Team Vitality swept Movistar Riders 2-0 in the upper-bracket final of Group A at the ESL Pro League Season 18 on Sunday in Malta.
Both teams are heading to the playoff stage, as is FURIA Esports, who won two matches Sunday to earn the fourth and final Group A berth via the lower bracket.
The $850,000 event features 32 teams broken up into four groups of eight. Group stage winners advance straight to the quarterfinals; runners-up advance to the Round of 12 as the high seeds; third-place teams in each group advance to the Round of 16 as the high seeds; and fourth-place teams advance to the Round of 16 as the low seeds.
The group stage is triple-elimination with upper, middle and lower brackets. All matches are best-of-three until the grand final, which is best-of-five.
The Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament runs through Oct. 1. The winner earns $200,000 and qualifies to the 2024 IEM Katowice event and the 2023 BLAST World Final.
On Sunday, Vitality beat Movistar Riders 16-10 on Overpass and 16-7 on Inferno. Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut of France led Vitality with 48 kills, Emil “Magisk” Reif of Denmark added 45 kills and both ZywOo and Magisk finished with plus-19 kills-to-deaths differentials.
Meanwhile, FURIA started the day in the lower-bracket semifinals, where they swept Grayhound Gaming, 19-17 in overtime on Inferno and 16-8 on Vertigo. The all-Brazilian winning side got 59 kills on a whopping plus-30 K-D from Kaike “KSCERATO” Cerato.
FURIA advanced to face GamerLegion in the lower-bracket final and won 2-0, needing overtime on their opening map again before winning 19-15 on Mirage and 16-4 on Overpass. It was Andrei “arT” Piovezan’s turn to lead FURIA with 47 kills and a plus-16 differential.
Group B action begins Wednesday with four upper-bracket quarterfinal matches:
–Heroic vs. Rooster
–BIG vs. Monte
–MOUZ vs. MIBR
–Evil Geniuses vs. ENCE
ESL Pro League Season 18 prize pool:
1. $200,000, 3,000 BLAST Premier points — TBD
2. $90,000, 2,000 BLAST points — TBD
3-4. $50,000, 1,200 points — TBD
5-8. $35,000, 500 points — TBD
9-12. $25,000 — TBD
13-16. $20,000 — TBD
17-20. $15,000 — TBD, TBD, TBD, GamerLegion
21-28. $8,000 — TBD, TBD, TBD, TBD, TBD, TBD, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Grayhound Gaming
29-32. $4,000 — TBD, TBD, TBD, ORKS
–Field Level Media