ESL Pro League Season 23 opens with two online stages before Stockholm

ESL Pro League Season 23 begins on Sunday, March 1, 2026, and its first ten days are played online. HLTV's guide to the season, published on Friday, February 27, sets out the shape of the Counter-Strike 2 competition: two stages played online, from March 1 to 5 and from March 6 to 10, then a final weekend for eight teams in Stockholm from March 13 to 15. The site summed the season up as a league that is back, this time starting with two online phases.

Twenty-four teams take part, sixteen from the first day and eight more from the second stage. The prize pool is US$1,000,000, and more than three quarters of it is kept for the three days in Sweden.

HLTV's guide to ESL Pro League Season 23, February 27, 2026.

Three phases in fifteen days

The season fits between March 1 and March 15. Each phase halves its field: sixteen teams become eight, sixteen become eight again, and eight play for the title.

Both online stages use the Swiss system. In a Swiss stage there are no fixed groups and no team goes out after one defeat: the field is paired again for each round, and the places are settled over several rounds. Stage 1 plays one round a day over its five days, according to HLTV.

Stage 2 is played in best-of-three series, a match made of up to three maps that ends when one team has won two. The eight teams that come through it travel to Stockholm for a LAN, an event where the teams play in the same place rather than over the internet.

There the format becomes single elimination: one lost series and a team is out. The quarter-finals and semi-finals are best-of-three. A third-place decider is played between the two beaten semi-finalists, and the grand final is a best-of-five, won by the first team to take three maps.

The dates moved slightly on the way. When ESL's invitations were made public on January 14, HLTV gave February 27 to March 9 for the two online stages. The guide published on February 27 has them starting on March 1 and ending on March 10. The Stockholm weekend, March 13 to 15, is the same in both articles.

Sixteen teams start on Sunday

The sixteen teams of Stage 1 are PARIVISION, G2, Astralis, FUT, 3DMAX, Liquid, paiN, NRG, Passion UA, HEROIC, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Legacy, M80, Monte, Gaimin Gladiators and SemperFi.

ESL published the opening round on February 25. The seeding did not come from a ranking table: according to HLTV's report that day, the seeds were based on how the teams ranked each other. PARIVISION came out as the top seed and opens against SemperFi, the team ranked last by its rivals.

The seven other series of March 1 are HEROIC against NRG, Astralis against Monte, G2 against Gaimin Gladiators, Ninjas in Pyjamas against Legacy, FUT against M80, 3DMAX against paiN, and Liquid against Passion UA. That makes eight series on the first day, with all sixteen teams in action.

The gap between the two ends of the field is wide. On the ranking of January 12 that HLTV showed next to each team when the invitations came out, G2 stood 9th, 3DMAX 12th, paiN 13th, Astralis 14th and Liquid 15th. At the other end, Monte were 41st, Gaimin Gladiators 82nd and SemperFi 141st. HLTV singled out SemperFi, Gaimin Gladiators and M80, 20th at the time, as teams hoping to gain ground in the VRS. The Valve Regional Standings are the ranking kept by Valve, the publisher of Counter-Strike 2, and the one ESL refers to for the invitations to its events.

Eight teams wait in Stage 2

Eight teams skip the first five days: FURIA, MOUZ, Spirit, The MongolZ, Natus Vincere, FaZe, Aurora and B8. On that January 12 ranking they stood between 2nd and 11th: FURIA 2nd, MOUZ 4th, FaZe 5th, The MongolZ 6th, Natus Vincere 7th, Spirit 8th, Aurora 10th and B8 11th. HLTV named FURIA, Spirit, MOUZ and Natus Vincere as the headline names of the season.

Two of those eight places changed hands before a map was played. Vitality and Falcons declined their invitations, HLTV reported on January 14. Because of the two refusals, Aurora and B8 start directly in Stage 2, and Ninjas in Pyjamas and Passion UA were the next teams in line for the places left free in the field.

A third place was reassigned for another reason. FUT received an invitation instead of Lynn Vision, who are serving a one-tournament ban from ESL events, according to the same article. That ban goes back to the previous season. On October 10, 2025, HLTV reported ESL's ruling on two teams that had pulled out of Season 22. Several Lynn Vision players had not been able to check in for their flight because their visas had expired, after the team had repeatedly confirmed to the organizer that its visas were in order. ESL judged that the problem could have been avoided and banned the team from the next ESL event of the top tier it qualified for through the VRS.

