZaM, yay, dephh Rambo 10th 17,500 Rogue 6–12 1–3 −57 23 MSL, Hiko, SicK, vice, Rickeh mCe 11th 15,000 Team EnVyUs 6–14 0–2 −102 20 Nifty, Drone, jdm64, Pollo, reltuC Eley 12th 11,500 Luminosity Gaming 5–16 1–0 −99 17 steel, HEN1, LUCAS1, NEKIZ, yeL