French journalist and insider Guillaume NeL Canelo expressed his opinion about the new format of the ESL Pro League on his Twitter.
After a week, the studio format of the EPL is way better, really cool to see everyone chill. Glad that ESL understands that it's not the most important tournament of the year. But yeah, hard to disagree about the f*cked up Mid/Lower format, as we saw with Fnatic yesterday.Guillaume neL Canelo
What is the new EPL format?
This year, ESL finally decided to diversify the leagues and championships it hosts. Now the ESL Pro League is an exclusive studio-format tournament. And to improve it, ESL built a special studio in which players, casters, and analysts are close to each other and feel comfortable.
Players are allowed to join the analytics studio or commentators at any time. This happened to Rasmus HooXi Nielsen yesterday when the captain of G2 and two casters commented on the last map of the Eternal Fire vs. fnatic match. So far, this is one of the few examples, but we can expect more similar events when players get used to the new format.
The format of the two lower grids looks strange
After completing the matches of group A, the middle and lower grid format didn't show itself in the best way. The main problem with this format is that teams can play a diametrically opposite number of matches. For example, the Outsiders, who ended up taking second place in the group, played only three matches, and fnatic, who also left the group, but was already in fourth place, were exhausted, playing six matches. As a result, the team lost two of them.
At the same time, the team had to play two BO3s a day, while the third place in the group, represented by G2, played only 4 BO3s. In addition, the problem with the format is that it takes three defeats to get eliminated. Because of this, the group stretches a lot. Round-robbin format looked fairer and less time-consuming when everyone played with everyone.
What's next for the ESL Pro League?
ESL Pro League Season 17 will continue on March 1 with group B matches. All information about the tournament is available on its page.
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