The last tournament of this summer, ESL Pro League Season 18, starts in just 10 days, which means it's high time to learn all the hottest and most interesting about it!

Tournament dates:

The tournament starts on August 30, 2023, and the last game day is on October 1, 2023! This means we have a whole month of intense Counter-Strike!

By the way, many analysts claim that this is the last tournament to be played on the old version of the game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive!

Tournament participants:

A total of 34 teams from all corners of our vast Earth will participate in the tournament:

• Astralis (Команда партнер)
• BIG (Команда партнер)
• Complexity Gaming (Команда партнер)
• ENCE (Команда партнер)
• Evil Geniuses (Команда партнер)
• FaZe Clan (Команда партнер)
• Fnatic (Команда партнер)
• FURIA Esports (Команда партнер)
• G2 Esports (Команда партнер)
• Heroic (Команда партнер)
• MOUZ (Команда партнер)
• Natus Vincere (Команда партнер)
• Ninjas in Pyjamas (Команда партнер)
• Team Liquid (Команда партнер)
• Team Vitality (Команда партнер)
• Movistar Riders (ESL Challenger Melbourne)
• Virtus.pro (ESL Challenger Katowice)
• Cloud9 (Мировой рейтинг)
• GamerLegion (Мировой рейтинг)
• 9INE (Мировой рейтинг)
• Monte (ECL S44 Europe)
• MIBR (ECL S44 North America)
• Lynn Vision Gaming (ECL S44 Asia-Pacific)
• Apeks (ECL S45 Europe)
• M80 (ECL S45 North America)
• 5yclone (ECL S45 Asia-Pacific)
• Eternal Fire (ESL Pro League Season 18: European Conference)
• ORKS (ESL Pro League Season 18: European Conference)
• Imperial Esports (Brasil Premier League)
• Grayhound Gaming (ANZ Champs)
• 9z Team (South American Qualifier)
• Rooster (Oceanic Qualifier)

Championship Format

All teams were divided into groups. In total, the championship will have 4 groups of 8 teams each.

• Group A
• Group B
  
• Group C
  
• Group D
  

Each group will also have a second-chance bracket, which means that if a team loses once, it doesn't leave the tournament but has another try.

This is a clear difference from the past Gamers8 2023, where teams only had one chance, and losing in the first match meant the team went home!

Below we present the visual distribution of teams by groups:

Prize Pool of the Championship

The total prize pool of the championship is $850,000, plus 1 slot for the Intel Extreme Masters 2024 Katowice, 1 slot for BLAST Premier: World Final 2023, and 6,700 Blast Premier points! The full distribution of the prize pool is as follows:

• 1st place - $200,000 + slot for IEM Katowice 2024 + slot for BLAST Premier: World Final 2023 + 3,000 Blast Premier points
• 2nd place - $90,000 + 2,000 Blast Premier points
  
• 3rd-4th place - $50,000 + 1,200 Blast Premier points
  
• 5th-8th place - $35,000 + 500 Blast Premier points
  
• 9th-12th place - $25,000
  
• 13th-16th place - $20,000
  
• 17th-20th place - $15,000
  
• 21st-28th place - $8,000
  
• 29th-32nd place - $4,000
  

Opening Matches of the Championship

Lastly, let's consider all the opening matches of the championship. Time is indicated by Kyiv.

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D