The ruling rested on section 2.14.1 of ESL's rulebook, as HLTV described it: a team that withdraws forfeits its prize money, is banned from the next event of the same tier and pays the cost of its replacement. The penalty can be waived for a medical emergency or for a visa refused for reasons outside the team's control, with proof. Virtus.pro, turned away at the Swedish border before the same Season 22, received no sanction on that ground.

Three line-ups make their debut

Several of the sixteen Stage 1 teams have changed since they were invited, and three of the changes show on the opening day.

3DMAX arrive with a new player and a new staff. On February 24, HLTV reported that the team had replaced bodyy with misutaaa, who comes from GenOne, and brought back wasiNk as head coach in place of YouKnow, with NBK- as assistant coach in what the site called his first coaching role in a career of more than 17 years. The team was on a run of six lost series and had left PGL Cluj-Napoca without winning a map. Stage 1 is the first event of the new five: Graviti, Maka, Ex3rcice, Lucky and misutaaa.

Their first opponents arrive in the same position. paiN also finished PGL Cluj-Napoca with three defeats and no win, HLTV noted when the opening round was announced.

Passion UA field Senzu for the first time, against Liquid. The team signed two players on February 13, according to HLTV: try, who came from Imperial to take over the AWP, the game's sniper rifle, and Senzu, on loan from The MongolZ, where he had been on the bench since the end of October 2025. HLTV had ranked Senzu the 13th best player of 2025. His parent club is one of the eight teams waiting in Stage 2.

Legacy play their first series with arT as in-game leader, the player who calls the team's tactics during a match. The team moved lux to the bench after IEM Krakow, HLTV wrote. They meet Ninjas in Pyjamas on the first day.

How the US$1,000,000 is shared

The pool is divided unevenly between the three phases: US$39,000 for Stage 1, US$185,000 for Stage 2 and US$776,000 for the Finals, which is 77.6% of the total. The three amounts add up to US$1,000,000.

Only the teams that go out are paid at the end of a stage. The eight that advance take their money from the phase where their run ends.

From Stage 2 onward, each line has two parts: prize money, and a second sum that HLTV lists as club share. Stage 1 pays prize money only. So do the last two places of Stage 2.

In Stockholm the club share is the larger part at every place. The winner receives US$100,000 in prize money and US$150,000 in club share. The runner-up receives US$55,000 and US$101,500, the third-placed team US$37,500 and US$72,500, the fourth US$22,500 and US$45,000. Each of the four teams beaten in the quarter-finals receives US$15,000 and US$33,000.

Added up over the season from the amounts in HLTV's guide, prize money comes to US$400,000 and club share to US$600,000. The first figure is the sum of US$39,000 in Stage 1, US$86,000 in Stage 2 and US$275,000 at the Finals. The second is the sum of US$99,000 in Stage 2 and US$501,000 at the Finals.

The steps between places are steep at the top. A team that loses its quarter-final leaves with US$48,000 in all. Fourth place is worth US$67,500, third place US$110,000, and the losing finalist takes US$156,500 against US$250,000 for the champion, a gap of US$93,500 decided by one series.

A title without its holder

The trophy will change hands. Vitality won Season 22 on October 12, 2025, beating Falcons 3-0 in a best-of-five grand final, HLTV reported that day. It was the team's first trophy in about four months and, by the site's count, its eighth title of 2025. Neither finalist is in the field this time: both are the teams that declined their invitations in January.

Of the teams Vitality beat on the way to that title, two are back. HLTV's report of the final recalled hard-fought playoff wins over FURIA and FaZe, and both start Season 23 in Stage 2.

What comes next

Stage 1 runs from Sunday, March 1, to Thursday, March 5. Stage 2 follows the next day, with the eight qualified teams joining the eight that were waiting, and ends on Tuesday, March 10.

The teams that qualify then have two free days before the Finals open in Stockholm on Friday, March 13. The weekend ends on Sunday, March 15, two weeks to the day after the first map of the season.

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