The ESL Pro League 21st Season Kicks Off in Sweden on the First of March

ESL Pro League XXI. Source: Gaming.News

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By Mik Dzisko

February 24, 2025

Key points

The capital of Sweden, Stockholm, will host the ESL Pro League Season 21 from March 1 to March 16, 2025.
The tournament will feature changes like Valve’s new qualification system.
The prize pool at ESL Pro League Season 21 is $400,000, where the winner is taking $100,000.

The world’s 24 best Counter-Strike 2 teams will battle over a $400,000 prize pool where the winner takes $100,000 on the ESL Pro League Season 21 in Sweden on March 1-16.

It is worth noting that this event is also a small step forward to the Intel Grand Slam, which awards $1,000,000 to the first team that wins four ESL events in ten consecutive seasons.

In 2025 ESL Pro League is leaving Malta, home of three previous seasons, behind and heading to the ESL Studio in Stockholm, Sweden. This shift is coming on the heels of the end of GamingMalta’s partnership with ESL.

The most significant update of the new season is the alignment of ESL’s rules with Valve’s, including replacing references to the ESL World Ranking with the Valve Regional Standings, revising ESL’s regional and roster restrictions, and introducing new rules to support Valve’s overarching framework.

The changes also mean that starting from now, teams will no longer earn automatic invites based on partner status, instead, they will qualify through the Valve Global Rankings. On top of that, Valve has opened up qualification for Tier 2 teams through the ESL Challenger League and shortened the total number of participants from 32 to 24.

The tournament’s action will be split into two stages and a final playoff bracket. In Stage 1 (March 1-5), 16 teams will battle in a Swiss format, with matches decided by ratings that evolve after each round. The top 8 teams advance to Stage 2, which will run from March 7th-11th.

The playoffs, starting on March 13th, will be single-elimination, with best-of-three matches until the final showdown on March 16th, which will be a best-of-five match.

This time fans will not be able to attend ESL Pro League Season 21 in person, as ESL has confirmed there will be no live audience. However, all matches will be streamed live on Twitch and YouTube.